Mosstowie 1973-2018 - 45 Year Old - Signatory Vintage 30th Anniversary - Single Cask 7622

Mosstowie was not a distillery - the name was given to a particular style of experimental whisky made at Miltonduff, a workhorse distillery for the Ballantine’s blended whisky brand. Miltonduff was fitted in 1964 with a pair of Lomond stills - curious hybrids consisting of a normal pot still base with a neck containing rectifying plates like a column still, designed to enable a distiller to increase reflux and produce different styles of spirit.

Mosstowie was made at Miltonduff until 1981, when the Lomond stills were replaced with traditional pot stills. The vast majority of Mosstowie’s whisky was used for blending, but there have been some very successful independent bottlings over the years. Most of the best Mosstowies are from Signatory Vintage, although other notable bottlings have appeared from the SMWS, Gordon & MacPhail, La Maison du Whisky and the Italian bottler Sestante.

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.