Port Ellen 36 Years Old 1979 Cask #DL 10914 (XOP)

Douglas Laing selected this Port Ellen at 36 year old, from 1979, drawn from cask DL 10914 and bottled at 56.6%. Just 227 bottles were filled. Port Ellen, founded in 1825 on the Kildalton shore of Islay, was brought to a halt in 1983. Its rarity made each bottle a collector's grail.

Peat smoke from Islay's bogs dried the malt to its smoky pitch, distilled in onion shaped copper pot stills on Leorin Lochs water, yielding a clean, mineral smoke with a citric lift. An American oak cask shaped it, lending only a light sweetness under the smoke. Three decades and more leave a fragile, elegant smoke and a deep waxy body. Refill ex-Bourbon oak, having given its sharpest notes to an earlier fill, lets the peat and the spirit lead. Each bottling is a finite draw on a stock that ended in 1983. The old warehouses still hold the last of the closed era spirit.

At its natural 56.6% it is rich and briny. A coastal peat smoke carries maritime salt and citrus, with soft vanilla and a touch of coconut from the cask. Beneath the peat run lemon, wax and a mineral note. It closes long, smoky and maritime. This is a revered Islay malt from a distillery silent for forty years.