Thanks to Strasse for the sample.

For those of you late to the party, or who have missed the other reviews, each year near my birthday I aim to review something from my birth year. This is Birthday dram #4.

Port Ellen evokes different thoughts for different people. To start off it’s one of those legendary whiskies that frankly is expensive because it was closed down. Turns out it was more financially viable to just malt the barley for others than to make it yourself. Let them do all the hard parts, and start cutting the peat.

Frankly, that’s led to some nice whiskies.

Others see the distillery with sadness. It wasn’t just mothballed; it was knocked down and dismantled. With a new one opening in 2030, they are now paying a shit-ton (metric) of money to make up for that. So there’s anger too, because will the new even…