Port Ellen Pe5 SMS Elements of Islay (Speciality Drinks Ltd)

This is a Port Ellen single malt, chosen and bottled by Speciality Drinks Ltd at early 1980's, from 1980 and bottled at 57.9%. Opened in 1825 on Islay's rocky southern seaboard, Port Ellen was mothballed for good in 1983. The Port Ellen maltings survived the closure and still supply Islay.

Islay peat dried the malt, lending the spirit its coastal smoke, for a smoke more graceful than its Islay neighbours. The spirit was worked through copper pot stills by the sea. An Oloroso sherry cask wrapped the smoke in dried fruit and a nutty depth. With no age statement, it shows the smoke well integrated and the spirit rounded. Long, cool maturation in Islay warehouses lets the smoke knit slowly with the oak. John Ramsay developed the distillery through the middle of the 19th century.

At a full 57.9% it is concentrated and oily. The Oloroso brings smoked fig, raisin and walnut, and a light vanilla from the refill oak, while a gently medicinal smoke carries oily lemon, brine and a lanolin wax. It is elegant and deep, the peat folded into the malt. Embers and sea salt see out a long finish. This is stock from the legendary closed era, ever scarcer.