Port Ellen 40 Years Old 1979 Cask #7236 (Private Collection)

This Port Ellen was from the independent bottler Gordon & MacPhail matured to 40 year old, from 1979, drawn from cask 7236 and bottled at 54.7%. Just 407 bottles were filled. Port Ellen stood on Islay's rocky southern seaboard from its founding in 1825 until it was mothballed for good in 1983. The stills ran once more from 2024, but this whisky predates the revival.

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 butt held it, sherry and smoke twining together. At this great age the peat is a ghostly whisper over beeswax, old oak and sea salt. Decades in oak soften the phenols, turning sharp peat reek into mellow embers.

At its natural 54.7% it is rich and briny. The Oloroso brings smoked fig, raisin and walnut, and a briny peat smoke runs over lemon peel and sea brine, with gentle oak vanilla beneath the smoke. The mouthfeel is oily, the smoke carried on a waxy body. Deep and elegant, the smoke lingers long. This is prized stock from a distillery reborn only in 2024.