Editor: This the full transcript of our interview with Sukhinder Singh, the MD of Elixir Distillers and co-founder of The Whisky Exchange. Click here to read the written profile feature of this interview!

 

(Source: Christie's)

 

[88 Bamboo]: Hi Sukhinder, we at 88 Bamboo have been huge admirers of the work you’ve done since founding The Whisky Exchange, and we are also fans of Elixir’s bottlings! Thank you so much for agreeing to an interview with us!

Your authority in the drinks trade comes from having been present and hands-on through the modern eras of whisky. So we wanted this conversation to be both personal and practical – from the early days that shaped your instincts and taste, what led you to place the famous bets you made, and your recent work at Elixir Distillers which suggests you are building an ecosystem that can answer several futures at once.

Back when we met at La Maison du Whisky in Singapore, you very generously shared with us a pour of a 50-year-old Karuizawa. Thanks so much for the opportunity to experience that!

[Sukhinder Singh]: Absolute pleasure. I'm a little frustrated with Karuizawa – not with Karuizawa, but with people's perception of Karuizawa – because it is a really good distillery, it has some amazing whisky though like every distillery: you have good casks and bad casks. A lot of companies took advantage and there was a lot of re-bottling and changing of strengths, and it actually spoiled it a little bit because people lost faith and lost trust, which really upsets me. Because when it's good, it's so good. It's a different level. It's so unique. There is no other malt that tastes anything like Karuizawa. It has that depth and complexity and that lovely wood spice, which is very reminiscent of Japanese whisky. So for me, I just want to bring the love back to Karuizawa because it upsets me.

 

[88B]: You and your brother Rajbir are perhaps the most well-known retailers of premium whiskies and spirits in the world, and you’ve also moved into creating your own brands, blending and distilling.

But we understand that your parents ran the first Asian-owned liquor store in the UK called the ‘The Nest’ in London. And in your early days, your close relationship with your parents, and your time helping your parents out, was pivotal in igniting your passion for whisky.

Could you tell us about any memorable experiences helping out at your parents’ store and working with your parents? What were your early impressions of your parents running a liquor store?

[Sukhinder Singh]: It was really interesting growing up as children. My parents started when I was only three or four years old, so very young. But you still have memories because it was a playground – parents were working in the shops, and we were there even as kids. Different shaped bottles, cans, different colours – it was interesting.

What I remember most is the profile of customer that came who bought vodka or gin or cognac or rum or whisky. It was slightly different. The crossover was actually quite narrow. Today, people are much more open to drinking all dark spirits. But in the old days, a cognac drinker was a cognac drinker and a whisky drinker was a whisky drinker. And what I found was there was actually very little loyalty. But the thing is, you didn't need loyalty because there were not many brands, if you see what I mean.

I remember that we probably had more blended whisky brands than we did single malt brands, which was interesting. We had Bells, Teachers, Famous Grouse, Vat69, White Horse, Haig, Whyte & Mackay, Claymore, so many others. Really, our number one seller in spirits was definitely blended whisky. We sold dozens of cases a day of blended whisky.

What probably interested me or really grabbed my attention from a very early age was the type of person that came to buy single malt. Our single malts were on the top shelf, right up high. You had to get a ladder to go and get them. We wouldn't sell that much – maybe one bottle or two bottles a week, four or five in a week was a good week. My father would sometimes ask me to get the ladder and get that bottle. So I got to know customers, when I was working during holidays and all that, and the type of customer.

I remember one customer who used to come literally every two weeks to buy a bottle of single malt. I remembered what he bought last time, so I asked him if he'd like the same as last time. But he said no, he'd like something different. He told me that what's special about single malt is that they're all different – to experience the different flavours. That really resonated with me and captured me from a very young age. I didn't understand it because I wasn't drinking, I was not even 18, but it just resonated with me.

So later I started collecting miniatures, and eventually, because of what I learned, I gravitated towards single malt whisky miniatures. I got rid of everything else. I ended up buying a very large collection, completely by accident. I don't know how I got it, but I ended up getting it. When I was probably around 18 years of age, I bought probably the largest miniature collection that existed – 8,000 miniatures. And when I bought that, it was too much. Too much to keep, too much to manage. But what I realized was it was only 400 single malts. And I was like, that's perfect. So I sold the other 7,500 miniatures over the next two years and just kept the single malts. The money I made from selling the others, I carried on buying single malts. I amassed about 6,000 different single malt miniatures at one point.

Near the end, probably late 1980s, around 1988, I started collecting big bottles. Again, it was purely accidental. It was on my mind that I wanted to, but I had made my decision that I would only collect one bottle from each distillery, because the old miniatures were special – couldn't be replaced, really impossible to get. I felt that to buy just a normal bottle of single malt – I could pick a dozen of them from the shelf – that was boring.

So I decided that even if I bought one bottle a year, I was happy because I was a young guy. But I just wanted something special. Already I was doing a lot of research. I knew a few people were collecting bottles. I started learning about the history of the distilleries – that many distilleries closed in the early 1900s because there was a recession around the time of World War I and then World War II, and then nothing happened.

The first malt distillery to be built in the 1900s after World War II was actually Tormore in 1959, which we ended up buying later. So not much happened in the 1900s in terms of whisky.

When I went to Scotland to buy a miniature collection from a gentleman – took me 10 minutes. I knew all the miniatures. I actually just needed four or five, but I had to buy the whole collection to get those five. Doesn't matter – the rest I can sell. I might make a little profit, and then I can buy more miniatures.

I finished the deal, but I noticed the gentleman had one bottle sitting in a cupboard, and it looked very old. Then I asked if I could have a look at what he had in the cupboard. It was something called Kirkliston Pure Malt. I asked what it was. (Editor’s Note: A major producer in the late 1800s that co-founded the powerful whisky group Distillers Company Limited- the precursor of Diageo - Kirkliston became a silent distillery when it closed in 1920.) He said it was a distillery which used to be up the road, which closed in the early 1900s.

I thought, oh my god, this is amazing. It's a lost distillery. The bottle was from, I would say, around 1900, between 1900 and 1910. I don't think it was any later, personally. I asked if he would sell it to me. He said no.

It took me an hour to convince him to sell me that bottle, but I got it in the end. I paid a lot of money. Around 1988, I paid £700 for that bottle, which was a lot of money. But I've never seen another one since, apart from a fake. So that was the start of my journey – I've got a lost distillery. I'm happy. I'll wait, I'll take my time. That's how it started for me. Nothing super exciting happened in the '80s. I started, as I said, around 1987, 1988, collecting bottles. There was some interesting stuff before, but I missed it and it probably wasn't a big deal.

Then in 1993, Black Bowmore was launched. It was so different. Nothing had been launched that looked like it, that was packaged like it, that was as dark as that. You never saw whiskies that dark. In independent bottles, yes, but there weren't many. From a distiller, very rare to find. Of course, Bowmore did a 1964 Vintage, which is really dark, but not as dark as this. This was black but everything was right – the name, the packaging, the liquid. I managed to try it and it blew my mind – it was like nothing I'd ever tried before.

For me that's when things changed. Even though it didn't fit into my collecting profile – for five years I was just one from each distillery – in 1993 when Black Bowmore was launched I said to myself, I have to have a bottle of this. This is so beautiful. This is so amazing. And then the next year I bought the second one and the third year I bought the third one.

But remember, at the same time, because we had a retail operation – my parents – we were buying these bottles. I was buying two or three cases to sell in the shop. And at this time, because I had started collecting in 1988, I made a bunch of connections. Honestly, I don't know how I found them – they found me. There was no email. There was no fax – probably just before the fax machine. Everything was by letter. I received letters from people saying, "I believe you are a collector. I am looking for this bottle. Can you help?"

How did you find me? But word just got around that there's this crazy young Indian guy whose parents have a business, and he's collecting miniatures and bottles. So for me the business side became a part of it. I grew it into my parents' business. Anything new that came which was really interesting or good liquid, I would always try it because in those days companies were happy to get me a sample. And I would say, that's really nice. I would then offer it to the relevant people who I felt would be possibly interested.

The important thing is that today you're talking about 30, 40 different single malt new releases a month, maybe more – maybe a hundred a month. In those days, you would be lucky if there was one a month! It was just the standard range. Only once in a while would a company launch something special because they had an old vintage or an old age statement. They would say, let's create a small batch. Hopefully it'll sell. But they had to work very hard to sell it. These products would last two or three years before they sold out. It wasn't the case that they would launch them and they would sell out overnight.

The first product to have sold out overnight was Black Bowmore. Before this nothing had been done, and then 1993 was for me really the start of that whisky journey where people started taking a little bit more interest. The interesting thing was we managed to buy 24 bottles of Black Bowmore to sell in the shop.

When we sold out – I sold them all very quickly – I went back to the supplier. They had none left. Then I went to shops and started buying back from shops. I bought over a hundred bottles in those days because the demand I had was so high, people wanted it.

The biggest collectors of that era were Italians, huge. You've heard of how much old stuff is sitting in Italy, and the first big collectors I ever met were all Italian. There must have been dozens of them, dozens. Everything I could find, I had a huge market in Italy, I had a small market in the Netherlands, I had a small market in Germany, and then I had a small market in Japan – not many, just a handful of people. And for me, that was enough. Even Belgium, a little bit, Switzerland, a little bit, just a few, but it was enough, because some of them would say they've got friends and ask for six bottles, or twelve bottles.

That's really how it started for me. That was really the first most interesting product, which was so revolutionary that all the other distillers said, wow, that was genius.

They launched something and it sold out within days – 2,000 bottles sold out within days. That was unheard of in those days, completely unheard of. So from that, everything just really evolved. Then over time, more companies started launching.

For me at that time, I was doing a lot with independent bottlers. A bit with Signatory Vintage, a bit with Cadenhead’s and a bit with Gordon & MacPhail. Those were the three big guys. I was also buying for myself from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. The stuff they launched back in the '80s, early '90s is legendary. People have no idea how good that liquid was. And remember, everything that the Scotch Malt Whisky Society bottled really came directly from distillers. They weren't buying from other brokers or independent bottlers. They were buying direct from distillers.

All the Springbanks came direct from the distillery. All the Glenfarclas came direct from the distillery. All the Bowmore came direct from the distillery. So they had access to really good stock and everything was just magic and mind-blowing.

I learned a lot through that. I started going to Scotland to learn. Because remember, there was nothing in London. There was nothing in the UK. There were no whisky clubs. There was one whisky shop – two, sorry. There was Milroy's, which was the original and the first. And John Milroy became a dear friend, and he became like my uncle. I used to go in, and he used to call me “Sukhinder, son”. Just so polite, so lovely. He took me under his wing. He really treated me like a son.

It happened the first time I walked into Milroy's. I didn't expect to meet him. I just went to see the shop, to see what they had that was interesting because they had some old bits and pieces – he used to buy. He was for me the first dealer. As well as selling single malts, he would also buy a little bit of old stuff and he would have about a dozen old bottles. When he would sell those, he would buy another dozen and sell those, then buy another dozen. So for me, it was really interesting to go and see him, but we became such dear friends – and the whole team – that when they had customers looking for “old and rare” bottles, they would phone me and ask if I could get this or that.

I would have everything because as well as collecting for myself, I started traveling. I started advertising. I started traveling around Scotland and I knew every distillery manager in Scotland. Nobody would visit these distilleries. They didn't have visitor centres. There were literally four or five visitor centres in Scotland in the late '80s, early '90s.

Most of them were closed to the public, but I would knock on the door and they'd welcome me. Or I would get a contact from another distillery – I'd ask if they knew someone at another place, and they'd say yes, they'd give them a call, and I could go and they'd show me around. Honestly, I used to turn up sometimes at six in the evening because I was passing through. I'd ask if there was any chance to have a look around. And even if the distillery manager wasn't there, the team would say yes, they'd show me around. It was amazing. It was the most amazing time to learn.

I would go to Scotland two or three times a year. I would stay for four or five days. I would buy stuff. I would travel all around visiting people, I would advertise. And because I knew all these distillery workers – they were given free bottles at anniversaries and special occasions – when they were selling their bottles, they would phone me. And they would tell all their friends. One friend would tell the other friend would tell the other friend. If you saw how much stuff I bought over like 10 years, it's insane. You would not believe – half the distillery managers in Scotland sold their private collections to me. Some of them had amazing old, old, old bottles. But they would tell me that I was the only person who understands “old and rare”, who understands whisky and is passionate. So why would they sell it to anyone else? It was just so amazing.

I knew everyone in Scotland. But going back to that, it was actually a very lonely place for me. I had no one to share my passion.

I could write a letter – later the fax machine came and I could send messages – but there was nobody I knew in London who was interested in whisky.

Only in Scotland – I could stand in the Cadenhead shop. Cadenhead shop opened in Edinburgh, I think it was 1988 or 1989, and I went in the shop just as it opened. The manager became a good friend. He was also new to whisky and very passionate. He wanted to learn, so he would teach me everything about independent bottlings and he would tell me what was really good from Cadenhead's, but he wanted to know what was happening in the rest of the industry. Because he had no idea. So we would speak three or four times a week – 1988, 1989 – to share interesting conversations about our passions. He would tell me when something amazing had just arrived – an amazing sherry cask, or an amazing bourbon cask. I'd ask him to keep me one bottle, or two bottles.

All that stuff was so good. Because if it was in 1988 and it was 15 years old, it was from the early '70s. It was early '70s distillate. And if it was 20 plus years old, it was '60s distillate. So all that stuff was just amazing. You couldn't go wrong. I handpicked a lot, but I wanted to try different things. I wanted to learn about lost distilleries. I wanted to learn about anything that was interesting. One of the first distilleries I fell in love with was Linkwood. Linkwood distillery. It just worked. Whether I tried a bourbon cask or a sherry cask in those days, it was just magical. So good. Of course, Springbank was amazing. Many distilleries.

 

[88B]: I’m seeing a picture where everyone would sell you their special bottlings because they recognised that only you, Sukhinder, would truly appreciate and understand how significant these bottles were, and that you were one of the few who understood what it means to be truly passionate about whisky and spirits.

It seems like these people were on to something – you would later come to found a key channel that popularised brands like Tanqueray gin and Monkey Shoulder, being an early pioneer of the direct-to-consumer online retailing channel, having started TheWhiskyExchange.com in 1999 (without any bricks-and-mortar store at the start).

Looking back, when the concept was still untested for the liquor business, how did it dawn upon you that the right way forward was to register a website and have an online whisky store for consumers? Was there a lightbulb moment that made you realise you should start with a website instead of a physical store?

[Sukhinder Singh]: It's a mix. I don't think you can say everything was planned. I would say we did everything correctly. We used common sense. We did everything we knew, but the most important thing, which people forget today – everything for us from day one, even till today, is about one thing: liquid, liquid and liquid. Everyone is obsessed with names – distillery names, or sherry cask, or cask strength – it doesn't matter. Because every cask is different. You'll get good, you'll get bad.

When I started The Whisky Exchange – what happened was, parents retired, we sold the business, The Nest, because it was getting really hard and competitive, and I agreed with my brother that we would open a whisky business because my passion was there. I said let's try it for a year. If it works and we seem to be doing okay, we will continue. If it doesn't work, we'll stop and get a proper job or something like that.

Initially we were trying to buy a shop in London and we nearly bought Milroy's. John Milroy, being such a dear friend, unfortunately had lost the business – he had sold it to someone else. And he always used to say to me, I want you to take that business over. It's the same thing – I was the only person who cared and really understood it. He wanted me so badly to buy his business from the new owner who wanted to sell it. So we nearly bought it, but there was some funny stuff going on and we pulled out at the last minute.

Then one of my brother's friends who studied computer science at university with him asked why we didn't build a website. We said building a website is really expensive. Because we were reading in the papers that these new companies were starting off and raising a million pounds to build a website. We thought, this is crazy, we can't afford that. But he said he would build us a website for £10,000! We couldn't believe it. He said it was easy – he could get the package, do the design, put it live, and we'd get the products up. It was a lot easier than I thought, but he set it up really well. It took him probably about four or five months to do everything and get everything set up because he was doing it part-time for us. And that was it.

Once it was all set up, we started. Now, what really scared me was: how will people find us? How the heck will people find us? *laughs* And you wouldn't believe me, on the second day of going live, we got our first order. For us, it was incredible – oh my god, we've got an order. The first order was from Germany – had to be. It was such an advanced whisky market, you would not believe me. For me, Italy was more of a collector's market than a drinker's market. Germany was a diehard drinker's market. Netherlands to a certain extent, Belgium to a certain extent. Those for me were really good markets. And Japan. You know, you find old bottles, a single malt from Japan, which were imported into Japan, whether they're distillery or independent. But you understand – for me, these few markets were way ahead of everything. America, a little bit. And that's how it started.

Initially, we did only whisky. Then after one or two years, we decided actually nobody is doing a good job on mixed spirits. Mixed spirits – well, we worked in the industry 20 plus years, so let's bring mixed spirits back in. And so we did that as well.

What you have to remember is when we started The Whisky Exchange in 1999, that was also the start of Douglas Laing. It was the start of Duncan Taylor. You could say, of their time, the most important independent bottlers. But they were good because they had access to stock that other people didn't. That's all that happened. And they bottled the most amazing stuff – Bowmore 1966s and Ardbeg 1972s and Broras and Port Ellens and Glen Grants and Glenlivet. It was all ‘60s, early ‘70s. The stuff was just magic, and it just kept coming.

We were buying close to 40, 50% of everything they bottled because we were the leading outlet. It was one of those things. We were just buying and buying. You could argue they needed us to a certain extent. They needed us, we needed them. We helped them grow and they helped us grow. They didn't understand anything about export. They didn't have export markets for some of these companies. I actually opened about four or five export markets for them, because I was already exporting a little bit myself. I helped all of these guys, all the new independent bottlers. When Compass Box and Amrut Single Malt Indian Whisky launched, we were their first customer.

You're very right in saying – when new brands, new products were launched from distilleries, today you would say, oh my God, it's a big brand. Back then, they were nothing. Nobody would buy them. We're the ones that pushed them. For example, Aberlour A'bunadh, Auchentoshan Three Wood – which were very big then. They were so good in the early days.

And we pushed and pushed.

Even blended whiskies – some of the old blended whiskies were so good. I remember Cutty Sark, 25-year-old, rich and sherried, amazing! And it was good because I know what went into it – it belonged to Berry Brothers. Berry Brothers in the old days were sitting on old casks of Glen Grant and Glenlivet from the '60s and '70s. And that's what they blended into Cutty Sark 25. Of course, it's going to be good! And most of it, it wouldn't surprise me if it's 50% malt, 50% grain. It's so rich. It's literally drinking a malt. So when you know what goes in stuff, you try it, you taste it, you use common sense and recognise this is too good value for money, this is amazing! And we pushed, and there was no one doing it.

We catered to everyone. I think we were very unique because I was collecting whisky, new and old. I called it The Whisky Exchange purely for that reason. I wanted to buy and sell whisky. I wanted to do “old and rare”. But that wasn't enough – it was boring. I also wanted to do new whisky because that's where a lot of exciting stuff was really happening. So for me, the “old and rare” was more of a hobby, but we were very good at it.

The day-to-day business was the most interesting part – finding good single casks from Signatory, from Hart Brothers, from Douglas Laing, from Gordon & MacPhail, and small independent bottlers. When small independent bottlers started, we were one of the first customers. When Whisky Agency started, I was one of his first customers because he's a good friend, Carsten Ehrlich, a very good friend. I've known him since he was a kid. He was about 18 or 19 years old when he started, into whisky, and it was just incredible. In the same way, so many other people started off as retailers and bottlers, or collectors and then bottlers – it was just the most amazing time.

We launched, as you said earlier, Monkey Shoulder, and we launched Hendrick's – both William Grant's products. They came to us and said their strategy was purely on-trade. They were doing well in on-trade, but people kept asking where they could buy it. They said they just wanted to work with one retailer who could do national reach – and they wanted to work with us. So we had a two-year exclusive on Monkey Shoulder and a two-year exclusive on Hendrick's when they launched, but we sold it to the right people at the price they wanted us to sell. And that was it – simple. So many other products. Johnnie Walker Blue when it was launched, Ron Zacapa Rum, Diplomático Rum, Tanqueray 10. Honestly, I can go on and on.

 

[88B]: Japanese whisky as well, so I heard.

[Sukhinder Singh]: Suntory – we were very close with Morrison Bowmore in those days. This was a time when Suntory was only a minority shareholder in Morrison Bowmore. And they decided finally, once they perfected their whiskies and they started tasting good, they wanted to launch in the UK. Nowhere else in the world. The first country in the world to launch outside Japan was the UK.

So again, they came to us. I knew some of the senior team and they said they liked what we do and asked if we could help them launch. Honestly, I came up with the simplest plan and they were so good because they supported me. They listened and they supported me. I explained to them that at the moment, nobody will buy a bottle of Japanese whisky because everyone's obsessed with Scotch and they would never think of Japan for whisky. So I need to get liquid to lips. They need to try it. But because we're a mail order company, it's difficult to do that. We had one shop, which was fine in Vinopolis, but I asked if they had miniatures. They said yes, they could get me miniatures. I said I would put a miniature and a flyer in every single order of single malt whisky over a certain value. They thought it was brilliant. They gave me 2,000 miniatures of Yamazaki 12-year-old. It lasted me probably about four or five months, that stock.

And after that, one in every four or five orders would include a bottle of Japanese whisky. Because in those days, people were interested to learn. Not much was happening. So when they got the sample, they wanted to drink it. Today people just keep it and put it in the cupboard. Back then, everybody wanted to learn. It was such an exciting time – I would say 80% to 90% of people probably opened that just for interest and said, shit, that's not bad. And bought it.

In those days, the price was also sensible – expensive, but not crazy like today. So from memory – this would have been about 15, 16, 17 years ago – a Scotch single malt was probably £25 to £30 a bottle. A Yamazaki was probably about £55, so just about double the price. Today, a Scotch single malt is about £40 to £50. A Yamazaki is £150. It's three times the price. You see the difference!

They managed to do it. They managed to make it a success. So it worked. It was such a great time. We launched so many mixed spirit brands, so many whisky brands, bourbon brands – you name it.

 

[88B]: One of the most hotly anticipated new distilleries in Scotland has been your new Portintruan Distillery which is expected to begin distilling in 2026. We also understand that you love old-style whisky which is one of the inspirations for Portintruan.

Everyone knows just how great some of the legendary old whiskies of yesteryear were. As a whisky expert, what do you think is the elusive secret to recreating something close to old-style whisky? How possible is it for the modern whisky industry to realise this within our lifetimes?

[Sukhinder Singh]: I think there is an element which does scare me. It scares me that the consumer has changed. There are two or three types of consumers. There's a consumer who's been drinking whisky for 20 plus years. There's a consumer who's been drinking whisky for 10 to 20 years, and there's a consumer who's come in in the last 5 to 10 years.

The consumers who've come in the last 5 to 10 years have been brought up in a very different way. A lot of new style of whisky, a lot of micro distilleries or new style distilleries, the new style of sherry cask, which is very different from the old style of sherry cask. So for them, this is normal. They don't know or understand what old whisky tastes like. They're just buying single malt from a supermarket or a retail shop today because they think it's more premium than blended whisky.

The one in the middle has possibly crossed over, maybe an element of both, maybe a bit more open to understanding.

And then there's the old style of consumer who actually doesn't like a lot of the new style whiskies.

Now, one big misconception is everyone thinks old is better than new. I completely disagree, because there are some amazing new whiskies. Seriously, what you have to remember is that quality control today is much better than in the old days. It's easier to find consistently good whiskies today than in the old days. Even in the old days, you open some old bottles and they're not brilliant. So don't just think every single “old and rare” whisky is good. It does not mean that. Some of them are just boring and unpleasant.

I started Portintruan Distillery when I was still a retailer, because so much product was coming on the market, it upset me. I couldn't keep up or try everything. Independent bottlers were bottling the same thing because they're buying all from the same source. So everyone is bottling, say, Ben Nevis 8-year-old. One person is selling for £50. The other selling for £80 – nothing makes sense. And a lot of people don't understand what good whisky means or how to do good cask selection. Because if they're offered two casks, they get excited and think, my God, I've been offered two casks of Ben Nevis, I'll buy them. Not knowing how they compare against what Ben Nevis should taste like.

What I always say is, to be a good independent bottler, you need stock. You need to nurture stock, you need to know what type of wood it's in, and it takes a long time. We're now over 15 years into doing our own fillings at many distilleries, and we filled what I would call really lovely quality wood. We can taste it now when we're bottling stuff. Everything we're bottling at the moment, for me, regardless of distillery, is pretty damn good and top-notch. I'm very open. I always like to try stuff from everyone, because I'm just looking for the next nice whisky, the next “old and rare”. What people forget is that old whisky is getting so expensive that it's out of reach of a lot of people.

So there are so many good bottlings today. A lot of bad bottlings as well, but there are a handful of really good bottlings today, which are logically the next “old and rare” of the future. Not just because it's a Clynelish, because again, not every Clynelish is that good. Generally good, but you can still get good and bad. But you can find – as I said, we've been bottling Linkwood, beautiful. We've been bottling Benrinnes, Blair Athol – beautiful – Glenlossie. There's so many different distilleries, and as long as they’re distilling good spirit – we monitor that – if we like it, we buy it. And if we can put it into really good wood, the right wood, you will end up with something really good, especially with good cask selection. The other ones you can put into small batches and create something much better than the individual components.

I really love 48% ABV – what we're bottling at the moment in small batch. It's so easy drinking. I can just sit there, drink and drink and drink, and it puts a smile on my face because they're just so balanced, quite flavourful, and that's a strength where you don't have to think about them. Sometimes you take cask strength and then you have to add water because they're too spicy or too hot because they're young whiskies. So that's really important.

When you're talking about what makes a good whisky, the biggest difference I find in “old and rare” whisky is flavour and texture. It's just richer. All my research shows that there are two or three elements which can help produce a very good spirit, a flavourful spirit.

One is direct fire, and I always explain it like cooking. You're cooking on gas or you're cooking on induction. They both do the same thing. But you know yourself, by cooking on gas, you ask any chef, they will say, I prefer to cook on gas because I can just get extra flavour. I can caramelize my onions better. It's the same thing with whisky production. When you're heating the still, by heating using direct fire, you create an element of caramelization. As long as it's not too much, because it can spoil it – just get it right – you create extra richness and texture. That for me is super important.

Secondly – well, before that – flavour creation is all through fermentation. You have to try the right barley that works in your environment. What people think is, just because people say this barley is the best, they just say, OK, I'm going to use that. Not necessarily, because some barleys work better in your environment of your still setup and your production setup than others. It's really interesting.

Those elements are what I call the micro-environment, the environment around your distillery – it's unique to you. That's why every distillery is different. You can take all my equipment to a different part of Scotland and set it up – it will be different. You can try your best, but there will be certain elements. Pipe runs, the length of pipe runs, the length of the lyne arm – all little things like that will make a difference. It's how the spirit is transferred from distillation to the tank. All these little elements just change everything. They genuinely do.

I've seen it in food as well. Cheese producers – I remember a beautiful story, a documentary I saw of a family who were doing legendary cheese and they cleaned the whole place and thought, okay, we changed this, changed that – and it completely changed the cheese. They were so upset. They went back after six months or one year. They realised they had to get rid of all this because their cheese didn't taste as good anymore. And they didn't change anything apart from clean it up and make it just a little bit more efficient. But it changed it. So they said, this is rubbish, we have to reverse this.

It all comes down to choosing the right barley variety, yeast. We're using two yeasts, brewer's and distiller's. What proportion works for you, for the style you're trying to create – that's experience or experimentation to get it right.

One other element for me is floor maltings. You get a different style of dryness, crispness to the malt. The big difference is when you're malting the barley on an industrial scale, you're using what's called drum maltings. The barley is floating about in these massive drums and the heat and the peating or the malting or the drying is very equal. Whereas on a floor you have heat build-up on the bottom, less on the top. Then you have to turn it. So it's drying in a very different way than drum maltings.

Drum maltings 100% for sure is more consistent. So if you're looking for the most consistent product possible, it's probably better. Floor maltings is challenging. You can have a bit of up and down because the heat build-up in the summer is going to be very different to the heat build-up in the winter, the spring to the autumn, because the outside temperature, the temperature on your floor, the temperature in your wall is very different. So when we are doing floor maltings, when you turn the barley in the summer will be different to when you do it in the winter. This is all learning. And you know what? Sometimes you get it wrong. But sometimes these imperfections can create masterpieces.

 

[88B]: As a whisky maker, I imagine it must be difficult to accurately document the specificities of the way you turn your malt in a floor malting room for each vintage?

[Sukhinder Singh]: You're correct. But I know somebody – I'm not going to say who, a big distiller – someone I really respect, who spent 15 years doing research on this. Their research, which came after I did what I did, confirmed my approach. He asked what I was doing. I said floor maltings, direct fire, long fermentation, double yeast, and cooling jackets on my lyne arm so I can create different types of flavours. He said fantastic, well done – if they had to do their distilleries again, they would do the same. And they've done it with one distillery. They've literally taken one of their distilleries, taken it apart and rebuilt it with floor maltings and direct fire.

Their research made me so happy that I got everything right. I didn't do formal research, I used common sense to say why I like these whiskies. The thing is, you can also try some of these elements in modern-day whiskies, because remember, Bowmore still does an element of floor malting, Laphroaig still does an element of floor maltings. When you try the 100% floor maltings versus the mix, for me, the difference is quite big. Really quite big. They're not doing direct fire, but for me that would give you an extra element as well.

These are practical things. We still have a lot to learn. We have a lot to do. We have a good team, but it's going to take time to balance everything, get everything right. What is the perfect heating temperature? What is the perfect fermentation time for each style of spirit that we want to produce?

 

[88B]: This year, you’ve launched an exciting new lineup of whiskies and rums under The Elixir Trails, with whisky from Japan’s Chichibu, Denmark’s Thy Distillery, England’s White Peak and Washington’s Westland. You’ve written about how some of the most exciting spirits today are being made well beyond the traditional ‘Old World’ whisky countries, and how distilleries are making whiskies and rums of real quality and character, but without the benefit of the marketing machinery of more established companies. And with the Whisky Trails and Rum Trails now expanding, alongside hints of a future Brandy or even Sherry Trail, it feels like you’re increasingly interested in championing overlooked producers rather than reinforcing familiar hierarchies.

Drawing from your keen eye to spot potential early – with Karuizawa, Chichibu and Black Tot – what in your view are some of the most exciting but underappreciated distilleries around the world, that you believe deserve far more recognition than they currently receive? And how does Elixir Trails reflect the way you now think about discovery, value and which “hidden gems” serious drinkers should be looking at next?

[Sukhinder Singh]: It’s exactly as you’ve said. There are some really good distilleries out there. Unfortunately, they're lost. It's too difficult to keep up. As I said, I'm a person who's been doing whisky a long time. I can't keep up with what's happening in the world. To keep up with just what's happening in Scotland and England is a big task.

So I use like-minded friends who have been with me for many, many years who are still interested. A lot of them are very quiet. They just do it purely for love and no other reason. They will try when they get an opportunity and they'll message me saying they were really impressed by something. And I'll say I've heard about it. If two, three people say the same to you, you can then say, I want to try this, I want to learn about this. So that's really what happens.

It's not easy. There's a lot of distilleries which are producing some average stuff and some really good stuff. So then it's all about cask selection, like everything. There's some really nice Irish distilleries who are doing some good stuff, but some of it is actually very expensive. Even Thy Distillery from Denmark – we bottle them – it's four-year-old whisky at £125. It's a lot of money, but their production is so small, their cost of goods is high – everything they do, they're trying to do it properly. They're not cutting corners. So for them to maintain their business, that's what they have to charge. But I like what they do. I really like what they do.

There's a few new Japanese distilleries doing the same. There's a handful of French distilleries which are doing the same. I usually find the early ones are the best. Usually, not always, but usually the best. Even in England, there's a distillery called The English Whisky Company. They used to be called St. George's and they changed the name because it was registered to someone else. Honestly, they have some really good old liquid, really good. They've done some nice experiments.

So there are some good places, and I think it's just finding them. Some of them are bottling in so many different wood types. Some of them work, some of them don't. A lot of people are using STR – shave, toast, rechar. For me, it's a love-hate cask. It's not my favourite cask, personally. But occasionally, with the right spirit, it can work really well. To use wine is so difficult. Wine cask, very difficult. And again, when you try Chichibu, sometimes really good and sometimes not so good.

So it's cask selection. It's really about cask selection. You cannot say every Chichibu is good. But as a standard, it's good. Remember, even Ichiro-san took his learnings from the first distillery, and when he built Chichibu Distillery II, he decided what would make his whisky better. So what's he done? He's gone to direct fire. And have you tried his three-year-old Chichibu? It’s so good. If you can make three-year-old whisky that good, for me, that's a really good sign.

It's just finding them – it's going to take time – and also enhancing. Because when we're buying, like we bought White Peak, maybe 10 casks we have, we bottled four, we still have six. Some of it we're going to leave the way it is, some of it we've re-casked into something which we think would work better. But we're not looking for finishing, we're looking for longer maturation. Hopefully we'll forget about it for three or four years, maybe even longer, and when it's ready, we'll then look at it.

 

[88B]: Elixir Distillers currently already owns Tormore Distillery from the Speyside – and earlier this year, you’ve released the Tormore Blueprint series from your existing stock. The Blueprint series felt very much like a showcase of the inherent spirit of Tormore (All three Blueprint bottlings are the same age, bottled at the same strength and only differ by cask type), and the reception seemed really encouraging!

Now that people have tasted Blueprint, has any aspect of the response stayed with you the most? What has it confirmed or clarified for you about Tormore’s spirit and its direction?

[Sukhinder Singh]: Exactly right. Look, we did what we thought was right, which was: how do we showcase our spirit in the best light? Tormore is a light to medium body, elegant, fruity spirit, which automatically says it lends itself to bourbon over sherry – especially not active sherry because you'll kill it, all you'll taste is sherry and nothing else.

We were fortunate that most of the stock was in – mostly refill because it was for blending. We bought the distillery over three years ago. We didn't launch after six months – we could have just bottled it and said we need money, let's get it out there. But we said no, we're going to take our time. We're going to understand the distillery, understand the spirit. We've got tens of thousands of casks. We need to understand every vintage and every batch because sometimes even between months it changes. So it literally took us a year, more than a year, to really start to understand it. And then we came up with a big re-casking program of how we can enhance our spirit. Most of it was bourbon, a lot of sweet wine – it works really well.

We have used sherry. We've used a lot of sherry, but very soft sherry, elegant sherry. Sherry casks which have had proper sherry in. Some seasoned stock as well, because for us it's a seasoning – if we use a little bit of it, it helps, gives us a different flavour profile. That's what we wanted to do.I keep saying this – when we talk about “old and rare” whiskies, forget about the style in terms of texture and all that. One thing for sure: the whiskies were all more elegant with less sherry or no sherry! Literally the only sherry-cask whiskies were Macallan and Glenfarclas, and that was it. Everything else was bourbon. Even in the old days, the old Balvenies were bourbon. Glengoyne was bourbon. There were hardly any sherry-cask whiskies. Today, I can't find a bourbon-cask whisky. Everything has got an element of sherry. It's heavier, richer, bigger, more wood-focused.

That's what I miss. I miss the fact that there are no easy-drinking, elegant, fruit-forward whiskies. I think one of the last ones left for me out of the big boys is Glenmorangie. It hasn't lost its soul. It's still there. I think it could benefit from higher strength, but it's still there. Glenfiddich is okay. Not my style, but not bad. But everything else is just more sherry.

So we didn't know what reaction to expect. We just did what we felt was right and what we wanted to do. And actually, the response has been superb. People have said, I didn't expect that. And a number of people have commented that actually the approach is more like an independent bottler. Because where do you find bourbon cask whiskies or refill cask whiskies? From an independent bottler. So there's a lot of that, which is fine, but we've just done what we think works with the whisky.

For Tormore, we're going to be launching three expressions to start with. We're doing a no-age-statement, but it's really tasty. It's got older stock as well as younger stock, but we were looking for a specific flavour profile, which is 100% bourbon – mainly bourbon and refill bourbon. A hint of sherry, just for a little bit of middle, but it's just clean and fruity. Then we've got a 12-year-old, which is a mixture of the two, but not too much. It's still on the more bourbon-esque style. And then we have a 16-year-old, 100% sherry, but on the softer sherry style. So for me, it's going to be one of the softer sherry cask bottlings on the market.

 

[88B]: Your team at The Whisky Exchange and Elixir Distillers have contributed a great deal to elevating interest in whisky through the years. One thing that comes to mind is the range of unique and memorable limited edition whisky series conceived by the team. You’ve got that very creative Rosebank “Roses” Series which releases a bottle of rare Rosebank on every Valentines’ Day for 7 consecutive years – and even some poetry from Ollie Chilton. You’ve got a lot of stunning Chichibu expressions with beautiful labels.

Could you describe your team’s process that goes into conceptualising a special bottling or series, such as the Valentines Day Roses series, the Karuizawa Geishas, the Chichibu London Edition and the Macbeth series?

[Sukhinder Singh]: A really nice question. I think it just needs to work with the concept of the product. The Rosebank Roses series was my final stock of Rosebank. I felt it wouldn't age any further. A few casks might have survived, but we just felt it was really at the right time.

I've always found that Rosebank tastes better when it's younger. If you ever get a chance to try the old 14, 15, 16-year-olds, they're delicious. Even Rosebank 12-year-old Flora and Fauna is really, really good. It works beautifully because of the fruit. To be fair, the new stuff is good because it's concentrated fruit, but the younger stuff is fresh fruit.

We just asked ourselves, what could we do with Rosebank? And roses just came to mind because of the floral element, the style of the whisky. It's a beautiful, pretty whisky, I think is the way we put it. So we came up with poems, a lovely poem for each one, a nice name for each one, but the packaging was just different roses.

In a similar way, we're doing a new concept for our last remaining stock of Imperial Single Malt, which is also a delicious whisky. Watch this space! It'll come in early 2026, hopefully March.

For Chichibu, it was my colleague Raj Chavda, my Creative Director and head designer, who has a passion for Japan. He loves everything about Japan. In all his labels – even the non-London Edition ones – they all have a nod back to where the distillery is or an element that reflects Japanese culture or the distillery. Some of them are very clever maps of the location of Chichibu, but so beautifully and elegantly done.

But what I worry about with packaging is that, packaging could overtake liquid, as with the big brands.

I believe packaging should enhance good quality liquid. It shouldn't mask liquid. I'm very conscious about that. Sometimes you have packaging that you say it's too pretty to drink. What's the point? You want to have packaging that makes you say, I want to open that, I want to drink that. It's nice packaging, but I want to drink it. For us, that's in our philosophy. We can't over-package it so that nobody wants to drink it. That would just be a waste.

With Tormore, because it's an old distillery, we're going for quite traditional packaging. We're not going for some new crazy shaped bottle like a lot of the new distilleries are. We're going for something quite traditional. But because of the style of the whisky, which is quite floral, elegant, we wanted to make sure that the packaging was reflective of the style of the whisky. So we think we've done it. We're really happy where we are so far. If all goes well as planned, we will launch around May, June of 2026.

 

[88B]: You have shown quite a bit of acumen and made some important calls related to Japanese whisky. There’s Karuizawa – You guys were among the first to recognise the value and collectability of the now legendary Karuizawa’s whiskies, and you quickly purchased a significant stock of it to be released as the Karuizawa Geisha Series, that is now one the world's most sought-after series – and Elixir Distillers is widely thought to hold one of the best caches of Karuizawa in barrel. You guys were also quick to recognise the potential of Chichibu, and secured quite a sizable stock of their whiskies very early on.

Could you walk us through the decision-making process that led to that investment in Karuizawa's whiskies? What was your first impression of Karuizawa, and what led you to realise early on that these whiskies would command so much demand and reverence in the whisky market?

[Sukhinder Singh]: One thing is for sure – I don't think anybody expected the prices to go to where they are. That's not why I did it. We were the first retailer or first customer of Number One Drinks, the original bottlers of Karuizawa – also Ichiro Akuto’s Hanyu, very early with Hanyu. I just loved the whisky from day one. For me, it was quite different to anything I had tried.

You’ll understand that they literally tried to recreate Macallan in Japan – they used 100% Golden Promise barley, and they predominantly, I would say 95% plus, used first-fill sherry casks, in a very similar way to Macallan. The big difference was that micro-environment, the microclimate in Karuizawa gave a completely different whisky. Very dry, very cold in the winter. It really created a whisky where the strength maintained or the strength went up, with loss of volume. But in some cases we found that it didn't even lose water. The amount of liquid in the cask was still high and the strength had actually gone up. So these casks were filled at 63.5% and we've got casks which are sitting at 65% plus.

The most incredible thing – that Karuizawa we tried together, the 50-year-old from around 1965, we bottled it at 68.3%. When it was in cask, it was 65.3% – after 50 years! It's incredible! It's insane! To get something tasting so good after 50 years at such a high strength was incredible. We brought it down because we felt it was better, but it was also incredible.

 

[88B]: Having helped bring Karuizawa to global attention, do you now feel like a custodian, or even a corrective voice in its story? How do you hope to manage its legacy, with one of the last important stocks of Karuizawa’s spirit?

And as of the very few whisky experts in the world who has worked with Karuizawa since before the beginning of its mania, what are some facts about Karuizawa that very few of us realise or know?

[Sukhinder Singh]: I just think it's unique. I really do. I know there's two new Karuizawa distilleries in Japan, one with the stills and one with the name. Not in 100 years will they come anywhere close to recreating the spirit of the original Karuizawa. It's unique. The quality of barley in those days, the quality of sherry casks in those days, the climate in those days – again, with global warming, climate has changed. So you cannot replicate it. It's so special.

There's good and bad in everything. I've tried some really heavy, woody, dry, awful, undrinkable Karuizawas, but there are some beautiful ones. I did one sensible thing – when we had the option to buy our casks, I was one of the three people who were given the option. The other two bought every single thing they were offered, whereas we actually hand-selected and rejected many casks. So I think the good thing is I confidently know that everything we bottle is pretty damn good. Might be really heavy wood and all the rest, but there's still an element of fruit there and balance there and they are really good. But as I said, with so much average stuff and some silly packaging out there – it spoiled it a bit.

How can we maintain the legacy of Karuizawa? One thing I would like to do is a series of tastings around the world to bring back in people's minds how special Karuizawa is. So I'm currently looking at that. I now have only two casks left. We've bottled some recently, which is waiting for projects – honestly delicious. But my last two casks from 1999 are actually coming up for auction in February or March 2026.

The funny thing (on why Karuizawa closed) – it was just too early. People ask me, why was Karuizawa not successful in its day? If you think about it, it was because the Japanese consumer was so obsessed with Scotch. It was, to them, the most superior product. And when you looked at some of the mainstream Japanese whiskeys of the time… for me, Yamazaki really only perfected what they were doing in the last 20 years. That's when they started to explore and that's when they started to put it into competitions. They didn't do it before. They've been producing for a hundred years. They didn't do it before. So they only did it when they knew the time was right.

But for Karuizawa, they were just ahead of the game. I think for Karuizawa’s company themselves, it was only a small part of their business. So they didn't believe in what they had. A lot of it was sold and blended away into blends.

 

[88B]: Chichibu’s story is different from Karuizawa– rather than being a closed ghost distillery, you saw a lot of potential in Chichibu as a new but rising craft distillery. Could you share with us what were your early impressions of Chichibu and the young Ichiro Akuto-san? What is it about Chichibu’s whisky and Ichiro that convinced you this was a bet worth taking?

[Sukhinder Singh]: It's flavour. It's texturally so unique. To bottle a whisky at three years old or four years old and it tastes that good in clean bourbon casks or refill casks – it's special. And I think that's what everyone fell in love with.

Everyone liked Ichiro-san because he did it right. He took his time. He took care and attention. He helped a lot. All the craft distilleries, the new distilleries in Japan have at some point come to him for advice. The good ones have, and he's helped them all. He says no problem – if you want to come and work for him, he will teach you. He is an inspiration to everyone and he just did it right. He went back to the old ways and asked himself, what do I need to do to create lovely, delicious, textural liquid? And that's, for me, what's unique – it's so textural, so mouth-coating and oily and big, quite unique in style.

The interesting thing was one or two people have said to me when they tried White Peak blind, "Is this Chichibu?” Because, again, for a young whisky, it's quite textural. It's mouth-coating, it's rich. And that's what's special.

He's doing a good job with peated as well. His peated is so fruity. I don't know if he's doing a different fermentation time, but some of the casks we bottled in the past had a bit of tropical fruit and peat. They're delicious. Sherry, as I said, is difficult, and I've not tried anything that interesting from Chichibu with sherry. I've tried one Fino sherry cask and that's it, but Oloroso sherry for me is not really doing it.

 

[88B]: Since your sale of The Whisky Exchange, the ‘mood music’ around the whisky and drinks world has swung quite a bit. By late 2024, the loud narrative was that younger drinkers were pulling back on wine and spirits.

You’ve continued to place long bets on building and curating drinks across every category: Portintruan and Tormore on the distilling side, and then the Elixir Trails approach, where you’ve already curated a range of world whisky and rums. You also hinted that there would be an upcoming Brandy/Cognac Trail or event a Sherry Trail.

As someone who has been so present and hands-on through the modern eras of spirits retailing, what do you think is the real story: Are consumers genuinely ‘drinking less’, or are they simply drinking differently and demanding a slightly different experience from producers? How does that change how you choose to present your great spirits across your distilleries and brands?

[Sukhinder Singh]: It's a really good question. I think there's two types of consumers. The younger generation definitely is more conscious and more about going to the gym and looking after themselves, which is good – which says to me they should be wiser drinkers. They'll drink better, but drink less.

So that means the likes of us have a big education piece to do. We need to find these people and show that there's purity in doing bourbon cask as opposed to sherry cask. What people don't realise is wood is actually a tannin and bad for your body. My favourite whiskies are refill bourbon where you taste the spirit, but you need a good spirit and a textural spirit, a rich spirit, to shine. So the wood should actually just be a mellowing vessel. It shouldn't be a vessel that gives you big flavours. I know we've come to adapt that, but it should be a mellowing vessel. So there's a big education piece to be done.

With the experienced drinkers, I don't think they've gone away. And I'll tell you why – because every whisky show, whisky fair on the planet is busier than ever! They are full. My old Whisky Show in London – they sold out months in advance. And they had more people, extra 100 people a day because they could push it by that much. And there were people waiting, please, can we get tickets, please? Which says the interest is still there if it's an amazing product, if it's a delicious product.

I think people did slow down because prices were getting stupid. There were a lot of bad bottlings. And remember, the way people have been buying over the last 10 years, we have more whisky than we can drink. So I believe a lot of people are just going to wait for the right things to come along. They have enough whisky at home and are sensible, because now the prices are high. They are drinking what they have collected for the last few years, and they will buy later.

What we are finding now is people are coming back, little by little – not fast. I'm getting enquiries on high-end stuff, people wanting to bottle good casks. I don't think whisky will ever die. I just think people will be more selective.

What also upsets me is everyone in the Western world here has been so obsessed with the rise of whisky popularity in China. "China is going to be the next big thing." And so many companies took advantage of that fact – bottled crap and pushed it into China thinking they will buy anything. Some of the customers I know are pretty upset about being suckered into it.

I think people need to say we only deal with the right customers, we only deal with quality, we have to try before we buy. Another difference I find with retailers – I don't think a lot of retailers today are trying the whisky before they buy it to sell. I would never buy an independent bottle I didn't know unless I had a sample first. There's companies you can trust – we say, okay, I know them, I know how they bottle, it's fine. But there's some you just don't know so you have to pick and choose.

I think there's a lack of that in Asia – retailers should select better, and then the customers who buy will be happy that what they bought was good. It's the retailer's responsibility to sell the consumer good product. Of course, it's the bottler's responsibility but unfortunately for me that has not often been the case. So the only way is for the retailer to say I want to try before I buy, because I want to make sure I give quality to my customers. I went to so many shops in Asia and a lot of the bottles had pretty pictures. And people are buying pretty pictures rather than what's inside the bottle. I think people need to see through that. It should be about liquid, liquid, and liquid. Packaging should be secondary.

We're really happy. Everything we've got in bottle at the moment is so good and we're doing so well. Especially the mature markets like France and Germany are doing so well for us. We grew 40-50% last year on Single Malts of Scotland because the prices are fair and the liquid is really good quality. So the trust is there.

Unfortunately, in Asia we need to do a hell of a lot more work. I'm looking to maybe try and find a couple of ambassadors for a few of the markets who can then help us and push. But our importers probably needed to do more, the retailers should have been more sensible – we've got a lot of work to do. I think there was a nice response on our visit, so I'm hoping things next year will be much, much, much better and people will enjoy our whiskies.

 

[88B]: Really appreciate your insights into this matter. It certainly debunks the narrative that people were just not drinking anymore. A more convincing explanation is that many whisky lovers are still digesting a sizable collection of bottles they’ve amassed the past couple of years.

[Sukhinder Singh]: That’s bullshit. I mean, we could partly blame bad whisky for this because you can imagine how if the last six bottles that you bought were not that good, it’s going to put you off. These things are not cheap! If you’ve bought six bad bottles, it’s disappointing. It really is.

 

[88B]: When the possibility of selling The Whisky Exchange first arose, what were your initial thoughts and feelings about letting go of the company you've built for over 20 years? What considerations kept you up the most, and how was this decision influenced by how the spirits retail market has evolved by 2021?

[Sukhinder Singh]: The first important thing was we weren't looking to sell. So we were approached and approached and approached, and we thought we better look at this in case in the future it turns out to be a mistake. So we thought, let's look at this. We took some sensible advice and then it came down to this: if the price is right, we'd be stupid not to do it. Simple as that, and so it sort of happened.

But when it was happening, we were already building Islay – Islay's been maybe ten years in the planning – but then it was a case of what we were going to do because it was going to take a long time still.

So we spoke to Pernod Ricard, who were the key favourites to purchase, and asked if they would consider selling us a Speyside distillery to balance and complement Islay? And something with stock so we can actually get into it. We can actually start building and selling something while we wait for Islay. They were kind enough to agree. So for us, then, everything was simple. We've got a new life, we’ve got a new passion – still whisky.

The other thing that really got me was that over the last five years of Whisky Exchange, I was enjoying it less and less. The main reason was average quality whisky. Too many expressions. Can't keep up. Don't know what's happening. Nobody wants to talk about liquid – they were talking about packaging. Every Macallan was going to collectors. You’d never see it in a bar – which was crazy when you've got a limited edition of a hundred thousand bottles, and you can't even find a bottle in a bar! It's ridiculous. So I was losing a bit of interest, it upset me.

We had the chance to buy Tormore and we had invested so heavily into stock for Elixir Distillers, Single Malts of Scotland, et cetera. There's no point in complaining, let's just do it right

What's been lovely is that some of the older generation people – like La Maison du Whisky’s CEO Thierry Bénitah – have been in the industry as long as I have. We literally started at the same time. His father started the business, my father started the business, and we've just done a beautiful bottling of Imperial Single Malt called “30 Years of Friendship”. That just shows you how long we've been friends.

What Thierry said to me was, “You're bringing the fun back into whisky.” Because Thierry was in the same place as I was – he was not enjoying it and finding it a little, what the heck is happening in the industry? He told me, “You're bringing the fun back into whisky. We can trust everything you bottle. You're starting to do classes, you're starting to do talks, you're starting to build a good team around you. And this is what whisky was about. This is good." So I think that's what we need to do, and that's what we need to prove – bring back the fun into whisky.

I'm doing some brand decks for our brands at the moment with my marketing team, and that's exactly what we've written – our job is to bring the fun back into whisky. We're just good liquid, simple. We kept complaining. If we think we can do it properly, let's do it properly.

Honestly, it is tough. Things are really tough out there. A lot of the distilleries in Scotland have gone down to three months of production a year – from being full capacity to three months. I heard yesterday or the day before that in America Jim Beam would close down (production) for a year. They’ve got that much stock. But it's a good thing, because they can help control oversupply, because the last thing you want is oversupply. They just stop production for one or two years. They'll catch up again. They will ensure there's not oversupply and the market doesn't burst. That's sensible.

So these big companies, everyone's computerised. They can do their forecasts and spreadsheets and they can look at it and say, this is what we need to do to get back on track. And they're reforecasting every three months or six months. If things pick up again, they can switch the distillery on again. So it's very tough times. There's a lot of pressure. The big companies, unfortunately are dumping prices. You can buy Laphroaig or Glenlivet so cheap.

But if consumers don't like it, they won’t care what the price is. It's the same with drink and food. You're not going to go to a restaurant because it's cheap. You're going to go to a restaurant if the food is good. If a particular big brand doesn't taste good anymore, you stop drinking it because there's so much choice out there.

Some brands are doing a good job. I think the medium sized companies and the smaller companies are doing better. I really like Bunnahabhain, and I really like Deanston.

I keep saying Deanston is doing a good job as a clean bourbon cask whisky. Higher strength, 46.3% non-chill-filtered, perfect. It's good. And there's other distilleries which are doing some nice stuff.

But I think some distilleries have completely lost their way because their sales weren't probably as good as they should be. They feel that actually they need to innovate and their innovation is all these wood finishes, wine cask finishes, this finish, that finish. But their base spirit, their bourbon cask, is better than the wood finishes! That means they're doing something wrong in terms of marketing or not packaging it properly or not communicating the message properly rather than trying to innovate. And the “innovation” is out of control *laughs*.

I keep saying some distillers have forgotten how to make good clean whisky because all they're trying to do is innovate, because it's all being led by marketing.

 

[88B]: We’ve been hearing about your legendary personal collection of Scotch, with over 10,000+ bottles. If you had the opportunity to open a bottle from your collection to share with any person from any time in history, who would that person be, and what bottle would you be opening?

[Sukhinder Singh]: Wow. There are too many lovely people of the past – old distillery managers, old master blenders. I tell you who I absolutely adore – Dr Jim Beveridge, who was the Master Blender of Johnnie Walker. The guy is the loveliest, most humble, most knowledgeable person possible. Johnnie Walker, I would say, is the most consistent whisky on the planet. I really do. Johnnie Walker Black, for me, is so delicious and so good and so consistent. What he did with all the brand extensions of Johnnie Walker – he did. He was very much involved in a lot of the (Diageo) Malts in the early days as well, and I was very lucky that just before he retired, it was my 50th birthday and Diageo gave me a present of creating my own blend with Jim, which was lovely. They did me six bottles and everything. For me, it was such a lovely experience. But to sit with these guys and just talk about the old stories is incredible. There's so many lovely people.

Another person whom I adore, for different reasons – I love Richard Patterson, because he was the one that really inspired me about blends and really explained to me the art of blending and how important blending is and the fact that even a single malt is a blend. You're putting so many different styles of casks and marrying and mixing.

Then you've got someone who has knowledge on everything to do with whisky and history – Alan Winchester, who was from Glenlivet. Such a lovely man and absolutely adores whisky.

Iain Henderson, who used to be the old Distillery Manager of Laphroaig – had been in the industry for years and years! There was also the late Colin Ross from Ben Nevis. Again, lovely, crazy, passionate guy, and for me a special connection because he was Distillery Manager at Tormore for many years and his son Aaron was born at Tormore! He's still around and I see him now and again.

All these people have lovely stories and to sit with these people, talk about the past and share what was special and what happened, it’s just lovely. I can't mention one person, there's too many.

 

[88B]: When you reflect on the work you have done and the future of the whisky industry, what is the enduring mark that you hope to leave, and what would you hope to be best known for?

[Sukhinder Singh]: Wow. I think, look, I hope we can make a success of Tormore and Portintruan and do them correctly and be an inspiration to others of how to bring back whisky – because I think the chance that the big distillers will do it is not going to happen. Everything is about efficiency, bringing the cost down. Every time I say to somebody from a big company that we will be using bagged yeast, they say, "But that's expensive and the yields are not good." And we say, "Who cares, because you get flavour" – so our thinking is completely opposite.

And I think to really inspire some of the younger generation – we've got a job to do to bring up that next generation, to start thinking like us, thinking more like independent bottlers, independent distillers.

I hope to help bring together a community of really good, like-minded distillers so that we can work together – because we will never be able to compete against the big guys. There is strength in unity. So somehow to champion people who are doing a good job and working with them, to inspire the next generation – I think that would be lovely.