There are bottles that sit on a shelf, and there are bottles that carry the weight of an entire distillery's ghost. The Port Ellen 1979, 22 Year Old, 1st Release from 2001 is the latter — the opening salvo in what would become one of Scotch whisky's most celebrated annual series, drawn from a distillery that fell silent in 1983 and has since become shorthand for everything collectors covet.
I should be honest about what you're buying here. At £5,000, this is not a casual purchase. This is an Islay single malt bottled at a commanding 56.2% ABV, distilled in 1979 when Port Ellen was still a working distillery on the southern coast of the island, its low whitewashed buildings facing out across the cold waters toward the Mull of Kintyre. Twenty-two years in cask before Diageo released it as the inaugural bottling in their Special Releases programme. That first release changed the conversation about closed distilleries. It proved that scarcity and quality could walk hand in hand.
Tasting Notes
I won't pretend to give you a textbook breakdown here — this is a whisky that deserves to be met on its own terms, and every bottle at this age will have developed its own personality. What I can tell you is that this is unmistakably Islay at cask strength. The 56.2% ABV means it arrives with authority. At 22 years old, distilled in the late seventies, you're tasting a style of Islay whisky-making that simply doesn't exist anymore — a product of specific maltings, specific stills, specific hands. The peat character of Port Ellen from this era tends toward the maritime and medicinal rather than the bonfire smoke of some northern Islay distilleries. Age has done its work. Two decades in oak will have rounded and deepened what came off those stills.
The Verdict
An 8.1 out of 10 feels right for this bottle, and I'll explain why it isn't higher despite its legendary status. The whisky itself is genuinely excellent — a piece of Islay history bottled at full strength, from the very first official release that launched the cult of Port Ellen. But at £5,000, you're paying a significant premium for provenance and rarity over liquid alone. There are extraordinary Islay malts available for a fraction of this price. What you cannot get elsewhere is this specific thing: a 1979 vintage from a distillery that was padlocked two decades before this bottle was filled. For collectors, that matters enormously. For drinkers, the question is whether the story in the glass justifies the story on the price tag. I believe it does — but only if you intend to open it. A bottle this important deserves to be tasted, not traded.
This was the release that started it all. Before this bottle, Port Ellen was a footnote. After it, Port Ellen became a legend. Whether Diageo's plans to reopen the distillery will diminish or enhance the mystique of these original releases remains to be seen, but this 1st Release will always hold its place as the one that proved a dead distillery could speak louder than the living.
Best Served
Neat, in a Glencairn, with nothing but time and patience. Add a few drops of water — at 56.2%, it needs it, and it will reward you for it. Pour no more than 25ml. Sit somewhere quiet. This is not a social dram; this is a conversation between you and forty-odd years of history. If you're on Islay, take it outside where you can smell the salt air. The whisky will meet the landscape halfway.
