Jura Tastival 2017 in Hamburg (Event)

About two weeks after Jura had its opening day at Feis Ile 2017, the cherished island distillery invited its fans to another festivity. This time, however, the celebrations did not take place on the isle of Jura itself, but in Northern Germany. Organized by Jura’s importer and distributor Borco-Marken-Import, the German spin-off of the Jura Tastival was held on Sunday, June 18, at the museum harbour Oevelgoenne in the west of Hamburg. While this beautiful location is always worth a visit, strolling along its piers is even more fun when you got nice music in your ears, like-minded people by your side and a great dram in your hand. All of that you could find at the Jura Tastival 2017 aplenty… and much more! Among others, there were awesome cocktails, cool live acts, tasty snacks and all kinds of side activities. If you wanted, you could not only have your beard trimmed or your hair cut for free, but even get a kick-ass Jura tattoo.

As should come as no surprise, the drams they served were also really damn good. Besides this year’s Tastival bottling and Jura’s core range consisting of Origin, Superstition, Diurach’s Own and Prophecy, you could also enjoy the distillery’s glorious 21 Years Old as well as their grand One For The Road. You were given your first sip of the Tastival 2017 – which received a beguiling sweetness from being finished in very rare ruby port casks – for free and then got all additional drams or cocktails for as little as 3 Euro per glass.

If you had managed to sign up for it in time, you would also have gotten a seat at either a guided tasting on board of the tugboat Claus D. or a food pairing under deck of the deep-sea cutter Freiherr von Maltzahn. My friends and I went for the latter, which was simply incredible. While we learned a lot about the history of Jura distillery, we savoured for excellent courses masterfully cooked by Tarterie St. Pauli: We started with a delicate scallop paired with the peaty Prophecy and then went on to a mouth-watering blackpudding raviolo served alongside the rich Diurach’s Own. After that, it was tender duck on mushy peas together with Jura’s lightly peated Superstition. And finally we had self-made sorrel ice cream combined with a dram of this year’s very excellent Tastival. In good ol’ sailor fashion, the bottles were passed on from one person to another and everybody could pour themselves as much whisky as they wanted. The 1-hour experience cost us – believe it or not – a mere 20 Euro each!

After the food pairing, we spent some more time at the Tastival before we boarded the fairy home, glad to have attended a wonderful whisky event and happy to have had such a good time. If you happen to be in Hamburg next June, try to make it to 2018’s iteration of the Jura Tastival. The best place for information on the event is Jura’s Facebook fan page, so you might want to follow them right away (unless, of course, you are already a fan of theirs anyway). Also, if you are going to attend the festivities, be sure to drop Aaron and me a line. We would love to share a dram with you!

by Tobi