Jura 18 Year

$144.99

This whisky was featured on Day 11 of our 2025 KWM Still Not An Advent Calendar Tasting Series! You can read more about the whisky here.

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 Bordeaux wine casks.

Producer Description

"On Jura, our tiny island community finds time stretched by the changing seasons and tempered by the unique microclimate. Each passing year brings its own riches. Matured for eighteen long years in American White Oak ex bourbon barrels, this whisky is then beautifully enriched by superior Premier Grand Cru Classé Bordeaux red wine barriques from the South of France. The result is an incredibly rich and fruity whisky, with flavours of cooked raspberries, warm spice, rich caramel and crème anglaise."

750 ml

OUT OF STOCK
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Region:Scotland > Islands

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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.

Producer Tasting Note

Nose: Bold red fruits, toffee, crème anglaise and cinnamon.

Palate: Warm spice and rich black forest fruit, bolstered by cooked raspberries and strawberries and a hint of chocolate.

Originally written by Evan for a blog post relating to KWM's 2020 Whisky Calendar.

The Isle of Jura Distillery is the only distillery on the Isle of Jura (yes, I did read my previous sentence and no, I am not going to change it). The distillery site was originally founded in 1810 when it started its life under the name Small Isles Distillery. While it operated for most of the 19th century, it was shut down in 1901 and mostly dismantled. Jura Distillery was finally rebuilt and revived six decades later in 1963 when whisky production on the site started once more.

The distillery may not receive the amount of love from consumers that it should, currently. It is owned by Whyte and Mackay/Emperador and while the company does try to put focus on the Jura label, it is overshadowed by another brand in their portfolio. That is Dalmore Distillery, which has more of a following (and a lot more pretension in my opinion). It could be worse, though: Have you heard of Fettercairn or Tamnavulin? In Alberta, we just started to receive official bottlings from these two distilleries, but not much effort has been put into making them household names at this point.

While Jura whisky has a fanbase, the label and lineup have been a little scattershot and schizophrenic over the past decade or more. For years, it was tough to figure out what kind of whisky you were going to be getting from a lineup that carried both unpeated, lightly peated, and heavily peated whisky. I know they were trying to brand their peated styles with the mysterious names of ‘Superstition’ and ‘Prophecy’, but telling what was peaty and what was not in their range could be difficult for consumers.

The Jura brand was relaunched in 2018, though you can still find some of the older bottlings on shelves. The new range might not be much better for consumer understanding.

Tasting Notes