LFW:What is your job?
I am founder and Managing Director of Signatory Vintage Scotch Whisky. My business is that of an independent bottler buying and maturing casks of whisky and then selecting them for bottling with our own label. I keep about 1,100 casks in stock with ages from three or four years to as old as 1954.
Recently I acquired Scotland’s smallest distillery, Edradour in Perthshire. I am now both a Scotch whisky bottler and distiller—an ambition fulfilled!
I started Signatory fourteen years ago with the ambition of having my own distillery. Now the transfer is complete I am a very happy chappie—despite my immediate baptism of fire; after just two weeks of possession of Edradour a huge thunderstorm caused a flash flood which caused about £300,000 worth of damage!
LFW: How did you become a bottler?
I became involved in this industry during my time as a Manager at the posh Prestonfield House Hotel in Edinburgh. I had worked there for a number of years, washing dishes from the age of 14.
In those days many of the old whisky companies used to entertain VIPs at Prestonfield and they usually brought along interesting samples. I was able to taste a lot of fine sherry cask matured malts with the chance to take some of them home.
I was so enthusiastic that in 1988 I scraped together £2,500 to buy a cask of 1968 Glenlivet and arrange to bottle it. My good friend, Peter Russell of McLeods helped me by securing the cask and assisting in the bottling and duty considerations. Then I set about selling it; initially to friends. A few restaurants took a case, then I went to a World Food & Drink Exhibition in Europe and met a German and Italian company which was interested and bought the rest of the cask. One cask became two and then onwards.
The business developed by doing small quantities, 36 bottles with a special label or a dozen miniatures. None of the established companies was interested in this level of trade. If it was duty paid then I could do that in my spare bedroom but for overseas customers it had to be done under bond without the burden of duty and I was having difficulty finding duty free warehouses to do that with me.
As I got busier and was using a Glasgow bottling contractor, I realised that the first few cases to come off my nice dark sherry cask were quite pale! The colour developed until the sixth case when the hue that I was expecting finally appeared. I was horrified to discover some was being ‘lost’ in the pipes and filters and I realised that some of what I was selling could have been cheapo supermarket blend or worse! I also found distillers’ samples that I had approved were not exactly the same as what was being delivered. Not foul play but I wasn’t happy that I couldn’t claim hand on heart this was a great product. I wanted complete control myself.
I reckoned that the only way for me to get round that was for me to have my own bonded warehouse with bottling facility and stock of casks which I could monitor myself.
LFW: And the name, Signatory Vintage?
With Signatory I thought that someone would endorse it as being something worth bottling but I gave up because we started selling long before we found anyone famous to sign a bottle!(I almost got Sean Connery once). Vintage, well, some producers complained you can’t have a vintage whisky, but now they all have one. When I got my cask of Glenlivet 1968 I realised that I wouldn’t always have a 68 but I would get some 70 or whatever, a bit like Port where not every year is declared a vintage year. So I did it on that basis that not every year was a great vintage, and to find a point of difference.
Unlike port, with whisky each year is just as good as the others but it does depend on the quality of cask it went into. Vintage as a term helps explain differences in bottlings.
A year or so later, my brother Brian joined me and we persuaded Customs & Excise to relax their high volume requirements for a bonded warehouse. We found suitable premises and went to the bank for assistance. Our parents gave us security over their house, a brave decision and, to be honest, a very real gamble. We were completely green but with the help of friends like Peter Russell we were able to get going with some lousy second hand equipment; now I only buy new.
We’ve been in Leith since 1992 with offices, bottling plant and cased goods warehouse, plus about 130 casks—primarily things that are going to be bottled in the next month and the more venerable gems that I like to keep an eye on and sample every three to six months, rare treasures from the Fifties and Sixties.
The other 1,000 casks are scattered around Scotland in about 37 different distilleries and warehouses. If I buy a cask that I don’t need immediately I’ll leave it where it is, paying rent to have it stored. The rental is small if you have 100 casks or so with a keeper but there are set-up charges to keep out the small players and to reduce the risk of ‘investor’ scams such as we saw in the early Nineties.
Once a week we have a ‘milk-round’, a truck collecting a cask from all over and bringing it to Edinburgh.
LFW: How do you get to buy a cask?
Distilleries have always sold to anyone. Initially they sold to merchants who wanted it for blending; there were very little single malt sales. A pub in Scotland may have had casks of Glenlivet and Macallan in the cellar and jars to dispense from. It is that historical precedent that makes it possible today. Producers own many malts and the movement between distillers, merchants and brokers means I can buy Glen-whatever from either a big distiller or merchant like Berry Brothers, especially if they have surplus stocks of certain ages.
LFW: But doesn’t it upset the malt marketers?
In some cases justifiably so. I bottle malts at a different age from those done by the brand owner—but that is getting harder to do as they are extending their range to more and more expressions. I’ve stuck rigidly to that principle but some of the ‘armchair bottlers’—those with no facilities beyond a telephone—have been mimicking the proprietors, sticking distillery names in big letters on labels with no respect for the trademark owners. I have the threat of legal action hanging over me and I chose to make friends rather than enemies. But others have riden rough-shod over these courtesies and slapped glossy labels on anything they want. There are quality issues on some of these products too, giving the distillers something to be very concerned about.
It’s getting harder for the independents; anyone lucky enough to get any new Lagavulin will have restraints on them. Glenmorangie has never sold a cask of single malt; they add a tiny measure of Glen Moray and call it ‘Westport’ so ‘Glenmorangie’ cannot be found in the market. Glenfiddich do the same with ‘Wardhead’, Balvenie is ‘Burnside’ and more are going to do it; Bowmore are just starting to do it now. It will take about five to ten years to use up stocks in circulation from the late 80s then it will get very hard for a bottler.
I’m also gathering casks from distilleries which are closed and so have no brand interest but that is getting harder too. In the last four years there has been an explosion of new bottlers or as I like to call them ‘armchair labellers’. Some are already disappearing having realised there is no quick buck to be made. The big boys deal direct, leaving out the broker or merchant. It’s in a smaller number of hands and if you don’t have the connections then it is going to get very difficult.
Occasionally I trade a cask, but only with the big companies, not with individuals.
In the beginning I guess the big boys were not particularly comfortable about me. Initially I had written to most of them and had permission from quite a few to use the whiskies. Gelnfiddich was the one that expressly refused my using their name but I felt there were plenty of other whiskies of good quality and I would not miss Glenfiddich! Old Glenfiddich is great but I never found one worth bottling. With time, I began to get a reputation for bottling quality whiskies from good casks and that’s what made me accepted, that and the investment in a bottling line and the commitment to the industry, I showed I wasn’t after a quick buck, buying the odd cask here and there. Once people realised I wanted to buy my own distillery, I was taken a lot more seriously. I’ve much more credibility now I’ve joined the circle, Although I’m the smallest player, it’s great fun. Edradour is the perfect size for Signatory, the two can fit hand in hand.
LFW: Describe the bottling process.
A cask will be pumped in to a vat at which time we assess the strength. If required it will be reduced to bottling strength of 43 or 46% with de-mineralised water and allowed a day or two to settle. Reactions between whisky and water are slow; fatty acids convert into esters and aldehides and there is a lot of heat generated and some bubbling. If we are doing a lot of single casks and I can’t afford for a vat to be tied up we will put it back into a holding butt for a week and return to it when ready. That marrying time makes a big difference. Single malt is a very delicate substance and we will not push it through our system at full speed, it agitates the spirit to push it fast.
If bottled at 43% we will chill-filter it somewhere between zero and +4°C depending on how oily the whisky is; bigger companies it might be anything from -5 to -10°C.
LFW: Why chill it at all?
Without it, an oily whisky will go cloudy as the fatty flavour congeners come out of solution and give a haze; there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s not very appealing in the bottle. By reducing the temperature, the oils solidify and are separated out in paper filter plates. The result is a clear and stable product. Sometimes we don’t always get it right, there may still be a little cloudiness.
Unchilfiltered and cask strength whiskies are bottled at the ambient temperature which in Edinburgh can be highish or low. It’s the old way of doing it before fridge plants came on the scene, and in winter even they would still be slightly chill-filtered! We try to do a lot of our unchillfiltered work in the summer and at other times we warm it to the ambient bottling temperature 20°C.
Chilfiltered or not, the whisky is always barrier-filtered to remove solids, bits of wood and charcoal from the cask. The filters are made of compressed paper and we change them after every bottling. No one gets to take them home! They have a little bleach sprayed onto them before disposal—it’s Customs rules.
Then if we have cooled it we have to heat it up! The European standard temperature for the volumetric bottling of liquids is 20°C so it we use a heat exchanger—in Edinburgh that can be a lot of heating!
From the filters it goes to a holding tank and then on to our new bottling machine which is (nearly!) fully automatic. We had a bigger machine scaled down to fit the space available, it’s about 6.5 metres long and looks like a model railway with bottles chinking along—sometimes I believe I can hear it choo-choo! Happily the new machine copes with most labels and so the number of people required has fallen to just four, one third that before. Previously every label had to be applied by hand—sit down, knees together, take label from the gumming machine and place it on. You can bottle about 600 bottles in an hour that way but it is very tiresome.
LFW: Your labels are very informative.
Cask strength bottlings have to be done unlabelled because the final alcohol strength is determined after the filter and it may lose up to 1%—don’t know why, it just does. Unlabelled bottles are boxed onto pallets while our friendly printer produces the labels within a day and when a spare moment comes we will unpack and run the bottles through the labelling line again. The information of strength and quantity is absolutely accurate because we bottle it first. Other bottlers will guess the quantity or the strength and reduce it later if necessary; is that a true cask strength whisky? I don’t think so.
Each label is individually hand numbered and that writing could be mine, Annette’s (my girlfriend), Lorraine (my assistant) or Brian—anyone who’s willing! A bit boring and we wanted to stop it but so many said it is a unique Signatory thing. On the older cask strength bottlings we agree we have to do it, it is important to show the level of care and attention. We no longer do it on the big run stuff, the value for money bottlings and no longer on miniatures, thank goodness!
I hop around between the bottling line, the warehouse and the office. The overalls come off at about five then I start working on administration, mostly on behalf of the C&E. I don’t see myself as having a hard job despite the frequent long hours. It is my life, not that I can’t go for a pint when invited! What needs to get done, gets done. Having Edradour has made things tough; it’s 75 miles from Edinburgh and has been a hands on job because of the flood reconstruction.
LFW: How bad was the flood?
It could have been worse, another six inches and the distillery buildings would have been affected. The river rose and carried a huge tree down it, demolishing the banks and damaging the bridges; and the car park was washed away. Thanks to some very good contractors we were only fully closed for three days.
LFW: Who designs your packaging?
It’s all in house: me, Brian, Annette, Lorraine. I was always attracted by bright colours and always thought the industry avoided them—all dull greys, drab and dreary. I like bright yellows and blues, why shouldn’t we use them? Packaging is very important as many of our bottles are used as gifts or may be a very desirable bottling like our Kinclaith and then it is expected to be in a fancy pack—that’s a difficult line, some want simple, others extravagant. Now I have a source of tin tubes that is almost as cheap as cardboard so why not enhance the pack as best we can? Some Signatory fans tell me they have a garage full of tins and ask what can we do with them; I suppose that when we get our website visitors can post up imaginative uses for our tins!
Packaging is very important, it reflects quality. The packaging we do is expensive but enhances the value of the product and helps get the sale.
LFW: Who does your selling?
Most of the selling is done by myself and Brian. Recently we employed a finance man who is taking on the sales of Edradour. We sell to about 100 shops in the UK and for most of them it is a bottle of this and two of that. It is a lot more work to split a case but I believe it to be important. We are also represented in 27 countries and in many cases we have not changed our importer in 14 years; they are small independent, family companies who have grown with us and most have become friends. We find ourselves doing more and more trade shows. To begin with they were a novelty but now they are a chore—Germany will have four whisky fairs next year at which you will be meeting the same people! Too many are done just for the money.
LFW: Why did you want to buy a distillery?
It seemed like a nice idea. There's a magic to it; an industry that’s 100 years old, a lot of history, a great story, full of Scottishness, and a great product.
Our first attempt was to buy the old Caledonian grain distillery in the middle of Edinburgh, behind Haymarket station—a marvellous site. We thought it could have a little museum as well and we had Edinburgh City Council quite excited about it, it could have been a major tourism feature; if done properly it could have attracted 3-400,000 people per year. We would have tried to do small production of malt and grain. A very ambitious plan from two wee boys back in 1996! The problem was that UD already had plans to sell the huge 18 acre adjoining site to builders. I only wanted the original distillery building and maybe one acre round it, but the deal had gone so far down the line that they didn’t want to go back and could only offer me a foot round the building—no parking or anything else.
Then Ardbeg became available! I was told our offer of £5.25 million was second—though others say differently. That was an ambitious plan as well, and it went for over £7m to Glenmorangie who have done such a marvellous job there. We couldn’t have done anywhere near as well. To achieve what they have would have taken me twenty years and Ardbeg is better off with them. I would like to have had it, but they have done the place more justice.
Next, we nearly bought Glencadam on the East coast, a great but little known distillery, very well kept, interesting stills that keep going up and up and nice gardens. The spirit is not bad but it would have been quite difficult to sell enough as a single as it’s an unknown name. With a lot of money we probably could have worked magic with it. The only real problem is that it’s in Brechin! No one goes there any more—not now it has a by-pass.
We had got as far as agreeing a price, not too high and including a lot of good stock much of which had been re-racked into sherry casks. We figured would have been able to run it for about two or three months a year. However that was the point when Brian and I differed so strongly that he left the business. I realised I couldn’t run both on my own so it was dropped and mothballed a year later. With hindsight Brian did me a favour.
Then Glenturret, that got very close. It was on the cards but so was the Edrington Group’s plan to get Highland Distillers private again. My proposal was shelved after my two supporters became history for wanting to keep Highland public and then after a year the new Grouse Experience was conceived. That would have been a good site as well, I love Glenturret whisky! At that point I began to realise that if I was going to make my dream work, I needed a small production unit like Glenturret. I considered starting something from new which is risky but not impossible, just needs time and money, but to wait 10 years to see if you have a decent spirit was not really an option for me. I looked at Bruichladdich, but I couldn’t get the sums to stack up there, and it being on the island and me in Edinburgh. It is good that it has gone to people on the island and that they control it; I have high hopes for a great whisky.
So I kept looking, flicking through Jackson’s book and it kept falling on Edradour, the smallest of the lot.
Two years ago I badgered the managers at Campbell Distillers about it. They said ‘unlikely, we’ll ask, but don’t call us’. After six months it was known that they were to take on all of Seagram’s facilities; I reckoned then that Edradour would be surplus to their requirements but still had no word from them. I thought they must have forgotten and I just had to call again. This time I was told it probably would be available, and that my name was at the top of the list. I was getting some financial information back but nothing I could really work with. They were talking Ardbeg figures—but it’s not Ardbeg! I knew it was in perfect working condition with reasonable stocks, not too much—generally the right amount.
However at that time I had no idea that they had about 100,000 visitors each year!
Then, this March, I met Georges Nectoux, the new boss of Chivas, at Whisky Live in London. He told me that he had looked at my company and that he would like to take matters further. I was very calm but inside I was leaping about! I explained I was having difficulties making the figures stack up, and he suggested a meeting the next week in Glasgow. There we met, armed with lawyers as I was expecting a big row but we didn’t have to go that far. He said he would like to sell Edradour, to me and a price of £5.4m was soon agreed, including roughly 3m for stock. I was delighted!
LFW: Did they try to sell one of their newly acquired lesser distilleries like Braeval or Allt a Bhainne?
No, I think they are trying to keep everything going, not mothball anything. Edradour is a good visitor attraction, well run and a real commercial proposition. Visitors help the cash flow and profitability which is important because making whisky at Edradour is a lot more expensive than anywhere else. Being so small it doesn’t have the economy of scale; I can only do five mashes per week but still have to pay two people who could produce twice as much with bigger equipment. It’s in good condition, not over pushed and for seven years it has been a balanced distillation working well judging by the quality of spirit. It’s been chugging away for 44 weeks producing 90,000 litres of alcohol every year. I want to continue at that rate; it’s still a lot of spirit.
The stocks I have are sufficient for most years; they put aside enough for sales of the 10yo and the balance of production was used in the House of Lords blend.
As a result, I don’t have much older stock for vintage bottling but I plan to put 10-15% of future production away for older bottlings. Stocks from 1991 to 94 are especially tight.
LFW: Could you get more from the brokers?
Edradour spirit has not been not traded elsewhere, all was used in house. My production will not go into the trading market; I plan to keep it all for single malt sales. After all, I can’t have those damned independent bottlers making profit from my brand! Actually, I’d have no objection to someone else bottling my whisky, providing it was a good example of Edradour.
People delight in asking if my attitude to independent bottlings or bottlers has changed. No it hasn’t—it would be the pot calling the kettle black anyway. But it’s not a likelihood. I have the production book back to 1975 which reveals that all was kept in-house or sold to just two other companies who have advised me they have used it all up so there’s no opportunities for independent bottlings anyway.
LFW: Any variations, funny finishes?
It’s all going into sherry just now, we will fill our first bourbon barrel shortly and will try a balance between sherry, bourbon, a little port and maybe the odd rum cask, just to see what happens, nothing innovative but the beauty is that nothing has been done with Edradour yet—it is unique with a super spirit.
I want to make a peaty whisky and soon, we will spend three weeks producing about 45 hogsheads from malt peated to 50ppm phenols. As we only have two washbacks that peatiness will carry through for about two weeks after we return to normal. Apart from a few single casks we will be vatting that entire production to give an overall reduced level of peatiness. As yet I don’t have a name for it, but I think it will have a distinct name like Longrow or Ledaig.
LFW: And will you charge visitors?
I don’t have any plans to introduce charging, the tour will remain free. Fortunately we have a high spend in the shop which balances the cost of guides. Besides if we introduced charges and found it didn’t work it would be very difficult to go back—it’s too risky and unnecessary. If we get too busy and uncomfortable then maybe, but not at present.
Edradour will become the Home of Signatory and I feel the more enthusiastic whisky fan expects and deserves something extra so we will try and do more in the evenings for them, a more advanced course on tasting whisky, discussion of some of the Signatory closed distillery bottlings and new expressions of Edradour, a master class type thing. The old warehouse at the back is quite big; it used to store about 400 casks and that may become a malt whisky residential centre with rooms on top. Fans can also come and make whisky for a week. That warehouse is not big enough to mature all our make so all is matured off site.
LFW: But isn’t it better to mature locally?
Codswallop! I had 10 casks of 1967 Laphroaig, half of which were matured at the distillery and the rest on the mainland and there was no difference even at 27 years old. Coastal influence? Sea air…? Nonsense!
LFW: Any changes to the distillery itself?
The buildings are protected by Historic Scotland and there are no plans for changes to the distillery at all anyway.
LFW: How do you view the sudden upsurge in independent distillers?
If you want to stay in the industry then you have to become part of it and that may explain the increase in the number of distillery owners. In my case it is a way of securing my future and that makes sense for Gordon & MacPhail too. I can’t see independent bottlings going on forever and it gets harder to do interesting things such as closed distilleries or port wood finish Port Ellen for example. In time I see Signatory’s sales declining but now expect Edradour to fill that. Admittedly it has given me access to more stocks for bottling than before.
As the House of Lords brand is becoming separated from Edradour, I may introduce our own blend. I have a lovely old pub mirror advertising Old Killiecrankie whisky, so that is an option, Killiecrankie being just up the road.
LFW: Any reaction from the rest of the industry?
A lot of nice comments and letters of congratulations but I don’t think we are any threat to anyone. In two or three years we have the potential of 20,000 cases to sell and that is tiny compared with the big brands. The sale of Edradour is small and intriguing—it has caught peoples imaginations, it’s a good story.
LFW: Is it viable?
It can produce enough whisky to pay its way once we get the level of sales up. Without tourism it would have struggled. It will eat into Signatory’s earnings for a while because of the borrowings, but after four years I expect it will be viable and to stand on its own by year ten at which time the bank loan should be paid off.
LFW: Will you be bottling on site?
I have no plans to leave Edinburgh, although our bottling facility is (again) too small and we are going to have to re-arrange it to cope with increased production. Edinburgh is central, our staff are from there, there is no space to do it at Edradour—near Perth maybe one day, but not in the near future.
It’s great at a weekend to come up here, it’s an escape. I’m known as the ‘new laird’ locally, I love that!
LFW: Desert Island dram?
I’m a great fan of sherry cask whisky. I like my 1976 Glenlivet and Glen Grant at cask strength, and my 1990 unchilfiltered Glenrothes. Yes, I do put water in my whisky, at cask strength about 50:50; all the flavours are locked in with cask strength but you don’t have to drink it at that strength.
I didn’t drink Edradour before but I have become very partial to it especially my new unchillfiltered. It’s quite heavily sherried and I have been drinking a lot of it to get acquainted! Of the other producers I particularly like Ardbeg and Springbank.
