Malt Mission 2007 #155

Isle of Jura 21 yo
Island Single Malt Whisky
40% abv
£80

Another Friday on the Malt Mission and another week gone. Still blows my mind and will continue to do so until this whisky lake dries up. Thanks for reading. The Guardian finally ran an obit for Michael Jackson yesterday.

Am off to Canada again for some family-and-friends-time, so the mission will be on hiatus... officially. We will certainly still be trying a few drops and I will post anything of interest like last time.

The people behind Isle of Jura are very proud of their product, and they ought to be. As I have said before, in many ways it shouldn't exist; it makes little economic sense, but it is the pride of the small population of the island from which it comes and most inhabitants are employed, directly or indirectly, thanks to its existence. For every one vocal person who says something detracting about Jura there are two who love the stuff. Sure, I admit, I am no big fan of the 10yo, but lots of folks love it, so who am I to say "Jura sucks"? Who are you?

If you get out to Islay, and many people do, don't miss Jura. It is worth the short trip. Drive the island. Visit the distillery. Sit by the palm trees, watch the seals, sip on a dram of Jura. In the tranquility of that environment critics will be silenced. Shhhh...

Click through to the company tasting notes video here: it turns these guys on.
"Mmm mm mm mm mm mm m mmmm." - Richard Paterson

And they've just released a 40yo.

All Juras tasted on the mission can be viewed HERE.

TASTING NOTES:

Okay; wood, wood, and wood. Maple syrup. Damp wood. Gauze, mango juice, and heavy/weighty maltiness. Slightly fishy, as well. Cod liver oil.

That fishiness leads on the palate, and then erupts with dense sherry, maple, and more malt. Milk foam and cinnamon and then a long finish of bitter fruits and coffee cake. Very weighty stuff.

SUMMARY:

Not a morning whisky. This is the stuff they should have been drinking in the original Jaws in that scene where they show off their scars on the boat and sing 'Show me the way to go home'

Malt Mission #151
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Malt Mission #153
Malt Mission #154

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Malt Mission 2007 #89

Isle of Jura Superstition
Single Malt Whisky
45% abv
£27
$45(USD)

It is hard to keep your eyes off Jura's paps... the mountains so named because of their resemblance to a pair of breasts. And if it weren't for these two beauties, the climate on Jura would perhaps not be so unique. Inspired by the tall peaks, Jura's 17-foot tall stills produce a spirit as pure as the water that runs down the sides of each of these shapely paps.

Closed from 1908 unil 1963, Isle of Jura distillery produces a spirit that is not necessarily what one would expect from an Island malt. The island is covered with peat bogs, but since re-opening in 1963, the make produced here has been largely unpeated. In recent years this has changed, in part to supply some smoke to the Whyte & Mackay blended whiskies. Some of this peated Jura has found its way into independent releases. More has been used to make up a small component of this vatted expression: young peated Jura(30%) and older unpeated sherried Jura (70%).

The distillery has always taken great effort to exist, and its perseverance is part luck and part practicality. At one time all the barley had to be lugged from the pier to the distillery and today all incoming materials, outgoing waste and finished products need to travel by sea twice. It is thus remarkable that such a place has a distillery as we know the board room can be an unfair place to distilleries who don't make much sense on paper. Once employing a quarter of the male work force of Jura, advances in technology have assisted the financial viability of the distillery. But still, it could be argued that Isle of Jura distillery only exists to this day (post-1993) because it manages to meet the malt-style requirements of Whyte & Mackay's Master Blender, Richard Paterson. More info back at Malt Mission #39.

Hate the deer hunting 'game' on the website.

TASTING NOTES:

Brown sauce with gammon and chips, followed by sweet sherry. Some hot empty-oven aroma, peaches and nuts. Tropical fruit drink and smoke.

Incredibly soft, very reminiscent of the Whyte & Mackay 12 Premium Reserve (Malt Mission #58) impact. Sherry and smoke. Brioche. Some of that Jura pine and honey. Finish gets surprisingly astringent in the cheeks with flavours of hot chocolate, smoke and a touch of salt.

SUMMARY:

Many people I have known or worked with cringe when you say the name Jura, while others sing its praises. Ignoring the geographical and economic constraints the distillery faces and yet still perserveres(let's hope this doesnt change under Vijay Mallya and UB), for me, Superstition fulfills the classic equation of Character + Drinkability + good value = Nice one. Also feels good to support the economics of a whole Island with every purchase. Be a hero. Buy a Jura.

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Malt Mission 2007 #39

Isle of Jura
Special Island Edition
Heavily Peated Cask Strength
7 Year Old
58.4% abv
price unknown

This is the first of two gifted sample bottles that I will be tasting to end our Island-themed week. THANK YOU, Michael(Royal Mile Whiskies).

This is a single cask Jura from the 2006 Islay Festival of Malt and Music. Jura is an incredibly beautiful island that sits just between Islay and the Mull of Kintyre on the west coast of Scotland. If you are going to ever make the whisky pilgrimage to Islay, don't miss Jura. After we visited the distillery we gained great respect for Jura as they seem to exist against all economic sense. And thank goodness for it because it is the core of the island's economy. Luckily the 25 deer per human aren't in competition for the same jobs...

Jura has many obstacles in getting its barley shipped to the island, getting its casks of whisky off the island, as well as getting its waste to its disposal point on Islay. These are added expenses that would seem to gobble up the already small profit margins that distilleries run on, but nonetheless Whyte & Mackay has kept Jura going strong. The remoteness adds to the allure. The old warehouse seems to whistle when the wind blows against its walls and the palm trees make you want to jump in the often freezing Sound of Jura. And how many islands have a pair of mountains called 'paps'?

The peated expression of Jura doesnt get out much, but was available as a 5yo from Royal Mile Whiskies in 2004. Other special editions include a 19yo that commemorates Eric Blair, called '1984'. Why? Because Eric lived on Jura when he completed a famous book of the same name. He was better known as George Orwell.

TASTING NOTES:

Toffeed smoke, vanilla or butterscotch tobacco, a brininess beneath that acts as a sea floor; if you try to dig beneath it you get a big nose prickle of alcohol. But there is peat and a sweet core of shortbread and almonds.

Puff the magic dragon... wooohooo! Burnt wood down by the sea, toasty and peaty, seared fish in butter and red wine. Marzipan and smoke from a blown out candle. Straighforward and well-integrated.

SUMMARY:

Solid peaty whisky. Not much more to say. Smoky whisky defined, without interference of sherry or iodine. Special in that it is not quite an south-shore Islay sort of peatiness nor a Benriach or Ardmore speyside kind of peatiness. If you want to try a peaty Jura and cant get this, look for Superstition. It is a vatting of this sort of young heavily peated malt and much older unaged Jura.

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