Whisky : Jura 12 Year, Douglas Laing's Old Particular for K&L

Country/Region : Scotland/Islands

ABV : 59.4%

Cask : Refill Butt

Age : 12 Year (Distilled April 2006, Bottled 27 Aug. 2018)

Nose : Molasses, gingerbread, and tamarind pods.  Layers of molasses, brown sugar, cured wood, and a mellow salty maritime breeze.  Sweet malty notes of gingerbread, vanilla iced donuts, maple bars, and caramel lattes.  Grassy notes of dusty palm leaf mats and earthy sunburst tamarind pods.

Palate : Medium-bodied and very oily with notes of molasses, black sugar, and sweet earth-grass.  Opened with sweet earthy tamarind pods and grassy sun-dried palm fronds with a hint of maritime salt.  Sweet fruity notes of mango, papaya, and pandan sugars transitioned toward maple donuts and a vanilla latte.  Salty sweet fish sauce lingered in the background throughout.

Finish :  Lingering sweet sugars and coffee

Score : 7

Mental Image : Albert Wendt’s “Inside Us the Dead”

Prologue 
Inside us the dead,
like sweet-honeyed tamarind pods 
that will burst in tomorrow’s sun,
or plankton fossils in coral
alive at full moon dragging
virile tides over coy reefs
into yesterday’s lagoons.

Notes : Any time I get a hit of tamarind pod, whether the smell of them split on the ground or a cooking spice, I immediately think of the first stanza from Albert Wendt’s poem “Inside Us the Dead.”  The full poem is a mediation on history, self, belonging, and family in Oceania.  Most of it has no connection to this whisky in any way, but the experience sends me headlong down the lines of the poem any time I think about tamarinds.

This dram reminded me of the long-discontinued Jura Superstition and Prophecy.  I loved those bottles, even if they were not terribly well regarded.  They were colored a slightly funny shade of orange and their profile was far more subdued than I usually like, but they had such a similarly strange mix of fish, salt, fruit, and wood.  They always took me to the tropics— not the beach, but the pathways and markets where adventures usually begin.

Overall, I thought this had a wonderfully oily texture that delivered a delicious and varied profile.  It might not be for everyone, but I thought this was immensely enjoyable and fun to drink.

Image Credit : Whiskybase user Kpax23