Signatory Vintage

Andrew Symington, who had managed the Prestonfield House Hotel in Edinburgh, founded Signatory Vintage in 1988, according to ScotchWhisky.com; Companies House records the company's incorporation on 23 August 1988. The first cask it bottled was a 1968 Glenlivet matured in a sherry cask. The business began in the Newhaven area of Edinburgh, where it set up a bottling plant.

In 2002 Symington bought the Edradour distillery near Pitlochry from Pernod Ricard. Signatory then moved all its operations north, and a new bottling plant and warehouses were built beside the distillery in the local farm-building style. Companies House lists Symington as the person with significant control of Signatory, and Signatory as owner of the Edradour Distillery Company.

Signatory's bottling, bonded warehousing and offices stand next to the Edradour distillery at Milton of Edradour, east of Pitlochry in Perthshire, in the Highland region. The company's registered office is at the distillery. As with any independent bottler, the whiskies come from many distilleries and the place of distillation is the one named on each label; Pitlochry is where they are stored and bottled.

Signatory buys and holds casks from distilleries across Scotland and bottles them under its own labels. According to ScotchWhisky.com it has a busy release policy, with about 50 different single malts usually available at any one time. Its ranges include the Un-chill Filtered Collection, the Cask Strength Collection and the Single Grain Collection, so a buyer can find both malt and grain whisky. Owning Edradour gives the company its own distillery and warehouse space beside its bottling hall.

Signatory has no house flavour; each bottling shows its source distillery and cask. The range names describe the presentation: un-chill-filtered bottlings, cask strength bottlings and single grain whiskies. For drinkers, the attraction is a frequently changing list of single casks from many distilleries. Details of individual bottlings were not reviewed for this entry.