The Whisky Jury is the Belgian independent bottling company of a guy called Joeri (the pun is intended). Launching in 2019 with two vintage Ben Nevises and a Caol Ila bottling, they have had a slow but growing success, with over a 100 bottlings to date (including some malternatives). According to their website “We are so picky, you can open a bottle of ours with confidence. We would be ashamed to disappoint you.” Indeed, the whiskybase ratings are generally very high – and so are the prices, though not unreasonable in today’s market conditions. I discovered this bottler at the Limburg Whisky Festival 2025, where I was explained that fruitiness was a guiding word in the cask selection. Right up my alley then! I tried a couple of delightful samples as the festival, and brought home with me a bunch for a calmer tasting session.
Glenrothes | 36yo (1986) | 41.4% | The Whisky Jury
🌐
Scotch single malt
🪵
refill hogshead
🔆
unchillfiltered & natural color
💲
€500 at auction in 2023; currently €1000 online
from a 2cl sample bottle
🗒️ Tasting notes
Nosing
Fruity and floral: ripe tropical fruits (passion fruit, pineapple), sweet mandarin, floral honey, elder flower, vanilla and a touch of cardamom. With time a beeswax note.
Sipping
Absolute fruit bomb — tutti frutti of orchard and tropical fruits —, waxy and oily, with a mineral note, and hint of tobacco, geranium, white pepper. The fruits linger in the finish.
💭 Comments
Gorgeous stuff! Very drinkable, but oh so expensive.
Deliciousness
Fun factor
Value for money
Punchline
⚫⚫🟢
⚫🟡🟢
N/A
Absolute fruit bomb
❤️
Ben Nevis | 27yo (1995) | 47.5% | The Whisky Jury
🌐
Scotch single malt
🪵
refill hogshead
🔆
unchillfiltered & natural color
💲
~€350 at auction
from a 2cl sample bottle
🗒️ Tasting notes
Nosing
Intensely fruity, dirty, waxy. Really enchanting. Barely ripe mango and banana, grapefruit, maple syrup, vanilla, petrichor and minerality.
Sipping
Very oily and waxy, with sweet and succulent tropical fruits (mango, kiwi, pineapple, …), salty-sweet pickles, and some smoke. The salty-sweet-umami taste left in the finish makes my mouth water and pulls me in for another sip.
💭 Comments
This is a spot-on Ben Nevis for me. Fruit-forward, with the right amount of umami, funk, and minerality to really make things spark. For €200 I’d buy in an instant. But above €300 I find it hard to cash out for any whisky whatsoever.
Deliciousness
Fun factor
Value for money
Punchline
⚫⚫🟢
⚫⚫🟢
N/A
Spot-on BN
❤️
Ben Nevis | 23yo (1996) | 50.4% | The Whisky Jury
🌐
Scotch single malt
🪵
refill hogshead
🔆
unchillfiltered & natural color
💲
~€400 at auction
from a 2cl sample bottle
🗒️ Tasting notes
Nosing
Quite similar nose to the ’95 at first, but then the differences reveal themselves: it is brighter, less fruity, and more minerally, and candy-like. There’s a toasted almond / marzipan note as well.
Sipping
Salted fruits and pickles, quite oily, funky, smoked meats. Some bitterness comes forth after a while. Very long finish, with waxy citrus peels.
💭 Comments
Here we go off in a somewhat more austere direction compared to the ’95, yet it remains a fantastic dram. Though I prefer the ’95 for its fruitiness, the ’96 is not worse, per se. With the smoke and wax it’s quite Clynelish- or Brora-like, in fact.
Deliciousness
Fun factor
Value for money
Punchline
⚫⚫🟢
⚫⚫🟢
N/A
Brora impostor
❤️
Laphroaig | “Islay Single Malt” | 32yo (1989) | 52.1% | The Whisky Jury
🌐
Scotch single malt
🪵
refill barrel
🔆
unchillfiltered & natural color
💲
~€550 at auction
from a 2cl sample bottle
🗒️ Tasting notes
Nosing
Smoked ham, honey-draped toasted oats, a chardonnay, lemons, and sea spray.
Sipping
An explosion of tastes and flavours. Umami, saltiness, sweetness, with an oily and creamy texture. Ripe pears, mangoes, deep-fried pastry (I’m reminded of my favourite treat in Singapore, the “butterfly fritter”), puffed rice, and, of course, peat, iodine and some (well-balanced) sulphur.
💭 Comments
The nose was good, but not spectacular. The palate — spectacular.
Deliciousness
Fun factor
Value for money
Punchline
⚫⚫🟢
⚫⚫🟢
N/A
King Frog
❤️
That’s was a treat of a tasting! To buy a bottle at RRP, one needs to sign up to their mailing list since they sell out fast. Let’s see what they have coming in the future.
DuckDrams 
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