The current owner, Jan Mertens, took over the family business from his father in 1969. They have been producing Mertens' Jenever (Dutch Gin) from a family recipe for more than 30 years and about 5 years ago started distilling whisky.
Called the Jonasberg Stokerij (distillery) it's a small craft affair in East Flanders between Ghent and Brussels. The name comes from the hill on which the distillery is located, which is popularly called Jonasberg, the road to the distillery is called Jonasweg.
What's brought it to my attention is that Jonasberg won a bronze medal for it's whisky at the World Whisky Awards 2019 in the Single Cask Belgian Single Malt category. OK granted, these awards are a bit lame, if you enter you'll win something!
But there aren't that many distilleries in Belgium so it's got to be worth a try!
Jonasberg Single Malt a 45% NAS
Distillery notes: There's not a lot of information about the whisky, it's a 45% ABV peated malt dram which has been matured in Port Cask for 36 months.
My thoughts:
Appearance: Light gold in the glass, gravity defying thin swirls eventually fall as slow thick legs.
Nose: Earthy, slightly gin-y, stewed orchard fruit. It's definitely not scotch! It's slightly smoky, very dry and with a total lack of sweetness.
Palate: Very smooth arrival, some sweetness now, a little stewed pear. There's a little smoke and that earthiness again. It reminds me more of a gin than a whisky. There's no real port influence that I can detect. After a few sips there's a nice bite of spice and a little sourness.
Finish: Smoke and orchard fruit.
Overall: A very strange dram, maybe my info about the Port Cask was wrong but I can't detect any red fruit or winey notes so maybe a finish rather than a full mature? It's a nice little dram but at a different end of the spectrum to a scotch whisky. Worth a try if you come across it.
Many thanks to @dram_gazette for the drample swap!
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