Fettercairn 1997-2017 - 19 Year Old - Signatory Vintage - Casks 5626-5627

The Fettercairn distillery has long been in the shadow of its Whyte & Mackay stablemates Dalmore and Jura, and until very recently received little marketing attention. This situation was not helped by a failed revamp in 2009, when a much-trumpeted launch of 24-year-old, 30-year-old and 40-year-old Fettercairns fell a little flat due to a combination of disappointingly low bottling strengths, poor cask selection on the 30-year-old and some laughably over-ambitious pricing.

Happily for Fettercairn, developments since Whyte & Mackay were purchased by Emperador in 2015 have been encouraging, with a smartly-packaged, well-received new range appearing in 2018. Adventurous whisky fans, though, will find the best value for Fettercairn in cask strength, well-aged independent bottlings from Signatory, Cadenhead’s and Douglas Laing.

Signatory Vintage Whisky Company was founded by Andrew Symington in 1988 after a spell as assistant manager at the Prestonfield House Hotel, where he had the opportunity to buy a cask of Glenlivet 1968. A robust and canny businessman, Symington had soon acquired some outstanding parcels of casks from great distilleries, and quickly established a reputation among single malt fans for good value, high quality single casks, the majority of which were released at full strength.

Throughout the 1990s and beyond, Signatory released outstanding whisky from Ardbeg, Glenfarclas, Springbank and many more, with frequently remarkable examples of lost or obscure distilleries. Soon established as one of the leading new wave independent bottlers, Symington was also an early exponent of bottling whiskies without colouring or chill filtration, a policy that has also served Signatory well at their Edradour distillery, which was purchased in 2002.