Isle of Jura Superstition

Jura is a unique beast. The nose and taste - you can pick it straight away. And this is something that has earned this malt many fans and detractors.

Nose: Unmistakable Jura. Honey, vanilla, brown sugar, dark chocolate, oily, oranges.

Taste: Honey, toffee, grassy, salty, subdued peat.

Finish: Dry, toffee, bitter honeycomb in the mid-finish then peat surfaces at the back of the tongue dominating the finish.

A pleasant dram and certainly enjoyable. I wouldn’t suggest it as an introduction to peat for the uninitiated. I feel the nose and after taste can be conflating to each other. Once I adapted to it, I really enjoyed this contrast.

By the time I finished the bottle it had been open for seven weeks. I really wish I'd finished it within the first four weeks. Certainly anything distinct or of character is now a faded memory. What remains is subdued, having lost what makes it a Jura, and by no coincidence my mind is instantly drawn to Dalmore... but a flat Dalmore.

Epilogue - I like the shape of this bottle and the print directly made on the glass during manufacturing. When I first broadened my exploration of whisky to branch out into expressions I’d never tried the bottles by Jura and Dalmore stood out on the shelf. In hindsight I realise they caught my eye for the wrong reason. I suspect this packaging has been over developed by a marketing team. I can envision a bunch of guys with pony tails sitting around a table knocking back Pepsi Max when they came up with the use of the Ankh on this bottle. A lot of back hand shaking and wine bottles popped to celebrate a contract fulfilled (note: they didn't celebrate with whisky). What relevance does the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic for "life" have to do with whisky?

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