Glen Ord 1998-2008 - 10 Year Old - Signatory Vintage - Cask 3461-3463

Glen Ord is a classic Highland distillery, originally built in 1838 and now producing an enormous 11 million litres per annum, making it one of the largest distilleries in Scotland. The distillery is also home to a huge industrial maltings facility supplying malted barley to various other Diageo distilleries including Talisker.

Sadly, Glen Ord’s characterful but easy-drinking single malt has been unavailable in the UK since 2006 when it was withdrawn and repackaged for Asian markets as the Singleton of Glen Ord. This tragedy notwithstanding, the distillery’s official bottlings have a good reputation among whisky drinkers, with the old 12-year-old and the long-aged Special Release bottlings from 2003-2005 particularly popular; however, the most famous Glen Ord is undoubtedly the Samaroli 1962 Ord Bouquet 22-year-old, one of the greatest single malt whiskies ever bottled.

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.