Specialist spirits purveyor, Duncan Taylor Scotch Whisky Ltd, announces the release of a highly prestigious malt from its‘ Rarest Collection’ – a Port Ellen 40-year-old single malt whisky from March 16th, 1983. Available globally, this limited release of 209 bottles comes from first fill sherry cask number 667, one of the last batches of Port Ellen production and mere weeks before the distillery closed its doors for the last time in May of the same year.

At 104.8 proof the liquid was matured in a European Oak ex-sherry butt, with the cask initially stored on Islay, until it was laid down to finish maturing in the vaults at Duncan Taylor’s HQ in Aberdeenshire in 2010. Each hand-finished decanter is sequentially numbered with a signed certificate of authenticity. The Scottish firm last released a Port Ellen back in 2013.

As worldwide demand for smoky and peated malts has surged, Port Ellen, a cult whisky among collectors, has become one of the rarest, most iconic and sought after around the globe. Founded by Alexander Kerr Mackay in 1825 on Islay’s southern coast, Port Ellen was named after the nearby town and became an innovator in the whisky industry with great success exporting to the United States. Impacted by Prohibition, the distillery initially fell silent for 37 years from 1930. It was then resurrected in 1967 due to the demand for peated whisky when it expanded from two to four stills. However, Distillers Company Limited, who owned Port Ellen from 1925, closed its doors in 1983.