The foundation for The Signature is ten years of waiting for a first that could never be rushed. This is our first single malt whisky - a landmark for Arbikie, and proof that a philosophy built on rye and field-to-bottle provenance holds just as true for malt. From field to bottle, every stage happened on our own farm at Arbikie. The barley we grew, the water that surrounds us, and the casks we chose all shape the character of this whisky, giving it a sense of place no bought-in spirit could ever claim.
Producing it meant waiting for something we couldn't rush. Odyssey barley sown on our own MB01 "Blue Bear" field in 2015, grown slowly through a cool, damp east-coast summer, then malted just eight miles away and distilled here at Arbikie in May 2016. Nothing about this whisky started anywhere but home.
Choosing how it would mature was one of the most consequential decisions our distilling team has made. Six ex-bourbon casks were filled in May 2016 and left to rest for a full decade in a traditional south-facing dunnage warehouse — not accelerated, not intervened with, just given the time a first single malt deserves. It is unhurried work, trusting a cask and a warehouse to do what a decade alone can achieve.
We proudly bottle this whisky as a single malt, aged ten years, at 48% ABV - meaning every part of it, from the barley in the ground to the spirit in your glass, was grown, distilled, matured and bottled in its entirety on the Arbikie estate. Just 1,000 bottles exist. Ten years in the making, and worth every one of them.
