There are bottles you drink, and there are bottles that stop you cold. Port Ellen 1979, the 17th Release from Diageo's annual Special Releases series, is the latter. Thirty-seven years in oak. A distillery shuttered since 1983, its kilns silent, its warehouses slowly emptying one precious cask at a time. Every release inches closer to the end of something irreplaceable, and that knowledge hangs over each pour like sea mist over Kildalton shore.
I first encountered the 17th Release at a tasting in Edinburgh, and I remember the room going quiet. Not performatively — genuinely. People stopped talking. At 51% ABV, this is not a whisky that whispers. It announces itself with the full authority of nearly four decades of maturation, that natural cask strength telling you the angels took their share but left something formidable behind.
The Style
Port Ellen occupies a singular position in the Islay canon. It is not Laphroaig's medicinal punch. It is not Lagavulin's velvet smoke. Port Ellen, particularly at this age, exists in a category of its own — a ghost distillery whose character has been shaped as much by absence as by presence. The 1979 vintage places this firmly in the distillery's final productive years, a period now regarded with something close to reverence among collectors and drinkers alike.
At 37 years old, you would expect the peat to have softened considerably, and that is broadly the territory here. Islay malts of this age tend to trade their youthful bonfire intensity for something more coastal, more mineral, more layered. The high ABV suggests the cask was in remarkable condition — there is no sense of a tired whisky clinging to relevance. This is a malt that has earned its years.
The Verdict
Is any whisky worth six thousand pounds? That is the wrong question. The right question is whether this bottle delivers something you cannot find anywhere else, and the answer is unequivocally yes. Port Ellen is finite. Each release is drawn from a dwindling stock that will never be replenished — at least not in this form. The 17th Release, with its 1979 vintage and nearly four decades of ageing, represents one of the last opportunities to taste a piece of Islay history at full natural strength.
I gave this an 8.4, which might seem restrained for something so rare. But rarity alone does not earn points. What earns the score is the sheer presence of the liquid — the way it commands attention, the way it rewards patience, the way it sits with you long after the glass is empty. It loses a fraction for the price barrier that puts it beyond the reach of most whisky drinkers, because I believe great whisky should be tasted, not just collected.
This is a serious, contemplative Islay malt from a distillery that exists now only in its remaining casks and in the memories of those who knew it when the stills were running. If you have the means and the opportunity, do not hesitate.
Best Served
Neat, in a tulip glass, with nothing but time. Add a few drops of cool water after the first nosing to open the ABV, then leave it. This is not a whisky for cocktails or casual sipping. Find a quiet evening, close the laptop, and give it the space it deserves. A whisky this old has been patient — you can afford to be as well.
