Port Ellen 27 Years Old 1983 Cask #DL 6836 (Douglas Laing)

Bottled by Douglas Laing, this Port Ellen, a 27 year old from 1983, drawn from cask DL 6836 and bottled at 50%. A release of 568 bottles. Port Ellen was dating to 1825 on the windswept south of Islay and shut by DCL in 1983. A new Port Ellen opened in 2024, while bottles like this remain from the old.

The barley was kilned over peat to around thirty five phenol parts per million and distilled in copper pot stills with water from the lochs, to give a maritime, citrus edged smoke quite its own. An Oloroso sherry cask wrapped the smoke in dried fruit and a nutty depth. Long ageing leaves a mellow smoke, a lanolin wax and a maritime depth. Years by the Atlantic give the malt its briny, oily weight. Diageo invested heavily to raise the distillery again two centuries on. Long island ageing lends a saline thread to the deep smoke.

Undiluted at 50%, it is deep and smoky. The Oloroso brings smoked fig, raisin and walnut, and a gently medicinal smoke runs over a waxy, briny lift, with light oak sweetness underneath. The texture is oily and coating, the smoke threaded with sea salt. Embers and sea salt see out a long finish. This is a vanishing dram from Islay's most storied closed distillery.