Jura 13yo Manzanilla
Cadenhead’s Natural Strength | 57.1% ABV
Score: 8/10
Something Special.
TL;DR
Astonishingly good for the price I paid. A flavour tour-de-force.
The Wet Willy of Whisky
Not worth the paper that’s haphazardly slapped on the bottle. Something you wouldn’t wish upon even your worst enemy. A name that, when uttered, elicits a response similar to someone calling your mum a see you next Tuesday. Oh! Fate worse than death, should I be given a bottle of Jura!
Unlike Marco Pierre White’s stock pots, Jura is the worst thing to happen to whisky since Glengoyne’s Faraday Cage whisky box. Jura is the whisky equivalent of knocking your stage performance of Hamlet out the park, only to come off stage and realise you’d forgotten to put on any trousers. No-one was paying attention to your performance, because they were too busy feeling embarrassed for you.
Why is Jura so bad? Why doesn’t it live up to expectations? Why is Jura the running joke, the dirty napkin, the shelf-protecting dust collector? I really can’t believe just how unfathomably bad Jura is! I’ve avoided it like the plague. My conscience is clear and I should know, because I’ve never tried it.
That’s a lie. I’ve tried some Jura Journey at a wedding and found it pleasant. Certainly not exciting enough to rush out and buy one for myself, but also not awful. I was also given a bottle as a corporate Christmas gift back in 2013, before anti-corruption laws were put in force preventing companies from shunning contractors because they gifted them a bottle of Jura. I opened it and found that, at the time, aye, whisky was still not for me.
My perception of whisky has changed quite dramatically since then, but it doesn't matter anyway because on every single turn I’ve made in whisky since joining the fray, there’s a big flashing neon sign illuminating the night sky: AVOID JURA.
“I’d rather drink Jura than this.” The equivalent of the ABC in wine - Anything But Jura. It’s a statement perpetuated around whiskyville because, it seems, Jura hasn’t captured the imagination like other distilleries do. Maybe it’s because they fiddle with it too much before it’s packaged into bottles that almost resemble Mad Dog 20/20. For those in whisky excitement, Jura is ‘inoffensive’, ‘lacklustre’ or ‘inert’.
Currently the UK’s best-selling single malt, it’s an entry point into whisky for a lot of people, but abandoned when palates develop and tastes mature. Going back to these entry whiskies to find they’re really quite dull is something many of us will undoubtedly have experienced. I did just that when trying a bottle of Glenlivet Founder’s Reserve. Not that Glenlivet was my entry into whisky - Glengoyne 18 was and, well, you know the score there. #premiumisation.
I’ve actively avoided Jura because I’ve been left in no uncertain terms by voices around Whiskyville that it’s utter garbage. No matter what sort of Jura it is, it’s all painted with the same brush - best left to the folk who don’t care enough to know there’s better out there. Some do actively pursue Jura, but from Independent bottlers or obscurities.
Being the desperate seeker of thrills that I am, the button was pushed with a bid of £40 upon a listing for a Jura 13yo Manzanilla Cask by Cadenhead’s, with an eager face made ready to accept whatever rank, turgid, irrevocably awful liquid it turned out to be. Call me a masochist. Call me an idiot. But hey, what else am I doing except buying mediocre Tomatin for £75.
Review
Cadenhead’s Jura 13yo, Natural Strength Selection, Manzanilla Cask Matured, Oak for 11.5 years, Manzanilla for 1.5 (ish), 57.1% ABV
£45 Auction | £65 Online, still available @ Cadenhead’s Shop
A word on the price I paid at auction - £46 with commission makes this a whisky purchased just under £20 less than the RRP; at time of writing this bottle is still available from Cadenhead’s internet shop for £65 sans postage, £75 including postage. So I paid £30 less, then, because I collected it from the auctioneer.
Someone, whether private or commercial, thought it lucrative enough to put one of these bottles into auction. It was very lucrative for me, but is it lucrative from the perspective of smell and taste? Is Jura really all awful? Will I be stomping my feet harder than I was after the Tomatin Amarone experience?
This Jura was matured in oak casks, of unknown provenance, for 11.5 of those years give or take a few months. For the remainder of the time it rested in a cask that previously held Manzanilla, an Andalusian fortified wine of etymological debate of whether it’s named as such because of its chamomile characteristics, or because it tastes like apples. A wine cask finished whisky nonetheless and, as I’ve discovered recently, wine finishes are hit or miss. The Tomatin Amarone was a very wide miss. The Glen Scotia Amontillado Seasonal Release was a massive hit. The Ben Nevis 9yo Manzanilla Cadenhead’s Warehouse Tasting bottling was a struggle until the very last few pours, when it became a special wee treat.
I’m not sure what to expect with this because on the one hand I’ve never really tried Jura at all, and on the other I’m apprehensive as to what the Manzanilla will bring to the party. Will it be overtly obvious or will it be a silent witness?
Score: 8/10
Something Special.
TL;DR
Astonishingly good for the price I paid. A flavour tour-de-force.
Nose
Wow - immediately different to everything I’ve had of late. Big bready notes, yeasty and herbal. Yellow/tan. Chamomile tea for obvious reasons. Cardamom. Doughballs and toasted rye bread. Fading slightly to buttery shortcrust. Very savoury. Almost medicinal, like an ointment. Fading more, softer sweetness. A few days later and it’s lost a lot more of that herbal quality, replacing it with redness surrounding a digestive. Oaty.
A week later and it’s hitting stride. Very nice interplay between the oatier biscuit notes and the sweet red ribbons of raspberry and maybe even a confection cherry flavour. Red ice cream syrup. Under that is a hint of mint, some light cedar and a lashing of caramel, slight saltiness. Time brings out the wood, not fresh but older. It’s a dull wood smell. Honey laced porridge.
Water: perfume arrives. Woody perfume - oiled oak floors. Wow - a bit more water and a big firework suddenly appears. Tapers to bright cedar wood. Peppery leafy - rocket. Peppery wood.
Palate
Buttery and herbal. Bready. Very tan coloured. Chamomile and toast. A few days later and there’s coffee and a hint of mint appearing. Bakewell tarts - chewy and sweet, almonds and cherries.
A week later there’s a fantastic redness developing. Cherries and chocolate. Brown sugars and cinnamon are overt. The almonds remain big and bold, toasted, delightful. Wow, Lebkuchen! The crusty white sugary outer biting into the chewy, crumbly cinnamon, clove, ginger, nutmeg spiced Christmas weird cookie thing. Then more bready, digestives still bumping in and out of the picture, leaving a more savoury, salty, dare I say coastal finish at the death.
Water: the spices are boosted. The wood is boosted. It feels like the ABV has been boosted! Very cool.
The Dregs
The neck pour is immediately engaging. It’s not anything like what I’ve been drinking of late: mostly sweet little sugary plops. This is big, bready, honey herbal and toasty. Striking, one might say.
After the let down of previous weeks this is a welcome change, if only for something that’s unique and new. I opened this before a zoomer session with the Engishman, Irishman and Scotsman bottle split trio, and over the course of a long evening spent chatting whisky, booking Glasgow Whisky Festival hotels and reminiscing about Flybe engine fires, the Jura continued to make its presence known amongst a Bowmore 26yo Adelphi banger, a High Coast Berg PX and a Tomatin 18. Compared to those three, the Jura was markedly different in all respects, and also not at all overshadowed. Well…except against the Bowmore, which was a stunner and many more leagues above when it comes to the counterparts - £500 a bottle vs £40 is an intrinsically unfair comparison.
A week later and the breadiness makes polite way for fruitiness of green and yellow, against the lushness of a vivid red string. Coffee and mint appear, deliciously delicate and mingled among the myriad sweeter notes - toffees and caramels, but also the really striking Bakewell tart ensemble of buttery, salty pastry, stodgy frangipane, chewy icing and that tart red cherry. Chamomile does make an appearance early in the bottle but relinquishes its stronger characteristics for the notes above. It’s moreish and delicious - it betrays the big 57.1% ABV with an eminently drinkable quality; not very much burn, spice or acid reflux to be seen at all.
Water brings out interesting things depending on how much I add. A few drops and it’s a lot more fragrant on the nose and a bit more sweet on the palate. Then with more drops there’s gunpowder. A match striker. A firework. Sulphur? Maybe. Then a further few drops and it’s spicy, almost hotter in the palate than without water. The inverse of what I would expect. Quite remarkable. The empty glass immediately after smells of chocolate and oak. I’m thoroughly enjoying my time investigating this. I’ve not had enough experience to know what the Manzanilla is doing to the underlying Jura distillate because I’ve not had enough experience with Jura to know, or as it turns out, Manzanilla either. I just know it’s great.
I’ve been blown away by this Jura. Comprehensively dismantled and reconfigured to understand why some people avoid OB Jura like the plague, but actively seek IB Jura. Alongside the 13yo I fished out and sampled that very same bottle of Jura ‘Origins’ 10yo from 2013. I’ve kept it around with just a neck pour taken from it since then, because until 2021 whisky wasn’t for me. I carted it up to the Misty Isle because it’s sort of become part of the furniture, sitting there untouched for over 11 years until I opened the Jura 13yo. The OB is flat and is uniform but it’s absolutely not awful. Notes of cinder toffee and some coastal salt in there too. Next to the Manzanilla though, it’s inert.
So what to make of this then, in the grand scheme of this bottle of whisky against all others that I’ve reviewed, tried and considered. Well, it’s hugely engaging. I have loved, genuinely, digging into this bottle and seeing what I can find. I’ve actively savoured it, each sip. The huge flavour stage presented with notes to find in each zone, from sweet, sour, salty and savoury has been multiple and diverse. I’ve made it past the label already and really excited to see what happens as the level falls; what else will I find? On a smell and taste reward scale, it’s really high.
What about the price? I paid £46 for this. What’s in that bracket? OB we’re looking at core range 12 year olds like Tobermory, Deanston, Bunnahabhain, Bruichladdich and Glencadam et all. We’re looking at Ardnamurchan core range and a multitude of NAS releases of repute. We’re looking at loads of Diageo fleecers. Compared to all those, this Jura is magnificent in comparison. I won this at auction but the bottle can still be found online at Cadenhead’s shop for £65/£75 inc postage - what about that price? Well now we’re into more expensive cores like Nc’Nean, Waterford, GlenDronach, Glen Scotia and Bruichladdich’s Barley fiddling. Compared to those, this Jura is magnificent in comparison. Compared to the £75 bottle of Tomatin Amarone, it’s embarrassingly good.
The conclusion I arrive at, from my perspective and from my experience, is that Jura is well worth the chase. Jura is magic whisky. Jura is hugely enjoyable and fun. Yet that’s not the picture I look at as a whisky exciter, or what someone new to whisky looks at, is it? It makes me wonder what I’ve missed, what process I’ve not been through to build up this ingrained, awful picture of Jura as a blight on the golden landscape of whisky. What has Jura done to their whisky released under their name to make so many people speak so lowly of it? Is this another frustrating example of profit over quality? They’re obviously quite happy releasing whisky as they do, to the audience they have, otherwise they’d change the music.
Whatever the reasons for people hating Jura, I don’t currently share them. At £46 this 13yo is an astonishingly good purchase. At £65 it’s well worth picking up in the current climate of hiking and mediocrity.
Don’t fear the Jura. Fear the folk making you miss out on it because they’ve been burned by the OBs.
Brilliant.
Score: 8/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC
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