Signatory

Signatory Vintage began in Edinburgh in 1988, founded by Andrew Symington. In 2002 the company bought Edradour distillery near Pitlochry and moved its base there. Signatory is not itself a distillery: it is an independent bottler, and that is why its name appears across bottlings from many different distilleries.

The company buys casks of whisky from distilleries around Scotland and matures them in its own warehouses at Pitlochry. Some casks are bottled as they are, and some are moved into another cask for further maturation before bottling. Because the bottler chooses the casks, the timing and the strength, it is responsible for what ends up in the glass.

Many bottlings do not name the distillery, using labels such as Unnamed Speyside, Unnamed Orkney, Unnamed Islay or a letter code like Speyside (M). This is common when a distillery does not allow its name on independent releases, so buyers learn to read cask numbers and codes rather than a distillery name.

The ranges a buyer meets most often are the Un-Chillfiltered Collection, usually one or two casks reduced to 46% and bottled without chill filtration, and the Cask Strength Collection, single casks at full strength and often of considerable age. The 100 Proof Edition is bottled at 57.1%, the Small Batch Edition combines a handful of casks, and the Single Grain Collection covers grain whiskies such as Ayrshire.