Superstition carried the silver at the 2007 International Spirits Competition, but it’s best year was 2009. In the United States, the single malt goes for about $45 or $50. I typically see Isle of Jura’s Superstition priced at 32 euros in Europe, or about 27£ in the UK. The finish is of short-to-middling length, and smoky with a spicy bite on the end. On the palate, the scotch retains its peaty, woody character, but mixes in a little honey sweetness and pepper for good measure. The nose of Superstition is predominately one of peat smoke and wood, with a hint of orange blossoms poking about in the background. It is made from whiskeys that were aged between 13 and 21 years (two coincidentally mystical numbers?), with 13% of the contents drawn from heavily peated malt whiskey (there is that number 13 again). Isle of Jura Superstition single malt is bottled at 43% alcohol, and enjoys a lovely gold-amber color. Underneath it all is a respectable, mid-peaty single malt scotch. The “superstition” title is drawn from the superstitious nature of the islanders, and their tradition of not cutting the peat before May.ĭon’t let the New Age packaging discourage you, however.
Supposedly they chose the ankh because it is the symbol of immortality, and the Jura islanders are an especially long-lived bunch. The idea of using Celtic imagery for a line of scotch makes sense, but the Egyptian ankh? It’s a bit much in my book. Some of our whisky is chill filtered, and some has colour in the form of caramel added, others are non chill filtered, non coloured, cask strength products – in essence there is a mix of products designed to suit most palettes and price ranges – whether or not a product is vegan is something that would need to be determined on an expression to expression basis depending on what type of barrel it had been matured/finished in and whether or not it had any colour added.I have to admit finding Isle of Jura’s New Agey mystical marketing overdone at times, such as is the case with the Superstition single malt scotch. Some of our whisky is finished in sherry/red wine casks obviously the sherry and wine making process is different from the spirit making process and there are ingredients that may not fit in with a vegan lifestyle which impregnate the wood while the sherry or wine was maturing and this would then be passed onto the spirit at a later date. "Here at the distillery we use barley, water and yeast to produce our spirit, that spirit is then put into barrels – all of our malt starts its life in American bourbon barrels – you would have to check but I believe that American bourbon is made using grain, water and yeast and as such the barrels should not have been impregnated with any animal products. The 10yr old is our baseline product you can find in your local supermarket, the boutique range are all non-chill filtered, non coloured cask strength products, the 1999 is heavily peated and the 1995 a soft highland style malt." "Currently, the standard 10yr old highland style Jura, the Boutique 1999 and Boutique 1995 are the only three bottles that I can say have been matured in Bourbon casks only.
"All of our products are vegan friendly so you can still enjoy your Jura Superstition." Jura Superstition is Vegan Friendly by Isle of Jura Distillery