The Hebrides have the welcome mat out. The clouds that swept in last night have been harried away by the bracing and relentless wind that buffets the west coast, giving us a morning of clear blue skies and sunshine. The tiny ferry that operates across the short channel of water separating the islands of Islay and Jura is barely affected by today’s mild current.
The distance may be insignificant—it’s a 10-minute crossing—but the difference between these two isles is immediately apparent. Where Islay is rolling, Jura is rugged. Islay’s population is close to 3,500; Jura’s, around 200. Islay—Scotland’s fifth-largest island—is almost twice the size (620 square kilometres) of the longer and thinner Jura. (For comparison, Salt Spring Island is just under half the size of Jura with a population of more than 10,000.)
Jura means “deer island” in Old Norse, and the local cervids have long outnumbered the hardy humans who have lived here sporadically since around 8000 BC. Despite its unsuitability for much in the way of farming or development, Jura’s history has been rough and bloody, from the earliest Celtic settlements to Norse rule under the Vikings, to battles between Catholic nationalists, Clan Donald, and the English-appeasing Presbyterians of Clan Campbell.
If Islay offers more opportunities (there are a number of villages, hotels, restaurants, and a high school), the majority of its population is in the same business as that of Jura—whisky. Where the larger island, famous for its peat bogs, boasts nine distilleries including Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Ardbeg, and Laphroaig, its sibling across the water is the home of just one scotch-maker, the eponymous Jura.
The whitewashed walls of the Jura distillery take pride of place in the island’s main hub, Craighouse. Close by, there’s a small church, post office and store, café, gas pump, primary school, pier, and pub—all the essentials, accessed by Jura’s only road, a paved single track that runs along the south coast and up the eastern perimeter of the island for close to 25 miles. The water here is more open and wild than the ferry channel, and even on this clear day, marked by the foamy tops of brisk waves.
I take a sip of whisky from a copper-coloured hip flask. We are at sea again, this time aboard a small sightseeing vessel and in somewhat bumpier conditions, sipping Jura Islanders’ Expressions No. 3. Aged in American white oak and finished in red wine casks, the whisky is fruit and vanilla forward, aptly warming and stimulating in these surroundings. The Islanders’ Expressions series creates whiskies in collaboration with local artists and creatives, and No. 3 is a tribute to local photographer Konrad Borkowski.
It’s the perfect trip on the perfect day, Jura resplendent in the sun, the whisky reflecting the terroir (land and water), and Borkowski aboard, photographing the experience. Originally from Poland, he came to Scotland to live on Islay but found it too crowded, so he moved to its sparsely populated neighbour. For a fleeting moment, I envy his choice. Then I imagine the dark, wet, cold days of February and know I wouldn’t survive a single winter.
We are sailing along the southwest coast of the island, the choppy waters and less promising forecast precluding a trip to the north and the infamous narrows, the Gulf of Corryvreckan, with its treacherous whirlpool. It was, I discover, the site of a boating accident that almost took the life of George Orwell and his young son: in an attempt to escape 1946 London and, more specifically, the treadmill of producing what he considered shoddy journalism, Orwell had moved here following the death of his wife. In the end, Barnhill, a house he rented that still stands some four miles’ hike from the road, was his final home. Orwell died in 1950, just seven months after the novel he wrote on Jura—Nineteen Eighty-Four—was published, his health weakened by tuberculosis, made worse from his plunge into the frigid waters.
The Jura distillery began making whisky in 1810, 13 years before distilling was legalized in Scotland. At that time, the large Ardfin Estate was still under the fiefdom of the Duke of Argyll, a duchy held to this day by the Campbell clan. In 1831, under the name Small Isles, the distillery was leased out and continued under different operators until 1876, when Glasgow wine merchant James Ferguson & Sons took over and renamed it Jura.
Ferguson was offered a long lease by the then laird with the proviso he would make upgrades costing about £25,000 pounds (around £3.6 million in today’s money). He built the road, the pier, and cottages for his workers and began production of a peated whisky in the style now synonymous with Islay. In 1901 the old laird died and his son inherited the seat, informing Ferguson he would be making a steep hike in his rent. The relationship soured fast, and Ferguson—though tied to his lease—dismantled the distillery and shipped the equipment back to the mainland. In 1913, the last of the whisky was gone and the roof was removed to avoid paying any more taxes.
By 1938, the Campbells were in financial trouble and sold their last stake in Jura, including the distillery and Jura House, their grand island estate home, to the Riley-Smiths of Yorkshire-based John Smith’s Tadcaster Brewery. It was a change in fortunes predicted (as the myth goes) by a former evicted tenant, who cursed the family, saying the laird would leave Jura one-eyed, with his belongings on a horse and cart. Charles Campbell—the last laird—who had lost an eye at war, may have left the island in his car, but his belongings were loaded onto a cart and pulled to the pier by a horse.
The distillery lay dormant and dilapidated until 1963, restored by Riley-Smith and his business partners on the original site—where the unusually tall stills continue to produce whisky after it has been mashed and fermented—creating a non-peated whisky to satisfy the tastes of the time. Subsequent ownership changes shifted the peat dial back and forth until, in 2018, Whyte & Mackay (who took over in 1995), under the direction of master distiller Gregg Glass, drew a line under what had gone before, reworking the recipes to create a completely fresh selection of single malts.
These current Jura expressions push a little against the traditional grain, employing a range of finishing casks—rum, oloroso, Pedro Ximénez, red wine, rye, even pale ale—to build flavour, with touches of peat for backbone and warmth. It’s a quirky approach, perhaps, but in this remote place, with its wild history, a spirit of individuality could not be more apt. The immediately identifiable bottle remains unchanged, its cinched middle harking back to the days when seafaring was a dangerous occupation—being able to hold onto your bottle of scotch in a storm was a bonus.
We emerge from the mash and still rooms, the brisk wind that greets us washing away the heavy, yeast-infused air of the distillery. In the original cooperage, we sit on benches and try a selection of the Jura range. Tropical notes on the nose of the rum cask single malt reform as banana, cinnamon, and vanilla on the palate—a bit of Caribbean warmth to what’s becoming a blustery afternoon. Banana is identifiable also on the 12-year-old, as is vanilla from its aging in ex-bourbon barrels, but it becomes deeper, warmer, and slightly bitter with the notes of coffee and walnut from finishing in oloroso sherry casks. The 18 takes yet another turn with its burst of black fruit and chocolate courtesy of time spent in premier grand cru bordeaux barriques. The effects of these finishing casks are subtle but significant; the results, structured yet seductively free-spirited.
As the clouds move in and the rain starts sheeting sideways, the rugged side of Jura hits hard. We drive back towards the ferry in the dimming light, the sea to our left swelling ominously. Suddenly, I spot something on the shore. It’s a stag, standing, chin proudly up, antlers majestic in the twilight. And then into view there’s another, and another, and another. These stunning beasts—the true lords of Jura—line our route, ushering us away back to the comfort of civilization. Jura, they seem to suggest, is too tough for the likes of us.
Read more from our Summer 2024 issue.
