Port Ellen 1983-2001 - Scotts Selection

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 is currently scheduled to commence production in 2023.

Robert Scott & Co. was an independent bottler set up in 1996 as a subsidiary of Speyside Distillers to launch Scott’s Selection, a range of cask strength whiskies bottled from single casks selected by Robert Scott, a former distillery manager of Bladnoch and retired Master Distiller of Speyside distillery.

Scott’s Selection whiskies proved extremely popular in the early 2000s, with a string of outstanding bottlings including 1970s vintages from Longmorn and Macallan and a famous Lochside 1964 single blend. Speyside Distillers was sold to Alexander Muir & Son Ltd in 2000; the last Scott’s Selection bottlings appeared in 2012, shortly before the business was sold to Harvey’s of Edinburgh.