Million Air Summer 2024

This image Still House at Port Ellen Distillery Right The Phoenix stills

PRIVATE ISLAY Though just a 72-mile fl ight from Glasgow, Islay, the southernmost island of Scotland’s Inner Hebrides, is a world of its own. It features vast rolling hills and untouched beaches seemingly plucked from the tropics — and the ancient Scottish Gaelic language still holds strong. As Scotland’s fi fth-largest island with a population of 3,200 people, space is plentiful. So too is the Scotch whisky. At the start of 2024, the island had nine operating distilleries, some with global cult followings. In the summer months, over 50,000 tourists make the pilgrimage to Islay to visit its distilleries. But the holiest site of all — Port Ellen — has not produced a drop of whisky in over 40years. When Port Ellen closed its doors in 1983, amid whisky’s last great downturn, few outside the island batted an eye. The distillery almost exclusively produced whisky for blending, and blenders stopped buying, so the stills fell silent and were stripped for parts. Whether through luck or judgment, some of the whisky already in casks remained untouched for decades. Then, something magical happened. It turned out Port Ellen’s spirit produced stunning highly aged whisky. At some point around 25 years old, the spirit transforms into the perfect mix of tropical fruit, sea salt brine and smoke. The key ingredient for collectors, however, was elusiveness. The remaining casks were in short supply at a time when demand was booming. Once word got out that Port Ellen was producing some of the best whisky around, collectors jumped in. Within years, prices rose from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. In 2023, a single cask from Port Ellen sold for over $1m. So the multimillion-dollar investment (Diageo spent $55m reopening Port Ellen and another distillery, Brora) is good business. But whisky takes time. Good whisky takes even longer. It’ll be three

clients get a generous measure of each. The Gemini collection consists of a 44-year-old whisky from three European oak casks. It’s the oldest whisky ever released under the Port Ellen name and, with just 274 sets, one of the rarest. To make this whisky fi t for the grand reopening, Gemini was split into two di ff erent casks for the fi nal years of its maturation. By placing it in two di ff erent cask types, one whisky has become two, each with a distinct fl avor pro fi le. Port Ellen Gemini Original stayed in the European oak butts, a traditional practice of the distillery in its heyday. This gives it the classic Port Ellen style — sweet, salty and smoky. Port Ellen Gemini Remnant is far more experimental. That was placed in an original Port Ellen remnant cask, used to measure excess spirit after a fi lling run. The remnant cask would have touched some of the distillery’s most treasured malts during its lifetime. Unappreciated in its own time, it’s a symbol for Port Ellen. The cask was seasoned with the same Oloroso sherry it originally contained many decades previous. That sherry has had its say on the whisky, which is noticeably darker and spicier than the Original. SPIRIT OF EXPERIMENTATION Experimentation will be key to Port Ellen’s future. There is no blueprint for a young Port Ellen. There is just oneo ffi cial bottling on record from the distillery’s operating days: a 12 Year Old created to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to the distillery in 1980. The bottle in the private dining room has 50ml missing, which was poured for the queen herself. Her Majesty was one of few people who knew what a young Port Ellen tasted like, and no one wrote her notes down. The distillery itself is a triumph of contemporary design — it’s all open plan with huge windows o ff ering a glimpse of the charismatic Phoenix stills,

years before the stu ff comingo ff Port Ellen’s shiny new copper stills can even be called Scotch whisky. Even then, it’s unlikely that Diageo will make anything widely available. All that is left is what fl owedo ff the stills four decades in the past, and there is almost nothing left. What does remain will cost you dearly. The latest release, Port Ellen Gemini, a two-bottle set to mark the reopening, is £45,000 (approx $57,000). ATLAS OF SMOKE Whisky distilleries make good money from tours, inviting people in for next to nothing before politely guiding them to the gift shop. That model won’t be in Port Ellen’s makeup. The only signi fi cant income they can hope for in the next few years will come from Diageo’s network of private clients. As such, half of the distillery’s footprint is dedicated to an invite-only experience called ‘Atlas of Smoke.’ Private clients walk through an entrance reminiscent of a modern art gallery, up a winding staircase to a contemporary living space designed to feel like an upscale apartment. Floor-to-ceiling windows look out on a glittering Kilnaughton Bay. To the right, on the other side of the courtyard, are the new whisky stills. To the left, the remaining bottles of Port Ellen sit in a locked cabinet, with prices ranging from $4,000 to $20,000. That’s some gift shop. This is not your usual distillery tour, and the break from convention continues with an introductory tea tasting. Three teas, curated from Postcard Teas in London, bear the hallmarks of a good Islay whisky — fruity notes, wisps of smoke and a light texture. It’s a cultured start that, if nothing else, highlights the scarcity of Port Ellen whisky. There simply isn’t enough of it to give away so early in the tour. But you don’t have to wait too long. Port Ellen Gemini awaits in the private dining room. Private