Jura ‘The Standing Stone’ 30yo – 44%

Dark gold in colour, is there any caramel colour added? I seriously hope not for a £350 bottle… Therefore I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and say that the rich dark golden colour mostly comes from a three year finish in Oloroso Sherry butts from Gonzalez Byass.

The nose is exciting, there’s good hints of Jura distillery character but beefed up with spiced apple and pair tones along with the mixed autumn fruits of the sherry finish along with  melon and figs.

Slightly spicy on the palate, especially when held on the tongue for a long while where stronger wood notes come through backed up by sherry fruity tones. It’s thick, full and mouth coating.

The finish is slightly subtle at first (which you’d want from an old whisky), but it’s long with the sweet sherry fruits sticking around, raisins, figs and subtle hints of smoke.

A classy and enjoyable whisky that I’m chuffed to try, but I wouldn’t pay £350 for it, it’s more like a £120 bottle in my mind and even at that I’d buy something else.

For me the great older Jura spirit has been slightly spoiled by too much sherry stamping on it, and that’s coming from a man who loves sherried drams, but in this case I think it’s mismatched, 2 years rather than 3 on the finish may have worked better for me, but I can see that some people would totally love this.

Sample from The W Club (Whisky Shop).