24 drams till Christmas tasting #21: Jura Prophecy NAS

Dram data:
Distillery: Jura
Bottler: Original bottling
Distilled: –
Bottled: ca. 2014
Age: NAS
Limitation: –
Casks: Limousin oak
Alcohol: 46%
unchillfiltered; coloured
Whiskybase link

Tasting notes:
Colour: light amber (coloured, what a shame!)
You can smell the spitting distance to Islay on the nose! Peat smoke, the phenolic kind, dominates on first contact. Salted toffee, heather, spent ground coffee, cocoa beans, malt syrup and vanilla-infused palm honey with star anise and cinnamon from the Limousin oak. The advertising says the “finest and rarest aged” whiskies were used, but that doesn’t mean anything.

It noses slightly young, but with a touch of older elements making it rather interesting and complex. Well, that doesn’t say any more than the marketing message too, now does it? On to the palate now. Quite a bit flatter than the nose, only coating the tongue with next to nothing happening on the gums. The peaty smoke from the nose is transformed into notes of burning oak, followed by fresh and spicy oak notes. More spent coffee, brine, star anise, not much in terms of sweetness, perhaps a bit of diluted palm honey. An odd and unique palate, that’s for sure, just not quite my style (contrary to the nose). The long finish is light on the alcohol yet heavy on the taste with fresh oak bringing loads of spices, some oak sap, coffee, dark chocolate and a slight palm honey sweetness just fading slowly away until it’s gone. Smoke, you ask? Yes, there’s an idea of burning oak staves.

Verdict:
This one started off very promising on the nose, an experience slightly marred by a weaker palate which could use a bit more depth. Still, one of the better drams from the Jura distillery, a distillery which I personally have been struggling with, you can almost taste years and decades of neglect in many of their bottlings, but the younger stuff, made with better wood, is getting better and better. This is one of them, a good daily dram in my book – not a prophecy, but a good speech 😉

Score: 83/100
(Nose: 85 Palate: 81 Finish: 84)