Malt whisky enthusiasts snap up Diageo's latest limited-edition

Written by Claire Weekes

Tuesday, 04 November 2008

Source: Diageo

The rare single malt Port Ellen - from the cult Islay distillery that closed in 1983 - has already sold out at many leading retailers, though launched only last week. 6,600 bottles were released at a cost of £130, but it's never enough to satisfy demand.

The 3,000 bottles of Talisker30 year old, selling at over £200, are also in short supply, and many merchants are rationing customers to one bottle per order. Hardly surprising: as last year's release of this malt was declared the World's Best Island Single Malt Whisky in the World Whiskies Awards, the results of which were announced earlier this year.

Commentators are also praising a bottling of 16 year old Glen Elgin, a fine Speyside distillery. This has been drawn from ex-bodega European Oak casks filled in 1991, in an edition of just under 10,000 individually numbered bottles. This is a malt rarely seen bottled at this age.

Besides these celebrated labels in the new 2008 collection of ten super-premium Special Releases, the most unexpected bottlings are three contrasting finishes of a 26 year old Linkwood. These are sourced from an active distillery on Speyside but one whose product is relatively rarely sold as a single malt.

All three were identically aged for 12 years, then each of the three was matured in a different cask-wood for 14 more years - one in port, one in rum and one in a sweet red wine cask-wood.

Even more unusually, they are bottled in small 50cl bottles created specially for this release by leading designer Glenn Tutssel. Each expression will be released in the very limited volume of 1,260 individually numbered bottles. Like Diageo's other Special Releases, they are bottled at natural cask strength.

Another malt whisky from a closed distillery released this year is a rare 25 year old Coastal Highland single malt Brora in an edition of 3,000 individually numbered bottles worldwide.

The two Classic Malts Selection distilleries on Islay offers the youngest bottling in this year's release. The Caol Ila is a mere eight years old and was selected as an interesting limited-edition contrast to its more familiar older siblings from the same distillery: like the 2006 and 2007 limited edition releases, it is distilled in the so-called Highland style in a batch made only once a year from unpeated malt. It is accompanied by a powerful 12 year old Lagavulinvatted from refill American Oak casks.