Jura Distillery

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On an island just 7 miles wide and 30 miles long, there is but one road, one hotel and one distillery.

Jura distillery is on the island of Jura located off the West Coast of Scotland. The island belongs to a group of islands collectively known as the Inner Hebrides. Diurachs is the Gaelic word for the people of Jura, a small and close-knit community of less than 200, united by the island they call home and the warmth of its people.

Even though the distillery didn't open until 1810, the people of Jura were entitled to distill whisky for personal consumption, until a ban was introduced in 1781.

Twenty-nine 29 years later, as legend has it, Laird Archibald Campbell awoke; sober, it must be said; in the middle of the night to see the ghostly figure of an old woman hovering over his bed. She berated him over the lack of the golden liquid on the island. It was this apparition that persuaded him to reverse this punitive measure and erect a distillery at an old smugglers’ cave in the hamlet of Craighouse in 1810.

Nothing, it seems, lasts forever. A victim of neglect and economic gloom, it wasn’t long before the distillery fell into disrepair.

It wasn’t until the 1950’s when, in a bid to entice new inhabitants to the island, two local estate owners Robin Fletcher and Tony Riley-Smith rebuilt the distillery, employing a genius by the name of Delme-Evans to weave some architectural magic. By 1963 their work was complete and the fortune of the island had changed, the distillery had offered new employment and the island began to flourish once again, Delme-Evans had introduced taller stills allowing the distillery to create an eclectic mix of malts, a feature that helped differentiate Jura from its island neighbours.

The distillery is now owned by United Breweries Group of India.