Port Ellen 25 y.o. Cask #4176 (Douglas Laing OMC)

54.7% abv

Score:  92/100

I tried this one for the first time about a week and a half ago.  Since then I’ve been fortunate enough to sit down with it twice more.  In the first two instances I was in the company of good friends (and many other fine malts).  In the last instance I was alone while taking notes.  This more dedicated time only served to reinforce what initial impressions told me: this is a spectacular example of Port Ellen.  Probably one of my all time favorites, to be honest.

This expression, a 25 year old, bottled by the Laing Brothers in 2008 (long before the company division), is almost like a time machine for me; immediately bringing back memories of the oceanic breezes, chimney smoke, farm life and maritime trappings of life on Islay.  If you’ve ever awakened to the early morning breezes on the island you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.  If you haven’t, I’m not sure why you’re reading here and not searching Expedia for airfare deals.

There are a few Port Ellen expressions I’ve tried that not only hint at the sensory experience of being on Islay, but actually serve to mimic it.  Whiskies that so encapsulate the smells of the island’s villages they seem almost transportive in their abilities to transcend distance.  This is one.  They’re few and far between, but when found the impact is immensely powerful and evocative.  Elegant and sophisticated.  One for the ages.

This cask was selected by, and bottled for, Kensington Wine Market here in Calgary back in 2008.  Unfortunately that means it’s now but a memory.  Great cask selection, guys.  This one is a showstopper.

Nose:  Sweet, soft fruit notes.  A touch of lime and maybe honeydew.  Subtle peat and a very elegant smokiness.  Vanilla and cream.  Seaside breezes and wet shores.  A great gristiness here, like freshly milled barley.  Biscuits.  Salty dough or pie shells.  Faint dry leather.

Palate:  Oh, man, what an arrival.  So much harmony and complexity, and so much sweeter than expected.  Salt and pepper.  Licorice.  Peat and smoke, as we’d expect.  A touch of honey.  A squeeze of citrus.  Like chewing soft grains of barley.  Still creamy, bit with a nice lime counterpoint.  Some apple.

Thoughts:  An almost perfect realization of Port Ellen.  Exceptionally harmonious.

– Reviewed by:  Curt

– Photo:  Curt

Port Ellen 14th Release

56.5% abv

Score:  93/100

Port Ellen.  The magic, the allure, the mystique.  You’ve heard it all before, so I’ll refrain from the poetics.  Suffice it to say that this is a very special whisky, and I’m pretty tickled just to be able to try it, irrespective of what sort of score we ultimately weigh in with.  This is the 14th official release from Diageo and the oldest Port Ellen I’ve tried so far.  Distilled in ’78 – five years before the closure of the distillery – and bottled in 2014.  A 35 year old dram that still boasts an impressive 56.5% abv.  I think even the angel’s relinquished their share on this one in order to leave more for the rest of us.  How else explain such an impressive bottling strength at this age?  Perhaps they, like many of us, were simply priced out of the running.  As you can imagine, a whisky like this does not come cheap.

But taking price out of the equation for a moment or two (as much as possible, anyway), I have to admit that this is still a knockout dram.  It’s not the best I’ve tried from Port Ellen, but it’s a stunner for sure.  Elegant and exceptionally composed.  Big and bruising, to be sure, but a gentle giant in many ways.  I’m particularly warm to the softer, creamier side to this and the way it plays against the earthy back-to-nature smokiness.  Sort of akin to the smell of fresh baking in an old home where a fire is crackling away on the hearth, and letting off the occasional drift of comfortable smoke.  Beautiful interplay.

This is a hell of a malt, but it will run you about a bajillion dollars if you want to own one yourself.

Nose:  Again…an incredibly soft Port Ellen.  Pear notes, with a slightly melon-ish background.
A touch of sweet cherry.  Dusty and mature, yet very, very vibrant.  Slight farmy, peaty note.  Earthy and organic.  Leather.  Reminds of forest trail hiking.  Seabreeze and salt water.  Fruit flan.  Both grapefruit and lemon.  The smoke builds over time.  Black and green ju-jubes.  Vanilla.  Lemon polish.  Pepper.  Some rubber and a touch of liquid smoke; works out to be an almost industrial aroma.  Far more creamy and custardy than I had presupposed.  Kinda doughy.  Nice oak spine.  Another classic PE nose.

Palate:  Oh, wow.  Great thick, oily delivery.  Sort of reminds me of old Lagavulin on the palate.  Ginger and spice.  Licorice.  Actually, a lot of licorice.  Smoke and peat, as we’d expect.  Citrus rind and pith again.  Our favorite Lapsang Souchong tea.  Tangy fruit notes (but which ones?!).  Overcooked sugar cookies.  Dark, fresh vanilla and strong oak.  Notes of the raw, smoked malt.  Spiced dough…raw.  Slightly tannic.  A long finish of granny smith apple.  Again…absolutely typical.  About on par with the 13th release in terms of quality (hard to pick a favorite), but definitely a different profile.

Thoughts:  A great Port Ellen.  Not the best I’ve tried, but definitely a ‘form’ (if you’re up on your Plato, that is).  While we all understand the laws of supply and demand, Diageo has moved beyond the ridiculous and into the ludicrous with this pricing scheme.  Insanity.  Give or take $4,000 a bottle.  Oy vey!

*( Originally tasted on the back of a very small sample brought to me by my whisky angel, Val Bradshaw.  Subsequently retasted in Jan, 2016.  Notes expanded.)

– Reviewed by:  Curt

– Photo:  Curt

Port Ellen 24 y.o. Cask #2466 (A.D. Rattray)

60.6% abv

Score:  91/100

Opening a new bottle of Port Ellen is becoming more and more a cause for occasion as the days go by.  The shelves are barren of releases from this shuttered Islay distillery, and what is out there – if you do manage to find it – is priced beyond the common man (which I most certainly consider myself).  To put it simply…Port Ellen is nearly as rare as hen’s teeth nowadays.

For this very reason, it was a treat to crack a bottle of this 24 year old malt for a group of mates a couple nights back as we sat around and pretty much behaved as you’d expect a bunch of pretentious 30-somethings to behave (even though we brought along a 40-something and a 50-something, just for their worldly ways and charm).  A great quote which I’ve long since lost the attribution for went something like this: “don’t collect the whisky; collect the memories you can make with the whisky”.  And so we did.  Hey…you can’t take it with you, right?

There’s an interesting tale behind this release.  Cask #2466 was a split cask for A.D. Rattray, in which 188 bottles were released in 2007 as a 24 year old at 60.6%, and the remaining 199 bottles were released in 2008 as a 25 year old at 60.4%.  Not an occurrence we see often, and one, I can only imagine, that would drive some completist collectors absolutely batty in trying to track down both halves to this whole.  Fortunately, that’s not me.  I just drink the stuff.

If it helps, though…I believe the 25 year old portion of this malt was released only on European shores, while the 24 year old was a bottling that landed here in Alberta and was an exclusive for Liquor Barn and Liquor Depot.  The latter is what we have in hand, have now tried a couple of times and will speak to here.  I believe it is now gone, but incredibly was still on the shelves up until just a couple of weeks back.

Before we dive into my notes on this one, I just wanted to mention that the only other tasting notes I saw for this release (again…the 24 year one) were passed on to me by a mate, and referred to it as similar to an Octomore.  Until I popped the cork on this one I was a little skeptical about comparing a 24 year old PE with a fiery young Bruichladdich, but the comparison is surpringly apt.

This isn’t a whisky with a lot of complexity, but what it lacks there it more than makes up for in personality.  A rather fascinating mix of young and old profiles from this cask that was filled in 1982, just one year before the distillery finally closed its doors for good.

Nose:  Enormous.  The biggest Port Ellen I’ve ever encountered.  Peat and smoke.  ‘Burning barnyard’ farmy notes.  Iodine.  Seabreeze.  Vanilla ice cream.  Pepper.  Tar and chocolate.  Lime zest and green Jolly Ranchers.  Herbal.  White chocolate dipped honeydew melon.  Gets better and better the longer you nose it.  Surprisingly starts to get a little creamier as it relaxes.  Apparently this came from a sherry cask.  Ummm…ok.  If you say so.

Palate:  Hell yeah!  Huge and hot.  Peaty and oily.  The cereals are everywhere.  Minerally and slightly tart.  Leaves and branches (not that I’ve ever eaten them, but it’s like the palate’s equivalent of that olfactory experience).  Slightly medicinal.  Ash and charcoal.  Much less fruit than I’d expect for 24 years on, but maybe some hard fruit candies.  Especially the green ones.

Thoughts:  Like an oily Caol Ila slamming head-on into a farmy Octomore.  Wow.  Just wow.  And more importantly…how the hell did this one manage to come out at such an astronomical, blinding abv after 24 years?!

– Reviewed by:  Curt

– Photo:  Curt

Port Ellen 1983 (OMC) Cask #2116

50% abv

Score:  86.5/100

Last review of 2013 was a Port Ellen.  Only fitting that the first of 2014 is…a Port Ellen.

Far less valleys and mountain tops with this PE than many of the others out there.  This is a rather unremarkable specimen from Islay’s infamously closed distillery.  Having said that…being an unremarkable Port Ellen is still sorta like being the least popular Beatle.  Everyone still wants a piece of you and you ARE still legendary and timeless.

I’m often a sucker for malts in their very late teens or early twenties.  It seems to be a bit a personal sweet spot for me.  But I think most of the very best Port Ellen releases I’ve tried so far have all been a little bit older than that.  The Diageo releases, of course, but also the OMC ones that fall in the 26 or 27 year range.  Awesome stuff, that.  But hey…beggars can’t be choosers, right?  So let’s dig in to a 22 year old from the teeming warehouses of Douglas Laing.

The Laing brothers (prior to their recent split) and family, in a measure of incredible foresight and prudence, or simply fortuitous purchasing of what was possibly considered an inferior malt at the time, managed to lay aside vast stocks of Port Ellen casks after the distillery’s closure in ’83.  This particular expression is from the last days of distillation in 1983.  It was a rather generous refill butt that yielded a healthy 660 bottles at 50% abv.  Shame it wasn’t at natural cask strength, but we’ll happily take 50%.

Nose:  Faint peat up front with a bit of almost elusive smoke.  Salted toffee and brine.  Lemon polish and orange.  Seaside-ish, but also quite farmyard-ish.  Rye bread.  Malty and carrying a little bit of feintiness.  Dried fruit and dusty old chocolate.  To be honest…not quite up to snuff.

Palate:  Salty and somewhat pickle-ish (without being really dill-y.  More malty, rye notes.  Raisin and lemon juice.  Dried fruits seem more vibrant here…maybe even jammy.  Smoke and earth.  Tannic and drying.  Better palate than nose.

Thoughts:  Maybe not the best of cask quality here.  Still more than decent, but this is the kind of Port Ellen that makes people question whether or not they’re really worth the (ever growing) price tag.

– Reviewed by:  Curt

– Photo:  Curt