Whisky : Jura Superstition Lightly Peated Single Malt Scotch

Country/Region : Scotland/Islands (Jura)

ABV : 43%

Cask : Ex-Bourbon

Tasting : Neat in a Glencairn @ Home.

Nose : A fish market. One whiff with my eyes closed and its all raw fish, salt, and brine, and antiseptic cleaner. While not everyone loves the smell of fish market, I find it exciting. There is definitely a bog or marshy quality to the nose, heavy with saltwater and decomposing plants. Overtime it moves towards dark chocolate covered oranges, which I admit may be a more inviting aroma to most.

Palate : Balanced vegetable sweetness of orange, tamarind, and turmeric. The scotch has an oily or syrupy quality that carries an undercurrent of the iodine and brine from the nose. Overtime the scotch opens up to a more conventional honey sweetness that pushes the orange notes more towards a marmalade.

Finish : Pleasant lingering spice of ginger and white pepper; reminds me more than anything of the aftertaste of kaya toast, the Singapore speciality.

Score : 6

Mental Image : Tropical food market or hawker center opening in the morning for breakfast, the air is full of the sweet musty scent of fresh fruits and vegetables along with hot oil and frying fish.

Notes : I was a bit apprehensive when I went to pour this dram. Jura seemed to come in a weird ‘trying too hard to be hip’ bottle. I only received my first sample of it in order to balance things out when swapping samples with a friend, it was literally just one I pointed to and said sure why not. When I poured a bit to taste, the nose immediately grabbed my interest; I know fishy-brine smells are not for everyone, but my mouth watered. By the time I was done with the dram, I had already decided it might be a fun bottle to keep around if the price was right. Once I read that Jura had just refreshed their lineup and discontinued the Superstition, I resolved to go a buy a bottle as quick as possible. It took three stores to find one that still had the old Jura lineup in stock, and, even better, on sale. This is part of the danger in trying a dram from a sample or just a pour in a bar… what happens if you just need to have a bottle at home. What lengths will you go through? All told, this was a pretty straightforward adoption. I was tempted for a long time to go grab a back up since the price to quality ratio definitely puts this Jura into solid value territory, but I could never pull the trigger and now its gone. I am also quite tempted to order their heavily peated ‘Prophecy’ which was also discontinued, or reclassified as a ‘Limited Release’ during the refresh. Despite of my enjoyment of this dram, I have not gone back to try any additional bottles from the Jura lineup; recently discontinued or part of the refreshed lineup.