Tastes

Jura is a strange place by all accounts. There’s one bar, one hotel and, allegedly, one brothel. And, of course, there’s one distillery. But it’s best claim to fame is that it’s where Orwell wrote 1984. Orwell is one of my literary heroes (every student of English should read his essay on how to make a cup of tea) so this whisky had a lot to live up to when it was poured at an epic Jura vertical tasting this week. It was not the 30-year-old listed year but an earlier version released in 2013 at 19 years old. This one was finished in Palo Cortado sherry casks and limited to 4,800 bottles at an ABV of 42%. Fortunately, it was very good, but alas I did not take notes and my memory of the details has faded. Suffice to say it was complex and well balanced and not overpowered by the sherry finish (unlike the red-wine cask lipstick slapped on Jura’s 18-year-old pig). Jura does make a decent distillate - I liked the 10 - and clearly it can age well. Some of the older independent bottlings we tried on the night were very good. This makes me suspect they have had a problem with their cask management over the last couple of decades, which in turn suggests they have potential to redeem themselves in time as the older generation at owner Whyte & Mackay hands over the reins to the likes of ex-Compass Box blender Gregg Glass. If so, we may be nearing the end of Jura’s dystopian days.

Take some bottom-shelf whisky, mix in a cheap strawberry flavor fruit punch and then try not to gag. That's the Jura 18 experience without the cost of the actual whisky. If this had been around when Orwell wrote 1984 on Jura, he might have substituted it for the rats in room 101.

Drink this neat at your own risk - it goes down like a punch to the face. Tamed with water, it’s creamy, oily and fruity (lemons, to be precise.) The finish is long and slightly sweet. A challenging dram.

The concept here could have come from the Gillette marketing book - if you thought three barrels were good, wait until you try seven. It’s hard to know if there was any method to this madness, but the result is perfectly quaffable if unremarkable. It’s a little sweeter than the 10 and not as good in my book, though my fellow drinkers thought this one had more complexity.

Much better than I expected given the general negativity I hear about this distillery. Sweet but not cloying, decent amount of spice and caramel notes and a good length on the finish. Bodes well for the evening's Jura vertical.

One of those whiskies that I would be happy to just nose all night: it transports you to a rugged shore with the air full of sea brine and Scottish heather. The taste is almost besides the point, but it’s richer than the ABV suggests, less peaty than a young Laphroaig and sweeter to beat. It fades a little on the mid-palate but finishes long, strong and sweet. I had only an ounce of this, courtesy of a special deal for members of my favorite bar’s whisky club, but it was enough to put me in a euphoric mood for the main event of the night, Kamasi Washington at The Apollo Theater. And thus, my friends, I can disclose that the combination of vintage Laphroaig and two and a half hours of transcendental live jazz is the key to opening your third eye.

There’s a blog I read where the writers are always moaning about the secondary market and bottle flipping. It’s a fair point to make once or twice (and it’s a good blog otherwise) but they bang on about it so much that they’re in danger of becoming the bar bores. More importantly, they’re wrong. There’s enough good whisky to go around that I think the harm from flipping is overstated, and if some people want to collect bottles rather than open them, they’re entitled to that enjoyment. My friend has some original Star Wars toys still in their packaging and nobody accusses him of spoiling his children’s fun. Personally, I’ve never had trouble finding the bottles I want, even the limited releases. It just takes work, some Internet smarts and fast fingers. And if some people want to spend silly sums on Pappy, then I say Iet’s separate that fool from his money. The occasional sample at a whisky show is sufficient for me. But my real point in defending the secondary market is that I’m satisfied it does more good than harm. Case in point, the whisky I’m writing about here, a bottle that I bought from someone who had bought it an auction and which I then split with several others at cost. Were it not for the secondary market (or more accurately in this case, the tertiary), I would never have even thought to have tried this whisky, let alone had the opportunity to buy it. But thanks to the two or more bottle flippers who enabled this transaction, my co-purchasers and I have now gained a more nuanced understanding and appreciation of Glendronach and learned a bit more about the characteristics of an extended PX sherry maturation. Everybody wins, including the distillery. The bottle in question isn’t the exact one listed, but it’s close enough to not warrant a separate entry. Cask 3804 was also distilled in 1995 and matured for 19 years in a PX sherry puncheon. It yielded 694 bottles of 54.2% juice that were sold exclusively under the Whiskybase.com banner. It pours a deep rosewood color and exudes aromas of peanut skins, orange oil, pencil shavings and maple syrup, with a hint of vapor rub. There’s marmalade and caramel on the palate, plus a dash of marzipan, but the flavors are tight and hard to separate. The finish is long, oily and sweet. It goes down easy without water, but is none the worse for it. Overall, it’s a fine example of a long sherry maturation, though the palate was a little on the rich side for me and I didn’t feel the need for more than the 5oz I kept from the split. But if this sounds like your kind of thing, the good news is that there’s probably going to be another bottle or one like it popping up for auction eventually. And that’s something to be thankful for.

A decent independently bottled Laphroaig with aromas of cured meats, brown mushrooms and sweet wine, some peppery peat and a slightly sweet finish. Enjoyable and worth buying if you’re a Laphroaig completist like me, but I didn’t think this single cask was as complex and satisfying as Lore.

My first encounter with this distillery suggests it’s another candidate for the value-for-money club. Two dozen years of maturation have yielded a classic Highlands malt with some well integrated sherry influence. There’s buttered toast on the nose and warm malty bread on the palate, accompanied all along by a well-tuned harmony of rich sherry flavors - spices, fruit cake and marmalade. The medium-long finish starts pleasantly sweet before turning a little dry. For as little as $135 a bottle, it’s a steal for the age, especially when your local bar isn’t marking up the cost of a 2oz pour.