Jura 12 Year old Elixir

Jura is another brand I've been ignoring. The branding for Jura just doesn't sit well with me, it's trying to be too modern, too designed, and I just don't like the look they are going for.

But sometimes you can't let positive or negative branding influence you too much. I wanted try something new, and Jura's Elixir was at just the right price for the moment and I'd tried everything else at that particular liquor store had in that price range: $57.99. The box has some non-relevant and useless story about the waters of Jura being important to the crafting of the scotch (all scotch distilleries say that in some form or another), and nothing about chilfiltering or colour, so I guessed that they chilfiltered and added colour. After pouring a dram I think my original assumptions were correct and the added colour bit was confirmed by something written in Danish "farven justeret med karamel" and german "mit farbstoff (zucker couleur)" on the bottle. Strange that they don't write that in English anywhere. I suspect maybe Denmark and German have some laws about that.

This Single Malt Scotch comes in a European sized bottle (700ml) and is bottled at 46%. It was the only Jura at the liquor store with an age statement: 12 year old and it says it was finished in a combination of American Oak and Sherry Casks.

The nose starts off with a predominance of malt, but there are lots of other smells in there too. Swirling with the malt is a sort of salty air, or salted caramel smell. A very subtle floral hint comes in with maybe a little rose like fragrance. With some water comes out some burnt sugar and more of the fruity elements, especially plum and a nice waft of light chocolate.

The palate is sweet and a little spicy, with some more fruitiness, more plum and a nice smooth caramel sweetness mixed with milk chocolate.

At first the finish is very short almost non existent but after a few more sips it seems to come out a little more. There's cereal and the tiniest bit of oak, more fruit and spice.

There's nothing really bad about this Scotch but it's not very exciting. Some of the fruitiness and plum notes are interesting but is it enough to make it stand out particularly? It is the least expensive of the Jura line, although the next 'step ups' don't have age statements, so I probably won't be picking this up again and will probably avoid the other ones in the line for the time being.