LOT ID: 0723-324
End Date : Sep 13 2023 08:00 PM
Port Ellen 1971. Bottled by Gordon & MacPhail for their Connoisseurs Choice series. 75cl. 40%. In presentation box.
A very rare 1971 Port Ellen bottled around the end of the 1980s by Gordon & MacPhail for their Connoisseurs Choice range, featuring the Old Map Label first introduced in 1987. This whisky would have been among the first to be distilled at Port Ellen after the oil-powered steam coils replaced the old coal-fired system in 1970, but pre-dates the building of the new Port Ellen maltings plant in 1973, so the barley for this whisky would have been dried on the old malting floors.
FILLING LEVEL
Into Neck
One of the great lost distilleries on Islay, Port Ellen was little-known in its lifetime with only a handful of official bottlings produced before the distillery closed in 1983 as part of Diageo forerunner Scottish Malt Distilleries’ swingeing cuts in response to the great whisky lake of the 1970s and 1980s.
Later rediscovered by malt fans thanks to fine independent bottlings from the likes of Gordon & MacPhail, Cadenhead’s and Signatory Vintage, Port Ellen’s reputation mushroomed through the 1990s and 2000s as sensational Rare Malts bottlings were followed by a string of legendary Diageo Special Releases and dozens of superb single cask bottlings from Douglas Laing.
In 2017 the whisky world was stunned when Diageo announced that work was taking place to bring Port Ellen distillery back from the dead - the new Port Ellen distillery finally recommenced production in March 2024.
Founded in Elgin as a merchant grocer and wine and spirits wholesaler in 1895, Gordon & MacPhail are one of the oldest independent whisky bottlers in Scotland. Co-founder James Gordon owned shares in Longmorn, Strathisla and Glen Grant, and Gordon & MacPhail were soon bottling officially licensed single malts from several distilleries and sending empty casks from their wine business to be filled with new make spirit and returned for maturation in their Elgin warehouses.
Gordon & MacPhail pioneered high strength single malts at 100 proof (57%) in the 1950s, and in 1968 the company launched Connoisseurs Choice, one of the first integrated ranges of small batch independent whisky bottlings. After finally becoming distillers themselves with the purchase of Benromach in 1993, in 2010 Gordon & MacPhail bottled the first 70-year-old single malt whisky (a Mortlach 1938) and in 2020 the company released the first ever 80-year-old whisky: Glenlivet 1940.
| BID | DATE | TIME | |
|---|---|---|---|
| £525.00 | 13th September 2023 | 19:42 | |
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