This Port Askaig 45 year old was part of an online tasting a few months ago, but this sample was so good that I saved it to review here. I mean it doesn’t happen every day that you can taste or review a 45 year old whisky!
Apart from being a small town in the north east of Islay, Port Askaig is also one of the brands of Elixir Distillers. As the name already suggests, the range only consists of Islay whisky, all of which are released in small batches. Each bottling thus contains an Islay whisky, but it can be a different distillery per bottle. And this Port Askaig 45 year old, which is the oldest in the series, is a Bunnahabhain from 1968. Very special and especially because my first whisky that I tasted from the sixties was also a Bunnahahbain from that very same year, which blew me away.
This Port askaig has matured in 5 refill sherry butts en is unpeated. Bottled at a strength of 40.8% ABV.
Port Askaig 45 year old tasting notes:
Nose: very nice and quite elegant. Tropical fruits to start with, such as fresh pineapples, mangos and passionfruit. Nougat. Honey. There’s lime too. A little bit of oak and red apple peels.
Taste: red apples and oranges. Overripe bananas and mangos. Honey as well. A hint of smoke in the very back. Oak and spices, such as crushed black pepper, cinnamon and a pinch of cloves.
Finish: mid-long to long and it’s a bit drying. A trace of smoke. Apples, honey and mint.
Really good, beautifully fruity and complex. The nose is best with those tropical fruit notes, they can also still be found in the taste, but then these slowly disappear towards the finish. The finish itself could have been just a little better, as it’s a bit lost from the rest, without the tropical notes. But that’s nitpicking. 😉
Photo credit: Whiskybase
