Signatory 35th Annv Highland Park 32 Yea

Tasting Notes

91pts Whisky Fun

All right, this baby's not out yet, it'll come out early next year, but since we're lucky enough to have it, we sure won't put it into WF's refrigerated safe until then (indeed we have that!) By the way, wasn't Signatory's 30th Anniversary just last year, or perhaps the year before? To my generation of whisky enthusiasts, so the youngsters, right, Signatory was and remains a very seminal bottler. The whisky world would be completely different without Signatory, perhaps still full of caramel and heavily cold-filtered uisge beatha. We owe a lot to Andrew and Signatory. Colour: deep gold. Nose: starts with a little cider or Sauternes-sulphur, with some hops, leaves, walnut skins, some gunpowder, then we have oil paint, clay, mushrooms, mustard à l'ancienne, pickled gherkins… I have to say this is a little intriguing and rather very Andalusian. Let's see how it evolves… With water:  cigars, cedarwood, figs and forgotten vegetable gratin. Parsnip, swede, cardoon… Mouth (neat): walnuts roasted in honey sauce and quite some gunpowder again. Chocolate, white truffles, touch of pointed cabbage and bok choy. Some demerara sugar. With water: awesome salted praline and nougat, earth, walnut liqueur, amaro… Finish: long and rather all on walnut wine. A little mustard, grapefruit, roasted chestnuts and pecans in the aftertaste. Comment: there is a commendable ruggedness in this old Highland Park. It seems like a real sherry cask, which held actual sherry, actually intended for human consumption. It improves with exposure to air, it just needs quite some time. Yet another 91-pointer.
SGP:462 - 91 points.

Independent Bottler

Signatory Vintage was established in 1988 by Andrew Symington. The quality of whiskies released by most Independent Bottlers can vary a lot, and be rather hit or miss. Signatory Vintage is an exception to this, and we have consistently been impressed by the quality of its offerings. Accordingly Signatory Vintage has been a staple in our shop for more than a decade.

One of the reasons for Signatory's consistently high level of quality is that it doesn't bottle casks in the hand-to-mouth fashion, of many other independent bottlers. But rather it purchases parcels of casks, storing them in their own warehouses, while patiently waiting for the whiskies to mature.

Originally located in Edinburgh, the business was moved to Pitlochry in 2002, after Symington purchased the Edradour Distillery from Pernod Ricard. Edradour is tucked into the hills above the scenic Highland town of Pitlochry. This farm distillery has a charming, rustic, and understated esthetic, which was maintained by Symington when building a new bottling facility and warehousing.

The distillery bottles single cask and small batch bottlings of both single malts and single grains. Its ranges include the Un-Chill Filtered and Cask Strength Collections. In 1988 the firm celebrated its 30th Anniversary with a range of specially chosen, exceptionally rare single casks.