Many moons ago, the Diurachs were entitled to distil whisky for personal consumption. Alas, all good things come to an end and meddling politicians introduced a ban in 1781.
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.
We don’t know if the old woman is planning a return visit but a bottle of 16 year old, the islander’s favorite, is always left in a secret cave deep in the bowels of the island, just to make sure she doesn’t.
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