Port Ellen Pe1, Elements of Islay (Specialty Drinks), bottled 2009, 50cl, 58,7%

Comment: This is really complex, deep and enticing with numerous elements that consist of dried malt, game, salt, some sherry influence, peat, sulphur, pepper, mustard seed, oily ropes, resin, pine needle, almonds, leather (suede), caramel-chocolate mix (e.g. Milka Daim), cocoa, balsamic vinegar, Italian herbs, Wellington boots, Havana tobacco smoke, lemon zest and discrete fruit (morello cherries, plums, raspberies, cooked apples). And all that jazz is finely tuned for a perfect balance. Whenever you pick up the glass it smells a bit different. Wow. On the palate is just as great, my kind of PE with that lovely soot, flinty sulphur and big peat in a discrete sherry environment – an Islay core that goes straight to your heart, gunpowder paradise. This is wild despite the sweeter cask influence. Smack my ass and call me Sally, this is darn good whisky, extra long finish, extra special.

It doesn’t surpise me that it has its own fan shirt. I’m a groupie myself, but they didn’t have my size.

Score: 93

The series of Port Ellen by The Whisky Exchange (Specialty Drinks)