Longmorn 1989-2008 - 18 Year Old - Signatory Vintage - Cask Strength Collection - Single Cask 18743

One of the greatest Speyside distilleries, Longmorn was founded in 1894 and today is one of the shiniest stars in owner Pernod Ricard’s Chivas Brothers portfolio of whisky distilleries. Although official bottlings are thin on the ground, Longmorn’s whisky was for many years bottled under license by Gordon & MacPhail, who have released a high proportion of the all-time classic Longmorns and still put out outstanding long-aged Longmorn today.

Longmorn’s whisky sparkles in both sherry and bourbon casks and is capable of withstanding extremely long maturation periods while still retaining (particularly in the older vintages) a superb old-school waxiness and the distillery’s trademark grapefruit and exotic fruit flavours, with the fruitiest examples coming from the mid-1970s and earlier. Older vintages also generally have more prominent threads of smoke and mineral notes among the honeyed fruit and chocolate biscuit flavours.

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.