LOT ID: 0723-905
End Date : Sep 13 2023 08:00 PM
Port Ellen 1978 - 2006. 28 Year Old. Bottled by Douglas Laing for their Old & Rare Platinum Selection. Single Cask. One of 212 bottles matured in a Sherry Cask. 70cl. 56.1%. In wooden presentation box.
A phenomenal sherried Port Ellen 1978 bottled as a 28-year-old by Douglas Laing in 2006 for their Old & Rare Platinum Selection. It’s worth noting that Douglas Laing bottled dozens of superb Port Ellens from 2000 onwards, but only a handful of the very best were deemed worthy for the Platinum Selection series.
This 1978 Port Ellen is that rarest of beasts, a sherried Port Ellen, although as just 212 bottles were yielded at it’s natural cask strength of 56.1% it may have been from a smaller sherry hogshead rather than a butt - or perhaps the angels took a particular liking to the contents. A brilliantly-balanced combination of rich sherry and dry, ashy phenols, in which neither element dominates but both combine to create a truly special dram.
FILLING LEVEL
Lower 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 the late 1940s by Fred Douglas Laing Sr, the Douglas Laing company spent decades as whisky blenders and exporters before Fred Laing’s sons Stewart and Fred Jr introduced the highly influential Old Malt Cask single malt range in 1998. The McGibbon’s Provenance and Old & Rare Platinum series followed soon afterwards, establishing Douglas Laing as one of Scotland’s finest independent bottlers.
In 2013 Stewart Laing left the business, taking Old Malt Cask and Old & Rare to his new company Hunter Laing, while Fred Laing Jr was joined by his daughter Cara and her husband Chris Leggatt from Morrison Bowmore, who left the business in 2023. The Old Particular and Extra Old Particular ranges were introduced to replace Old Malt Cask and Old & Rare, and the company has since moved into distilling with the purchase of Strathearn distillery in 2019 and the construction of Clutha distillery in Glasgow.
| BID | DATE | TIME | |
|---|---|---|---|
| £800.00 | 13th September 2023 | 16:36 | |
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