Back in time: Port Ellen 22 years old RMS Islay malt
In our periodical series in which we highlight expressions in the Rare Malts Selection, we aimed at getting a Port Ellen story in place for the Port Ellen Day of Feis Ile. Call me an old man, but I still have to get used to the fact that Port Ellen is a working distillery again.
For a long time, it was some kind of Holy Grail for whisky lovers, tasting this happy accident of a single malt with great joy, always thinking it could be your last, as stock depleted. Of course, in more recent years, bottles got out of sight of normal whisky enthusiasts, while pockets had to get deeper to be able to afford to drink this peated nectar. Who would have known, some 40 years ago, that Port Ellen would mature so well into old age elegance? Well, today we will taste a relatively young Port Ellen, bottled in the year 2000 in this magical series called the Rare Malts Selection.
But first, a deep dive into the history of the distillery. Unimaginable today, Port Ellen was actually never promoted as a single malt, and certainly not after being reopened after a long closure between roughly 1930 and 1967. If you do the numbers, the modern Port Ellen only distilled for 17 years when it was closed again in 1983. One can only wonder why the forebearer of Diageo (DCL) choose to modernize Port Ellen in the late 1960s. There had been activity around the distillery site before that, mostly warehousing and malting, but distilling only started again in 1967 with two brand new stills being added. This doubled the capacity. In 1973, new buildings were added and the famous drum malting facility was erected. With its towering 30 metres high, it is a landmark for the little town of Port Ellen when you come in on the ferry. Distilling actual Port Ellen malt seemed less important in those days, and maybe that is why that part of the operation ended in 1983. The maltings kept on working and in 1987 the active distilleries on Islay and Jura signed a proclamation that they would always get part of their malt from Port Ellen Maltings. This to secure jobs for the economically vulnerable Islay society.
If the sources are correct, Port Ellen was established in the year 1825 (I found one single reference to 1824 so I guess that was a mistake). That would mean that Port Ellen celebrates its 200th birthday this year. Going through the books, Port Ellen shows a rocky start to life, being built by Alexander Kerr Mackay who went bankrupt within months. The distillery made the rounds through his family, before it ended up at John Ramsay who made Port Ellen fly. He knew his business, as he had experience with importing wine and sherry in Glasgow. His reign spanned multiple decades. In these years, Port Ellen overtook Bowmore as the main port for Islay, with a pier built in 1826 and extended in 1881. Of course, the success of the other southern Islay distilleries like Laphroaig and Lagavulin contributed to this too. The involvement of the Ramsay family in Port Ellen endured until the downturn in whisky economics due to World War I, when the distillery was sold to a combination of Dewar and Buchanan. These were later absorbed into the new Distiller’s Company Limited, or DCL. Port Ellen was put into the portfolio of Scottish Malt Distillers (SMD), but Port Ellen stayed mothballed until the late 1960s.
Fun fact about Port Ellen: directly after opening the distillery in 1825, Aeneas Coffey tested the then newly invented spirit safe, to see if it would not influence the character of the spirit. Of course, it did not, and now almost every distillery has one in one shape or another. Also interesting to know, is that Port Ellen used to have three pagoda roofs, but one of them was removed in 2004. Blasphemy, if you ask me! Sources as to how and why this all happened I could not find online, so I asked Dr. Nicholas Morgan. He had a pivotal role as curator of the RMS and knows all the distilleries well, so I hoped he could tell me more about this. He sent me a reply via Instagram, saying: “As I recollect, it was a large red pagoda that went in the early 2000s, partly to increase access around the site.” From memory, he thinks there were some health & safety concerns at play. “They were in the process of setting up ‘Distillery Square’ – small office units for local businesses.” Dr. Morgan kindly shared a picture of the old pagoda with me (see enclosed).
This rise of Port Ellen Islay single malt whisky to prominence was a very gradual one. First came the independent bottlers, like Cadenhead’s, Signatory and Gordon & MacPhail, who released quite a few young Port Ellen. I have tasted many youngsters in the age between 10 and 16 years. Some have a singular character with lots of minerals, limestone and pure, briny peat. Others show a weaker side of immaturity. The spark to the popularity of Port Ellen that raged all through the first decade of the new millennium, was probably given by the (no more than) two bottlings in the Rare Malts Selection. The 20 years old from 1978 was bottled in 1998. I had the pleasure of tasting this beast of a whisky a few times back in the day, most memorably during a themed tasting of 20 years old, which included the legendary Talisker 20 years old 1981 on sherry (my personal score for that one was 96 points) and this luscious Glendronach. The expression on the table today I believe is a first for me. By all accounts, I think this bottling was created from the same stock from which the 20 years old was made. At least the vintage is the same. After this bottling, the highly collectable but also extremely high quality “Annual Releases” were introduced, the first one also being a 22 years old, but from 1979 stock.
Port Ellen 22 years old, vintage 1978, bottled at 60,5 % abv
First things first: According to Ulf Buxrud, writer of the standard work about the Rare Malts Selection, original cask management for Port Ellen was based on 12 years, with a mix of first fill and used bourbon casks as well as sherry butts. I poured my glass an hour ago, it is now Thursday morning 10.30, let’s see what we got here.
Upon Sipping: It comes as no surprise that this Port Ellen is not the easiest to get in to. We get whiffs of peat, lemon, banana, dry autumn leaves and a hint of something that predicts a sweet taste. Might this Port Ellen contain more sherry casks in the mix than this Caol Ila 1978 RMS? The nose seems to give me that impression. I will take a quick sip without water, before we start playing with the pipet. It starts off quite mellow, with soft brine, cured meats, dry barley husk and whiffs of peat, but nothing too strong. The finish is pure brilliance, with the malt really present and talkative, the smoke burning a hole in your throat. Only in whisky land does this sound good!
We dropped in roughly 10 to 15 drops of water with the pipet and an immediate vanilla scent is released from the glass. Lots of waxy notes too, paraffine, but the peat remains rather modest. With another round of water drops, this character gets bigger and bigger. We continue our effort, as we cannot be near 57 % abv yet. The liquid shows beautiful oil strings floating through the glass. Pure whisky porn on display here. Our work is rewarded, the aroma changes to a more farmy character, with dry hay and mud under your boot. Some ozone.
But … can it be? Also the faintest hint of some tropical fruits starting to form. You will probably only catch those elements when you drink your Port Ellen in the morning, whit the cleanest palate and unbothered nostrils, but I swear it is there. It disappears as soon as I have written it down, with now more ozone vibes.
The taste has changed pretty drastically, leaning heavy on peated vanilla notes. It has taken a turn on the tarmac too, with tarry elements, burned rubber, walnuts, lots and lots of liquorice with some mint, some salt too, but to me this salinity does not dominate the palate. I add a last shot of water, and then the tar rules supreme, but there is enough diversion from vanilla, peat smoke and (very, very) delicate fruit, that it makes for an enormous combining of strength, like the three villains of Krypton ganging up to beat Superman in the everlasting classic Superman II. In the case of drinking this Port Ellen whisky, you are Superman and you win. The lemons and peat on the finish are for the ages, as is the length of it.
Word to the Wise: What can I say? Absolutely legendary whisky, keeping it very simple and doing that extremely well.
Score: 93 points.