19/05/2023 Jura

Isle of Jura d.1976 (57.5%, Harleyford Manor for Geoffrey Folley, b.1980s): gotta love a good Single Malt Scotch Whiskey! We do not have Jura often, and this one is particularly interesting -- enigmatic, even. It seems to be a one-off, and a private cask, likely for an American client, considering the spelling of our favourite drink. Anyway, let us dive in. Nose: it shapes up to be  a maritime number, with its fair share of brine and sea spray at first sniff. Suddenly, it turns more musky, giving whiffs of leather and a gentle red-wine touch. Iodine-laden sea air comes back, supported by a mineral undercurrent. Here are sea rocks, drying kelp, and crispy samphire that easily match the (growing) wine note. Looking hard, one may find old metal, half eaten by mosses and lichens, and reeking of petrol, just like an old, decrepit car wreck, abandoned in the woods. What a strange, yet fascinating, combination! The second nose is more overtly animal, with red deer in the hills, and foxes' dens. We also find faint hard plastic providing backing vocals. But then, it is meat skewers, barbecue sauce, quarry chippings, and broken pottery. Seriously: what a nose! Water adds sawdust (old, dry-as-fook oak, bark and all), crumbly museum-worthy oilskins, and, generally speaking, an impression that I never got from a whisky distilled this side of the Second World War: that magical blend of jam and metal. Mouth: punchy without being shouty, the attack presents a ladle of synthetic wax (read: plastic), and a spoonful of crushed crayons. The texture matches. Soon, we discover steel: rusty sheet metal, oxidized steel, nuts and bolts, red with a rust acquired during many a season in the open air. It gives an impression of old miniature effect, vaguely briny, vaguely cardboard-y, though that is very diffuse. The second sip is still as big, not fiery. It appears more rocky, with a beach picnic, pebbles in the sun, sea-polished shingles, and a bottle of red wine spilled on copper butter knives. At a push, there may be blackcurrant jam as well, as a certain sweetness joins the dance. It never overpowers a soft metallic bitterness reminiscent of jam-jar tin lids. Sadly, the palate does not stand water as well as the nose, and two drops are enough to make this feel as though it has been reduced below 20% ABV. Hm. Finish: boom. India ink, plasticine so hard it is crumbling, decades-old paint tins that were once opened to paint the boat's hull, then left in the shed, although the boat has long sunk, old jam-jar lids, covered in rust and Verdigris. It is hard to tell if there is a faint smoke, or if it is dusty old metal. One gets to wonder if all that metal is because the screwcap was faulty (as illustrated by the picture of the unopened bottle). In any case, this finish is big, borderline numbing. Hard to detect any brine, at this point, yet it retains a pinch of salt. I find the second gulp very soothing, hitting an ideal balance of sweetness, bitterness, power, and metal or rock. A music journalist would call this a soft-rock, bitter-metal power ballad, without a doubt. It is dry without being drying, sweet without being sickly, bitter without being harsh, and warming, not burning. With water, this is hardly whisky any longer. Careful with the pipette! Only the nose benefits, despite the high original ABV. Water does, however, allow jam to shine in the finish, but to do that, it virtually annihilates everything else, thereby making the whole less convincing. Neat? Amazingly interesting dram. 8/10