"Distilling Scotch Malt Whisky on the Isle of Jura."

How does the Isle of Jura Whisky distillery make such a smooth unique tasting drink?

The Isle of Jura whisky distillery is located in Craighouse almost at the edge of Small Isles Bay. This distillery (below) was re-built on the original site (dating back to 1810) and is very close to where it is believed that whisky had been distilled for many generations prior to that (often illegally).

The origins of how Scotch whisky was first distilled has been lost in time and we are unlikely to ever know for certain. However we do know that the ancient celts distilled a fiery liquid they referred to "uisge beathe" or the "water of life". Obviously the name implies it was something special — maybe even special enough to live on to this day as Scotch whisky.

The Union of Scotland with England in 1707 brought in excessive levels of taxation to be paid to the foreign government based in London and a lot of the Scotch whisky production was then done illegally.

In 1823 the Excise Act was passed sanctioning the distilling of whisky with a tax duty to be paid on its production. It remains illegal to this day to simply possess a still capable of making whisky even if you do not use it for that purpose.

It is illegal to refer to any drink as a Scotch whisky if it has not been aged in Scotland in oak casks for at least three years so that means there is a minimum of 450,000 litres of drink becoming whisky stored in the country at any one time. That is even without taking into account that some whisky is aged for 10 to 30 years before being bottled. No wonder the production of quality Scotch whisky has such a major partto play in the countries economy.