Jura 26 Year Old The Kinship Hunter Laing / 52.7% / 0.7l

The Kinship Collection debuted at the 2017 Fèis Ìle festival and celebrated the groundbreaking of Hunter Laing & Co.’s Ardnahoe Distillery.

It consisted of six single malts from Islay, and the casks were selected by Jim McEwan, appointed production director of the new distillery. The series labels refer to six aspects of whisky production – harvesting, malting, fermenting, distilling, maturing and bottling. The Jura 26 years old presented here was released a year later, also at the festival. The whisky spent more than a quarter of a century in a refilled hogshead cask, and was bottled at cask strength (52.7% abv) in an edition of 254 bottles. (Jim McEwan's tasting note.)

"Screaming fresh notes of gooseberry, grapefruit and green apple sprinkled with toffee syrup. Blooming heather, a streambed covered in moss, bedclothes drying in the sea breeze, lemon and lime - all this is the effect of the perfect marriage of malt and oak, culminating in warm sweet rolls and oatmeal with lemon jam sprinkled with almond flakes. I also find traces of vanilla and lanolin extracted from a modest, refilled hogshead barrel. This uncomplicated but very aromatic whisky captivates with its simplicity and harmony of taste. It is a message of a magical island (Jura), its landscape and inhabitants and my heart rejoices that I have such wonderful neighbours."