Jura 25 Years Old 1988 31.27 Bold sailor’s dram (52.4%, SMWS, Refill Bourbon HH, 245 Bottles, 2014)
- Category: Island single malt scotch whisky
- Origin: Isle of Jura Distillery
- Bottling: Scotch Malt Whisky Society
- ABV: 52.4%
- Cost: £95
- Score: 87/100
What they say:
Cask No. 31.27
A complex nose – sweet, salty and medicinal, with light smoke – panellists mentioned salted popcorn, gammon with pineapple, seaweed and various impressions of wood. With water, we imagined sea-breezes and bold sailors strutting along a breakwater, by oyster shells and dying barbeques; also sweet suggestions of apricot Danish and Edinburgh Rock. The palate was fascinating – maritime notes joined by citrus (including Terry’s chocolate orange), clove-studded gammon, oak, ash, white pepper and coal-dust. The reduced palate found sweet tobacco, floral flavours (lavender, Parma violets) and the dryness of heather smoke and barbecued meat and shellfish. The K Foundation burned £1,000,000 here in 1994.
Drinking tip: Beach barbeque dram – with or without sailors.
Date Distilled: 27 September 1988 Colour: Salvaged bullion just below the surface Age: 25 years Flavour : Lightly peated Cask Type: Refill ex-bourbon hogshead Whisky Region: Highland Island Outturn: 245 bottles
What I Say:
Another sample received from Tom at Toms Whisky Reviews. Tom also has a certain fondness for drams produced on the fair isle of Jura.
Colour:
Refractive light amber gold (8/20), small tears with fine legs
Nose:
Toffee, mint, spirit and feinty, cereal barley grist, green apple, nectarine, zesty and citric, creamy vanilla, saltwater taffy or salted caramel, germolene or deep heat muscle rub/wintergreen oil
Taste:
Spicy white pepper, sticking plasters, butterscotch toffees, fishermens friends (menthol and eucalyptus), oak wood, ashen peat, lemon and lime zest, clove oil and lavender oil
Finish:
Long, clove and lemon oil, salty, ashen peat and butterscotch
Overall:
Actually pretty darn good. Hard not to be at this age for Jura. Not the most active of casks (again I level this accusation at many SMWS offerings) but in this case it works as the spirit character is still good. I really liked the essential oil character in this dram with wintergreen, clove, lavender and lemon all warming up the botanist in me.
Don’t take my word for it:
The Whiskyphiles 