Surprise Tasting for Valentine's Day


February 14, 2023

Surprise Tasting for Valentine's Day

Why wouldn't I present myself with a gift on this very day? To me, Valentine's is a day just like any other, but any occasion to have some special whisky is a good occasion. Like, some Port Ellens, some that I have tried many times without having ever published any proper tasting notes, and one that I have just never tried until now. What's more, the latter is probably one of the two rarest Port Ellens ever bottled, the other one being the famous wee 'Queen's Visit'. Shall we proceed?...

1967, first filling at 'new' Port Ellen (Diageo Archive)

Port Ellen 23 yo 1979/2002 (43%, Signatory Vintage, cask #5151, 376 bottles)

From the good old times when they were bottling some casks at 43% vol. because there was plenty. I used to like this one a lot but indeed, the fact that they had bottled it at a low strength used to be interpreted as a sign of lower quality. And indeed, I never published any proper tasting notes for this one, but all things come to him who waits, no? Colour: almost white. Nose: well well well, with more historical perspective, this is wonderfully 'PE', in the sense that it's fully on tar and bicycle inner tube and other bits of rubber. It is still young, pure although very faintly feinty (bravo, S.!), with something a little chemical in the background (7up) and some dandelion salad. Mouth: feels a little constrained and perhaps a tad imprecise, with some tarry brine and lemon juice, butter, fish oil, a dusty side, some bizarre sweets, lemon drops… But don't get me wrong, it's a very charming drop, it just feels like a, let's say a coitus interruptus. On the other hand, it fully remains a malt unlike any other, extremely different from, say Lagavulin or Caol Ila. Finish: medium, salty, very tarry and in that sense, very PE. Slightly frustrating aftertaste because of the lower strength, on vegetables. Tarry lemon juice. Comments: I used to have it at 88 and I think I may have been a tad generous twenty years ago, but let's not change that score, we do no cancelling and no revisionism.
SGP:466 - 88 points.

Port Ellen 23 yo 1978/2002 (54.3%, Signatory VIntage, cask #5344, 221 bottles)

Another one I've never written any proper tasting note for, maybe because I was pretty disappointed with the bottle(s) I had bought (WF 82). Colour: gold. Nose: tar and cabbage soup, new sneakers, dead rodent, very old waxes and glue. Not too sure indeed. With water: old plaster, saltpetre, soot, sulphur powder, washing powder… Mouth (neat): acetic, salty, vinegary, dirtyish. With water: a little better, thanks to some miso-y and umami-y flavours, malt extract, samphire, olives (but frankly, those olives do not quite belong here). Finish: rather long; very salty, better yet. Turnips and celeriac, with some lemon juice and, well, that's all. Eggplants. Comments: Port Ellen was about to become a sacred cow when this very odd one was released. So lame duck within an otherwise rather glorious range but in fact, I agree 82 was a little harsh.
SGP:366 - 83 points.

So, one of, if not the rarest Port Ellen ever for Valentine's, Samaroli's!

Port Ellen 12 yo 1970 'Single Islay Malt Scotch Whisky' (57G.L., Duthie's for Samaroli, 75cl, +/-1982)

Or when they were still using Gay-Lussac instead of % ABV. To be honest, it doesn't say it's Port Ellen, but everyone in the know, including Sig. Samaroli's old friends, say it was Port Ellen indeed. Now it really was a bottle that used to fly under the radars until Emmanuel Dron wrote about it in his 1-ton-heavy tour de force book about old bottles, 'Collecting Scotch Whisky', and then until one of them surfaced at auction very recently and fetched £40,504. Which, as we use to say, is even dearer than a calzone in Zurich. I have to confess I've never tried this baby before, and that I never saw a bottle in real life, but is this Valentine's Day or not? Oh and it is to be noticed that the Distillery was most likely still working – barely - when this baby was bottled. Colour: light gold. Nose: it's the fatness that's standing out, this feeling of nosing a large plate of smoked salmon drizzled with olive and lamp oils. The mezcaly side is very obvious as well, so are the oysters, those famous tarry ropes, wellies, watering cans, artichokes, pencil lead, furfural, eggplants, stewed bok choy/pak choi, fino or rather salty manzanilla, ink and new magazines, new 33RPM… With water: metal polish, old coins, old copper kettle, old engine, parsnips and other unusual vegetable, rubber oil… Stunning! Mouth (neat): utterly splendid. It's a grassier dram, I would wager PE became more mineral later on. French beans, root vegetables, salty soups, fatty bouillons, fish stock, tinned sardines… In truth, all this is extraordinary and, first and foremost, nowhere else to be experienced, not even in other young PEs. So, I totally doubt it could have been another Islayer. With water: what a soup! All oily liquids leaking from James Bond's old Astons. Oils, petrol, coolers, Macallan, Bollinger… Finish: very long, very vegetal indeed, and even more on grassy smokes. Fish oils. I'll say it again, it's much more 'organic' than following vintages that, in my book, have been more on tars and coals. Pickled lemons plus a large plate of seafood in the aftertaste. Comments: I hope Diageo are having this very fat one in their working archive and are currently benchmarking it. Happy Valentine's.
SGP:566 - 96 points.

(Grazie mille, Diego!)

Check the index of all Port Ellen we've tasted so far