Cuvée presentation
A 27 year old single cask Port Ellen (hogshead #1523) distilled in 1982 and bottled in 2011 by Signatory Vintage. The founder of Signatory Vintage, Andrew Symington, began working in whisky by selecting casks for the Prestonfield House Hotel in Edinburgh. He subsequently founded Signatory Vintage in 1988, where he invested in a small bottling chain within his cellars in Edinburgh. He started bottling at cask strength without cold filtering or colouring, which was uncommon for the late 1980s. The legendary Dumpy Bottle series listed information that up until that point had never been shared by bottlers, such as the cask number and the type of cask. The number of bottles was also included, written by hand. Signatory Vintage carved a reputation for themselves by not only selling legendary whiskies from iconic distilleries like Springbank, Ardbeg, Laphroaig and Bowmore, but also by bottling whiskies from extremely rare distilleries like Ben Wyvis, Glen Flagler and Killyloch. Additionally, they also bottled numerous versions distilled in Lomond stills from Miltonduff (Mosstowie), Glen Keith (Craigduff, Glenisla) and Glenburgie (Glencraig). In 2002 Symington acquired the Edradour distillery in Pitlochry in the Highlands. He relocated Signatory Vintage and installed the cellars across from the distillery. A limited edition of 229 bottles for La Maison du Whisky.
The distillery Port Ellen
Founded in 1825 by A. K. Mackay & Co. on the southern coast of the Isle of Islay, Port Ellen came under the control of John Ramsay in 1836, a period during which the site notably contributed to the development of whisky exports to North America. The distillery became part of the Distillers Company Limited (DCL) in 1925 and subsequently underwent a prolonged period of closure before returning to production in the late 1960s. Primarily operated to supply malt whisky for blends, Port Ellen ceased distillation in May 1983 as part of a broader rationalisation of Scotch whisky production capacity. Stocks distilled before the closure continued to mature and were subsequently bottled, notably through Diageo’s Special Releases, which included seventeen annual Port Ellen editions between 2001 and 2017. After more than forty years without production, Diageo officially restarted distillation at Port Ellen in March 2024. The rebuilt facility incorporates two pairs of stills: the “Phoenix Stills”, designed to replicate the stills used before the 1983 closure, and the “Experimental Stills”, combined with a spirit safe designed to allow more precise separation of the different fractions of the spirit run. Bottlings drawn from historical stocks therefore originate exclusively from spirit distilled up to 1983, while production resumed in 2024 represents a distinct new period in the chronology of Port Ellen.
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