To mark 200 years of its history, Port Ellen is releasing a 42 year old distilled in 1983, shortly before the distillery closed for four decades. It is the first limited edition since Port Ellen went back into production.

What is in the bottle

The whisky spent more than forty years in European oak casks and was bottled in 2025 in a run of 150 bottles. Master blender Aimée Morrison calls it “a wonderful expression which embodies the essence of Port Ellen; the complexities of smoke mingled with underlying berry flavours, bringing depth and harmony to the whisky”.

The official tasting notes describe caramelising brown sugars balanced with red berries and peeled red apple skin. The finish is carried by smoke that climbs into the distance, leaving black peppercorn and baking brambles behind it.

Price and how to buy it

The Port Ellen 200th Anniversary Edition goes on sale from October 2025 at a recommended £7,500. It can be bought at the distillery by appointment or through the Diageo private client team in Scotland, and it also comes with a tasting experience available from the same month.

The price sits far above what a listed bottle normally costs, but this is the first Port Ellen on sale since the distillery reopened. The one that came before it, Prism, went to a charity auction rather than on sale.

Art and other bicentenary projects

The bicentenary does not stop at the bottle. Prism is a 46 year old Port Ellen set inside a glass sculpture by Wilfried Grootens, given to the Distillers One of One charity auction. Artist Ini Archibong is building a new installation at the distillery, while the Atlas of Smoke project studies the dimensions of smoke in whisky.

Back after forty years

Port Ellen was founded in 1825 and closed in 1983, and came back in 2024 after a rebuild by Diageo. The spirit running off the new stills cannot be bottled as whisky yet, so everything Port Ellen sells today comes from the casks of its first life.