Scotch Review #77: Signatory Vintage Un-Chillfiltered Edradour 10 Year (2004)
Distillery: Edradour
Region: Highland
ABV: 46%
Age: 10 Year, Distilled in 2004
Cask No.: 406
Price: $6 for a 3 oz sample
Color: 1.4, Tawny. Natural Color & Not Chill-Filtered
Nose: (According to the wife) Rich “luxurious” wood. Specifically, the smell of the wood that you find in some extremely fancy, high end luxury clothing store. Strange.
Palate: Incredibly bitter and over-oaked. There is nothing in this but far, far, far too much oak spice/wood. You cannot taste anything else.
Finish: Dry and short. Sawdust and more wood. Blech.
Conclusion: When my wife was smelling this one, I honestly was wondering what she was going on about with all of the wood descriptions. This dram, however, has gone so far over-oaked that it’s honestly undrinkable. It’s probably just a bad sample but man it was awful. I don’t usually pour out whisky no matter how much I dislike it but this one went straight into the drain. Would I buy a bottle? Not even if it was the last bottle of Scotch on the planet (well, I might just to resell it to some sucker if that was the case but you get the point…).
Scotch whisky review #77, Highland review #20, Whisky Network Review #101
Final Score: 20.
Scoring Legend:
- 96-100: The perfect dram, nectar of the gods.
- 90-95: Near perfect, there is something truly special about this whisky.
- 85-89: Amazing, will always try to keep a bottle of this in my collection (if feasible).
- 80-84: Very Good, maybe only one minor nitpick about the whisky keeping it here.
- 75-79: Good, quite enjoyable to drink.
- 70-74: Solid, wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.
- 60-69: Meh, still drinkable.
- Below 59: If you have a bottle of this, start cooking with it instead.
Scotch & Sheen 
I have a newer bottle and it is fantastic. I think you got a bad barrel/bottle. Edradour only has 2 people making 12 casks a week so there is probably a lot of variability. I got it in the last few months and it is great so I hope maybe you can try it again someday. Slainte!
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Which bottling did you get? One of the official Edradour ones or an IB?
I’ve got a few samples of Edradour to work through one of these days. Like you say, it probably is just a bad barrel/bottle!
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I got the Edradour 10 Year Old 2008 (Cask #359) – Signatory Un-Chillfiltered. It is so good that I also got but have not tried the same with cask #277. It has good reviews by others.
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I came back to tell you that the Edradour varies tremendously. I got another 10-year Signatory and it was not nearly as good. Very bitter finish. This whisky being a single barrel means it really depends on the barrel that you are getting a bottle from. However, the good barrels are really amazing IMHO.
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Thanks for swinging by and letting me know! Surprised at the large swings in variation from such a small distillery. Maybe its because they only sell off their really weird casks? Who knows!
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