Market Loch, found 1000ft above sea level, its importance to our Distillery cannot be understated. A serene and almost spiritual place; these pure waters bring our whisky to life.
Jura Whisky
Appearance
This dram is orange/Gold in colour, the medium thick swirl line beads up straight away, and drops slow medium thick legs.
Nose
Initial aromas to greet me are icing sugar, with tropical/stoned fruits. Sweet pineapple, apricots and nectarines. A dustiness and cherry flapjack slowly emerging now too.
More time and chocolate starts to emerge, and slowly darker fruits do come through, though they are a little shy, it takes time to coax them out.
Palate
The palate is quite spicy, with cinnamon, cumin, black pepper, almost a blackcurrant feel too.
Sitting for longer brings out brown sugar, caramel, toffee, dandelion and burdock, and I’m definitely getting a cherry bourbonesque flavour. It’s quite a lively dram tbh.
Right at the end of the palate a peat note comes in, it is quite light in all honesty, so more of a distant bbq with bacon that’s fallen onto the embers is about right i’d say.
Finish
The finish is medium long in length, and the spices hang around nicely, and the brown sugar still brings some sweetness. Towards the far end it is espresso, black liquorice too, nice and spicy on the tongue, with a hint of chilli, orange peel and pink grapefruits.
My thoughts
We all have distilleries we hold closer to us, for many reasons, and Jura were my first peated whiskies. I have imbibed many of the Origin, Superstition, Elixir, Prophesy and Diurachs own bottlings from Jura, too many to count in all honesty. Back then they were the only peated whiskies available where i lived, and i really grew to love them.
It’s only been in the past year that iv’e started to try Jura’s newer releases, and they are different now. This offering, “The Loch”, is surprisingly spicy, the peat level is quite low but detectable, but as well as the spiciness there is a sweetness and little bitterness, which i really enjoyed, it’s also great to taste a distillery offering above 40% ABV.
I wouldn’t say this a “WOW” whisky, but then again how many really are? What i would say is that it’s a very capable dram, accessible and for me definitely enjoyable, i’d have a bottle in my cupboard.
This sample was very kindly sent to me by @WashWhisky – Dave, follow Dave on Twitter through the link below, he’s also on Instagram, as washhousewhisky.
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