Fàilte air ais Ladies & Gentlemen. Today I am reviewing yet another Signatory Vintage bottling. This time the whisky comes from one of my favourite distilleries: Highland Park. How do I know that this is a Highland Park you might ask. And you would be right to ask that question. Well. It is quite simple really. Whitlaw hills sit right behind Highland Park distillery, that is where this whiksy got its name from. Highland Park has mostly two names when it comes to independent bottlings. Sometimes it is referred to as Whitlaw or An Orkney Distillery. I reviewed a few months ago Cadenhead's An Orkney Distillery 6 yo, make sure to check that out too. When you see these names on a bottle, you know now: it is Highland Park! Let's get right into it with some info about Signatory Vintage and Highland Park distillery and then the whisky. I would like to thank you for the sample @hun_whiskyhunter ! Thankfully now I have my own bottle and I took a few shots of it during this summer.

About Signatory Vintage

Signatory Vintage Scotch Whisky Co. Ltd., founded in 1988 by Andrew Symington, is a top independent bottler of Scotch whisky in Scotland. They are known for their wide range of high-quality single malt scotches.

Signatory gets its name from the practice of having each whisky cask signed by an esteemed person as a mark of quality. They focus on transparency and authenticity. Unlike some whiskies that add colour or use chill-filtration, Signatory keeps its whiskies natural. This gives a truer taste of the whisky's original character.

Signatory stands out with its large selection. They offer single malts, grains, and blended malts from many Scottish distilleries. These range from young to old and rare whiskies. Some are from closed distilleries, making Signatory a key source for rare Scotch whiskies.

Choosing the right cask is crucial for Signatory. Each cask is picked for its unique features and taste. Signatory is known for its single cask whiskies. These are very limited and collectable. Each single cask bottle is unique, showing a specific time from the distillery.

After buying the Edradour Distillery in 2002, Signatory can mature their casks in-house. They use Edradour's traditional warehouses. This lets them control the maturation process. It also lets them finish their whiskies in different cask types, including sherry, port, and wine.

Signatory's quality and hard work have been recognised in the whisky industry. They have won many awards. Their focus on detail and quality over quantity appeals to those who love fine single malt whisky.

About Highland Park Distillery

Highland Park distillery is the second northernmost single malt Scotch whisky distillery in Scotland (Kimbland distillery on Sanday being 22 miles further north), located in Kirkwall on the Orkney Islands. Highland Park distillery was founded by Magnus Eunson, a butcher and church officer by day and illicit distiller and whisky smuggler by night. This beautiful but isolated distillery has an impressive range of official bottlings. The name of the distillery does not refer to the Scottish Highlands, but rather to the fact that the distillery was founded on an area called 'High Park' distinguished from a lower area nearby. Highland Park uses the local peat, which contains a higher proportion of heather than many other peats. The whisky is aged in sherry casks made of either American or European oak, purchased from Oloroso sherry producers in Spain.

Production at Highland Park is driven by four pot stills; two wash, two spirit. The wash stills each have a capacity of 20,000 liters, while the spirit stills stand a little smaller, at 18,000 liters. Both the wash and the spirit stills have a pear shape, with round, spherical lids and gradually narrowing conical necks. The stills have neither constrictions nor reflux bowls, which means that there is little reflux during distillation. This results in the medium-heavy new make spirit typical of Island Whiskies.

Highland Park is one of a very few distilleries to still make partly use of it's own floor maltings. Considering the significant production capacity of the distillery, this feature is especially impressive. The maltings used in the production of Highland Park are peated, with the peat used in the process being carefully selected from the Hobbister Moor. This sweet, heathery peat, which burns much hotter and cleaner than peat from Islay, is a very important component in the flavoring of Highland Park. The smouldering peat in the kiln is replaced by coal after a certain time, so that not 100% smoky malt is produced.

Highland Park boasts an enormous complex of stone houses, with the total currently standing at 26. But only 23 of them are used as warehouses. 19 of them still have the traditional mud floors and are so-called 'dunnage warehouses'. The rest are racked warehouses, where the casks are stored on large shelves. Orkney's climate is perfect for maturing Whisky, being neither too warm nor too cold.

The Highland Park Distillery has an award-winning visitor's centre, which is routinely heralded as one of the best in the UK. The facilities offered by the distillery include the opportunity to tour the distillery, view a multimedia show, do your own bottling, and sample the extensive range included in the official gift shop.

Whitlaw (2013-2023) 10 years old SV - Natural Color, Non-chill filtered, 46%

"This 10-year-old Whitlaw whisky is part of the Signatory Vintage series. In this series, Signatory tracks down special single malts, some of which come from closed distilleries and rare single casks. Andrew Symington founded his company at the end of the 1980s and has always maintained good contact with the distilleries. More than 10,000 casks are stored in the independent bottler's warehouses. Matured in first-fill Pedro Ximénez sherry casks and second-fill Oloroso sherry casks, the Islander is bottled at a slightly higher 46% vol. and is not coloured. It is characterised by a particularly mild taste and is therefore also suitable for beginners. All bottles in this series carry precise information about the distillation and bottling dates as well as the casks."

Nose: Highland Park DNA coming through instantly. Heather honey, floral notes and a light peat undertone. Quite a big sherry influence. Dried figs, plums and raisins. Happy to say it is not that modern sherry smell that I do not like. Milk chocolate and coffee. Hints of mandarin and lemon peel. Leather and dusty books. Maltiness coming through in the form of digestive biscuits and french toast. Hint of vanilla with cloves and cinnamon. Very nice and complex.

Taste: Nice body, quite oily. The alcohol is spot on. Some black pepper at the beggining with spicy wood, then dried plums and raisins with milk chocolate. Mandarin and oranges. Grilled pineapple and coconut. The unmistakable taste of heather honey and leather. A puff of smoke, ash. Again a bit dusty. Digestive biscuits. Quite floral and sweet. A hint of astrigency which is ok. Nice taste, however the nose was a tad bit better in my opinion.

Finish: Medium finish. Dry and a bit astringent at first. Then the sweetness of heather honey kicks in with vanilla and sherry fruits. Spicy oak and peat. So firstly it is very dry but gets sweeter and very yummy.

Overall I think this is a great bottling. It is also very nice to taste independent bottligns of Highland Park, because their whisky is great and it is nice to see what it can do when it is not held back by the distillery and by their overly engineered crowd pleaser official bottlings. For me the nose was a bit better than the taste but I do not think it is a let down. I had a brief moment of disappointment when I tasted it after nosing it but by the end I grown to like this a lot. What I truly like about this is that it keeps the original Highland Park DNA and it uses great sherry casks and not those modern ones that I really hate and that give the whisky an artificial sweet taste and a disgusting rubber note. I will rate this whisky 86 / 100. A great score. Buy it, try it. Drink responsibly.

Some pictures in this article are not owned by me, I tagged their owner and I attached a link of their site. All other pictures that have my logo on them are TAKEN AND OWNED BY ME.

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Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. To many more. Sláinte.