Port Ellen Distillery

Port Ellen Dis­tillery was based on the isle of Islay, Scot­land and founded by Alexan­der Mackay.

The dis­tillery was built in the 1825 by, and was acquired by Dis­tillers Com­pany Lim­ited in 1925. The dis­tillery closed in 1983, although sup­plies of the malt are still avail­able. The dis­tillery houses a malt­ing which con­tin­ues to sup­ply all Islay dis­til­leries, as per an agree­ment signed in 1987. Due to the clos­ing of the dis­tillery, Port Ellen whisky is becom­ing more and more collectible.

Port Ellen is reputed to have been the first dis­tillery to have incor­po­rated Sep­ti­mus Fox’s spirit safe design into the dis­til­la­tion process. Its inno­va­tions did not stop there, how­ever. After hav­ing been taken over by the shrewd and ener­getic John Ram­say in 1836, Port Ellen became the first dis­tillery to trade with North Amer­ica in 1848. Ram­say secured the right to export in larger casks and store the casks in bonded ware­houses prior to export, a sys­tem which per­sists to this day.

Ram­say was a busy man, it would seem. As well as help­ing Robert Stein and Aeneas Cof­fey develop their con­tin­u­ous stills at his dis­tillery, he was also instru­men­tal in the estab­lish­ment of the Islay to Glas­gow steam­boat ser­vice, imported Sherry and Madeira into Glas­gow, was at one time the Lib­eral MP for Stir­ling and served as the chair­man of the Glas­gow Cham­ber of Commerce.

After John Ramsay’s death Port Ellen stayed in the hands of his fam­ily, but they sold their inter­est in the 1920s and it was acquired by DCL in 1925. DCL closed the dis­tillery in 1929, but it con­tin­ued to oper­ate a malt­ings and bonded ware­houses until it was re-opened with two more stills in 1966–67. In 1973 a large drum malt­ings was built that con­tin­ues to sup­ply malt to all the dis­til­leries on Islay to this day.

Port Ellen was closed in the slump of 1983, but the whisky made in the 17 or so years between its re-opening and final clo­sure has acquired a rep­u­ta­tion as some of the finest to have been made on Islay in that time. Fol­low­ing two out­stand­ingly suc­cess­ful Rare Malt bot­tlings in 1998 and 2000, Dia­geo has released an offi­cial bot­tling of Port Ellen every year since 2001, although it is presently unknown how many more of these bot­tlings will be forth­com­ing as stocks get lower. There have also been myr­iad inde­pen­dent bot­tlings, par­tic­u­larly from Sig­na­tory and Dou­glas Laing.

Prices for Port Ellen have increased steadily over the last decade as the rep­u­ta­tion of the dis­tillery grows and sup­plies dwin­dle. The first offi­cial bot­tling from Dia­geo, released in 2001, has more than tre­bled in price to around £350 at the time of writ­ing, while older inde­pen­dent bot­tlings can now fetch prices up to £500-£600.

Port Ellen is a ver­sa­tile malt, with con­sid­er­able dif­fer­ences of style evi­dent between dif­fer­ent bot­tlings. Some sherry-casked Port Ellen can be beau­ti­fully rich, spicy, sweet and leath­ery; bour­bon and refill casks often show a more aus­tere, pep­pery medium-weighted style. Com­mon char­ac­ter­is­tics, though, are a high level of peati­ness and, in the best exam­ples, a phe­nom­e­nal com­plex­ity which Islay fans adore. For these rea­sons Port Ellen has become one of the most sought-after of the lost dis­til­leries by col­lec­tors, investors and aficionados.