Description

A 34 year old Port Ellen whisky. Bottled at cask strength by Diageo under their Special Releases 2013 series. Distilled in 1978, it was then aged for 34 years, before being bottled in 2013, a run of just 2958 bottles. This is bottle number 2049. The Port Ellen Distillery was closed and partly demolished in 1983. This is a true classic from a long-lost distillery.

Colour: full gold.

Nose:
Surprisingly gentle, in fact, even a little simple, but that lasts only for one minute, and then it takes off like an albatross, slowly and surely. Brine, lemon juice, engine oil, liquid tar, wet wool, paraffin, orange wine, a drop of balsamic vinegar, moss and mushrooms, maybe fresh parsley. After five minutes, there are more and more notes of mead and it’s even a little acetic, in a good way. No straight vinegar! Also cold smoke (cigar). With water: ha! Used fireworks, humus, burnt wood (pine, beech) and green tobacco. The smoke from Kretek cigarettes (tobacco and cloves, that’s what you can smell in just any Indonesian street). This one makes you travel.

Taste:
(neat): Starts ‘nervous’, as lemony as a youngster, even a notch fizzy, with peppers and bitter herbs just below the surface. Some unexpected notes of cider and apple peel, lemon zests, playful green peppercorns, citrons.

With water: it’s the Ziegfeld Follies in a swimming pool, this time water works magnificently. Now, what’s interesting is that it’s rather brown sugar and even sweet barley that come out, which makes it unexpectedly rounder and gentler.

Finish:
Long, kind of smooth, with some sort of smoked cider as well as smoked and salted fish. Comments: certainly not as ‘bigly tarry’ as middle-aged Port Ellen’s such as the Rare Malts, but it’s another magnificent old Port Ellen for sure.