Port Ellen Private Stock (Malts of Scotland)

Bottled by Malts of Scotland, this Port Ellen, drawn from cask MoS-PS003 and bottled at 59.9%. A release of 130 bottles. Port Ellen was founded in 1825 on Islay's rocky southern seaboard and mothballed for good in 1983. The stills ran once more from 2024, but this whisky predates the revival.

The barley was kilned over peat to around thirty five phenol parts per million and worked through copper pot stills by the sea, to lend the elegant, lightly medicinal smoke of the south shore. Maturation in Oloroso sherry laid smoked dried fruit over the peat. Carrying no age, it leans on a mature, settled smoke and a waxy depth. Years by the Atlantic give the malt its briny, oily weight. Few lost distilleries are mourned as deeply, or bottled as devotedly, as Port Ellen. The refined, citric smoke set it apart from its more medicinal Islay neighbours.

At 59.9%, undiluted, it is bold and smoky. The Oloroso brings smoked fig, raisin and walnut, and a briny peat smoke runs over lemon peel and sea brine, with light oak sweetness underneath. The mouthfeel is oily, the smoke carried on a waxy body. Deep and elegant, the smoke lingers long. This is a vanishing dram from Islay's most storied closed distillery.