Port Ellen 25 Years Old 1982 Cask #DL 3639 (Douglas Laing)

This Port Ellen was from the independent bottler Douglas Laing at 25 year old, from 1982, drawn from cask DL 3639 and bottled at 50%. Just 594 bottles were filled. Port Ellen, first founded in 1825 on Islay's rocky southern seaboard, was mothballed for good in 1983. The distillery was reborn in 2024, but these casks date from its legendary years.

Heavily peated malt, kilned over Islay peat, set the smoky tone and worked through copper pot stills by the sea, to lend the elegant, lightly medicinal smoke of the south shore. An Oloroso sherry cask wrapped the smoke in dried fruit and a nutty depth. At this age the smoke turns gentle and oily, the spirit deep, briny and refined. Decades in oak soften the phenols, turning sharp peat reek into mellow embers.

Bottled at a cask strength 50%, it is intense. The Oloroso brings smoked fig, raisin and walnut, and a refined peat reek runs over lemon peel and sea brine, with soft coconut and vanilla from the oak. The mouthfeel is oily, the smoke carried on a waxy body. The close is slow, soft peat over wax. This is a piece of Islay legend in the glass.