The Isle of Jura 10 (50 ml airline bottle)
Tasting notes:
The moniker for this dram could just as easily serve as the title for the latest installment of a role-playing video game in which one assembles a rag-tag band of medieval warriors to find the lost city of Ys and defeat Satan’s armies vacationing there. Then again, for some of us, it also calls to mind a familiar permutation of the English language (something like, “The Isle uh Jura? Is theh a Isle uh Judge, too? How about a Isle uh Court Reportah? Hey, whaddya say latah we go up to Hahvahd and beat up some smaht kids?”). The dram itself, however, is the whisky analog to Plato’s view of justice as the harmony of the parts of the soul (or of the city): various “parts” of the Isle of Jura 10 are, by themselves, innocuous or even repellent, but he way they work together is undeniably righteous. Put more simply, this dram has the singular ability to evoke the smells and tastes of cleaning products–and make you love ingesting them. The Lysol on the nose apparently disinfects and prepares the mouth, so that the deep sherry softens the tree bark into a velvety caress not dissimilar from the sensation of reading Plato again after a steady diet of Uncle Funny Bunny and Chumpy. Add a splash of water, and you’ll be treated to the same production, only with different players: the citrus hints of Murphy’s Oil Soap on the nose combine with the veritable bales of pine needles on the mouth to give rise to honey-drizzled toffee crème brulée served on a taut, bare belly.
Rating:
–On the scale of everyday transcendent experiences (for me, anyway)–
The Isle of Jura 10 is hearing certain phrases spoken in the distinctive Boston dialect–the precise harmony of non-rhoticity, distinct vowel pronunciation, syntax, and big city attitude, as in “Tonight, I’m goin’ to watch Pedro pitch against that rat bastahd.” (okay, so not exactly a quotidian statement, since I still remember it from the 2003 playoffs). But if any of the parts is lacking or not in the right relation to the others, it’s like nails on a chalkboard.
The Isle of Jura 10 is hearing certain phrases spoken in the distinctive Boston dialect–the precise harmony of non-rhoticity, distinct vowel pronunciation, syntax, and big city attitude, as in “Tonight, I’m goin’ to watch Pedro pitch against that rat bastahd.” (okay, so not exactly a quotidian statement, since I still remember it from the 2003 playoffs). But if any of the parts is lacking or not in the right relation to the others, it’s like nails on a chalkboard.
–Stephen
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