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Day 11 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar

Posted on December 11, 2025

by Evan

In yesterday's blog post and dram, we talked about Port Askaig on Islay. Today we will hop on the ferry and head over to the Isle of Jura.

Ahh, Jura. The Island Distillery that seems to go through some sort of identity crisis and relaunch of the brand every 5 years. By my count, this is only the 2nd bottling from the Isle of Jura that we have ever featured in our KWM Whisky Advent Calendars. We will get in to they possible why of that later. Firstly:

The Jura Distillery is the only whisky distillery on Jura; an island which features two topographically significant mountains that thrust towards the sky in a rather majestic fashion. They can easily be seen from west, across the straight on Islay on clear days, and dwarf that island’s own peaks in both scope and symmetry. And about 200 metres at their peaks, give or take. Somehow, they manage to defy both gravity and age. Hey! Don’t blame me for this heavy-handed innuendo! Those that write about The Paps of Jura, as they are known, are contractually obligated to make lewd remarks about their size and reference how chesty the Isle is.

ABOVE: The Still Room at Ardnahoe Distillery on Islay. The Isle of Jura can be seen through the windows; across from the Sound of Islay.

Beyond having a fabulous set of mountains, writers also must point out Jura is where George Orwell wrote his textbook of the future named 1984. The island is also famous for having a larger population of deer than humans. There were once more than 1000 Duriachs – people that make Jura their home – on the island. That was about two centuries ago now. In modern times, the human population hovers around 200. The number of deer is apparently around 5,000.

Alarming, isn’t it? Even the name Jura comes from Old Norse and translates to Deer Island. This has no doubt attributed to the nimby-like, highly xenophobic stance that deer carry towards homo sapiens. The Deer Party has long taken a dim view on our unalienable human right to manifest destiny. These four-legged aggressors have consistently legislated and upheld overtly speciesist regulations that keep humans from encroaching on what they see as their traditional territory. It is - in a word – disgusting and reprehensible. It. Can. Not. Stand.

OBVIOUSLY UP TO NO GOOD.

Deerist Propaganda is all around us in pop culture – once you are made aware of it, you cannot help but feel surrounded and attacked by it.

For more information on how we can collectively rise up and defend against this pro-Cervidae doctrine, look around and you will see plenty of newsletters (far) out there that you can subscribe to.

Hold up. This is getting a bit dark.

I took this joke too far. I was looking for anti-deer rhetoric, not cultural tension. Let's turn this boat around and head back to Jura.

What were we talking about? Oh, right. Jura distillery came to being back in 1810, under a completely different name. The distillery was founded by Jura’s Laird, Archibald Campbell of Clan Campbell. It was originally called the Small Isles Distillery, and it changed ownership a few times before being entirely shut down in 1901.

The Isle of Jura is very close to Islay, separated only by a straight that runs between. At its narrowest point, near Port Askaig and the Feoilin Ferry Landing, the Sound of Islay is about 1.5km across. You could probably swim to the isle of Jura, if you had already drank your way through Islay and were still thirsty. There are also boats that can get you there, if you are patient enough.

Once on Jura, the drive from the ferry landing to the village of Craighouse, where the Jura Distillery resides, takes less than 25 minutes by car or bus.

Official bottlings of Jura whisky have always been unpredictable, at least to me. The same can be said for indie bottling of Jura as well in my opinion. I mentioned at the beginning of this anti-deer manifesto/blog post that the Jura whisky seems to constantly be in a state of identity crisis, and this problem stems from parent company’s treatment of the distillery over the past few decades.

First of all, the fermentation time for Jura’s mash sits at around 60 hours. This is somewhat short and is likely done more for efficiency’s sake than as a nod to flavour building and ester production.

Next up are the casks used for maturation. When Whyte and Mackay became owners of the distiller in 1993, they were not happy with the quality of casks that the previous regime had filled Jura’s spirit into. In 1998, the company started reracking much of the older whisky casks into better wood. More than 30,000 casks of whisky were eventually replaced.

I am still not a huge fan of some of the cask choices Jura makes.  The Jura Seven Wood is a decent whisky, but a terrible piece of marketing in my opinion. I have mentioned this before. Ultimately, I think using more of something is often just a way to cover up other failings.

(On that note, please ignore how long and meandering this blog post is.)

And, just like this post, Jura as a brand seems to be constantly in flux and never quite sure what it is supposed to be. When you pick up a bottle of Jura, what kind of whisky will it be? Is it peated? Unpeated? What kind of cask or casks was it matured in?

Don’t get me wrong – I have had some fantastic Jura’s in the past. Most recently the 17 Year Old Jura from the Macbeth Collection comes to mind. If you have not tasted it, I hope you get a chance because it is a stunner - full of leather and fruit and cigar smoke and coastal peat and oh so much more.

Let’s get back to today’s whisky, shall we?

Jura 18 Year Old – 44%

Part of the Isle of Jura Distillery's newly revamped lineup, the Jura 18 year old is bottled at 44% ABV. It has been aged in for 18 years old in American White Oak ex-Bourbon Barrels and finished in Grand Cru Bourdeaux wine casks.

Evan’s Tasting Note

Nose: Salt and fruit and a cheese note up front. Hawkins Cheezies, brown sugar, dried apricots, Terry’s Chocolate Orange, Toast made from 12 grain bread, and the last sip of an espresso.

Palate: Apple slices, cinnamon, cloves, caramelized brown sugar, hints of fruit cake, blackberry compote, and a thin slice of smoked Gouda.

Finish: Spicy and dry, yet also soft and lingering. Pleasantly savoury. 

Comment: I had no idea what to expect with the Jura 18. Heck, I never know what to expect with Jura. My hackles were up at the start, thinking the “Grand Cru Bordeaux wine casks” would gimmicky and possibly even ruin the whisky. This ends up being a solid coastal dram though, even at 44%, that shows not every coastal whisky has to be sweet and smoky to be enjoyable.

Cheers,

Evan

evan@kensingtonwinemarket.com

This entry was posted in Whisky, Tastings, Whisky Calendars, Tastings - Online Tasting, KWM 2025 Still Not An Advent Calendar Tastings

 

 

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