Cuvée presentation
Single cask Port Ellen (#02-159-1), distilled in 1978, finished in a port cask and bottled in 2002 by Signatory Vintage. Its founder, Andrew Symington, entered the whisky business selecting casks for Prestonfield House Hotel in Edinburgh, an experience that led him to establish Signatory Vintage in 1988. Symington invested in a small bottling line, which he installed in his Edinburgh warehouses. From the outset, he bottled whisky at cask strength, without chill filtration or added colouring, practices that were still relatively uncommon in the late 1980s. The legendary “dumpy bottle” series also provided details rarely disclosed by bottlers at the time, including cask number and type and the number of bottles produced, with each bottle individually numbered by hand. Signatory Vintage built its reputation not only on landmark releases from legendary distilleries such as Springbank, Ardbeg, Laphroaig and Bowmore, but also on bottlings from exceptionally rare distilleries including Ben Wyvis, Glen Flagler and Killyloch. These were complemented by numerous releases distilled in Lomond stills at Miltonduff (Mosstowie), Glen Keith (Craigduff, Glenisla) and Glenburgie (Glencraig). In 2002, Andrew Symington acquired Edradour distillery in Pitlochry in the Highlands and relocated Signatory Vintage there, with its warehouses facing the distillery. Limited edition of 804 bottles.
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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