Ep. 237: Sukhinder Singh, Tormore, Portintruan, & Elixir Spirits Show Notes
Sukhinder Singh, Tormore, Portintruan, and the Long Game of Whisky
Some guests arrive with a résumé. Sukhinder Singh arrives with a whole wing of the whisky library.
That library includes co-founding The Whisky Exchange, helping build The Whisky Show in London, shaping the modern independent bottling conversation, assembling one of the great old-and-rare whisky collections, and now leading Elixir Distillers into a new era with Tormore, Portintruan, Port Askaig, Single Malts of Scotland, Elements of Islay, Black Tot, and Elixir Trails.
But the more interesting thread is not just what he has done. It is how he thinks: through tasting, collecting, asking better questions, chasing flavor, and refusing to treat whisky as either a museum piece or a marketing exercise.
I first met Sukhinder at a Manhattan Whiskey Club event hosted by Kurt Maitland, and I knew immediately this was going to be one of those interviews where the question list becomes more of a polite suggestion than a map. Sukhinder has touched nearly every corner of the modern whisky world, from dusty miniatures and old Bowmore to new distilleries, rum blends, sherry casks, and the strange fever dream of today’s ultra-premium whisky market.
So yes, this is a long episode. It needed to be.
And yes, the show notes are long too. They also needed to be.
From The Whisky Exchange to Elixir Distillers
For many listeners, Sukhinder Singh’s name will always be tied first to The Whisky Exchange, the business he co-founded with his brother Rajbir Singh. The Whisky Exchange became one of the defining retailers of the modern whisky era, not simply because it sold bottles, but because it connected drinkers, collectors, producers, independent bottlers, and curious newcomers at a time when the internet was still more dial-up goblin than global marketplace.
The Whisky Exchange started as an e-commerce play in 1999, partly because London rents made a physical shop difficult and partly because the Singhs saw a way to reach the collectors and drinkers they were already serving through letters, fax, and email. It became one of the first serious online whisky retailers and, over time, a full ecosystem: retail, old and rare, events, education, editorial, and eventually auction.
But that chapter closed when The Whisky Exchange was sold to Pernod Ricard. Sukhinder is careful to separate the sale of The Whisky Exchange from the later purchase of Tormore, even though the two conversations happened in the same general orbit. What followed was not retirement, not a soft landing, and certainly not a quiet consulting phase. Instead, he and the Elixir Distillers team moved deeper into production, brand building, and long-term whisky making.
Today, his days are split across a dizzying number of projects. Ollie Chilton has moved to Scotland and spends more time with the casks and stock at Tormore, while Sukhinder focuses heavily on new product development, global distributor relationships, advocacy, and the larger strategic direction of the portfolio. That includes Tormore, Portintruan on Islay, and the broader Elixir world of Single Malts of Scotland, Port Askaig, Elements of Islay, Black Tot, and Elixir Trails.
The phrase that came up again and again was “liquid to lips.” For Sukhinder, that is not just a sales tactic. It is almost a philosophy. Whisky brands, in his view, are not built by pretty pictures, endless limited editions, or packaging that looks afraid of being opened. They are built when people taste the liquid and understand why it matters.
Whisky as the Most Complex, Honest Spirit
At the Manhattan Whiskey Club event, Sukhinder described whisky as “the most complex, honest spirit.” That line stuck with me, partly because it sounds like something you could print on a very expensive tote bag, but mostly because he means it in a practical, sensory way.
For him, whisky’s complexity starts with the fact that one distillery can create so many different profiles. Similar equipment can produce wildly different spirits depending on fermentation, cut points, barley, yeast, condensers, still shape, wood policy, warehouse conditions, and a hundred small decisions that don’t fit neatly on a back label. Then the spirit changes again with time, air, climate, glassware, mood, and context.
He still remembers the first full bottle that really opened his eyes: a Springbank 21 Year Old in the old dumpy bottle from the 1980s. He had tried whisky before, but living with a bottle over time was different. The same whisky changed from pour to pour, day to day, and setting to setting. That, for him, was the hook.
Sukhinder has championed other spirits too, especially rum through Black Tot and broader spirits through Elixir Trails. But he still sees whisky as having a breadth and depth that other categories often struggle to communicate. Cognac, to him, can be beautiful but narrower. Rum can be fascinating, especially with high-ester Jamaican rum or heavy Demerara styles, but the category has not always done a good job explaining itself to drinkers. Whisky, particularly Scotch single malt, historically gave consumers clearer signals: age statements, regions, distillery names, and a shared language of flavor.
That clarity has eroded somewhat in the no-age-statement and ultra-premium eras, but the underlying idea remains. Whisky is honest when it lets the drinker understand what is in the glass. It is complex when the liquid rewards returning to it again and again.
Sukhinder Singh, Representation, and Indian Whisky
One of the more interesting turns in the conversation came from a question about representation. Sukhinder grew up in London as the son of Indian parents, and his family’s shop, The Nest, was the first South Asian-owned spirits shop in London. Yet his public identity in whisky has usually been framed less around ethnicity and more around knowledge: old and rare bottles, The Whisky Exchange, independent bottlings, and now Elixir Distillers.
His answer was less about carrying a banner and more about curiosity, hunger, and the frustration of seeing India, one of the world’s largest whisky-consuming nations, lack a world-class whisky reputation for so long.
He remembered being disappointed that so many major countries had globally respected drinks identities while Indian whisky, for many years, lagged badly in quality. That began to change with Amrut. Sukhinder was one of the early people approached when Amrut was preparing to launch Indian single malt in the UK, and while he disagreed with the initial strategy of focusing on Indian restaurants, he was thrilled by the liquid itself.
His point was simple: Indian drinkers in the UK loved whisky, but they wanted Scotch. To introduce Indian single malt, Amrut had to win over serious whisky drinkers on quality, often through blind tastings against Scotch. That strategy worked. And now, with Tormore and the broader Elixir portfolio, Sukhinder is interested in how whisky education and cross-category tastings might help build a more serious single malt conversation in India itself.
Collecting, Miniatures, and the Italian Whisky Cellar
Before Sukhinder became one of the great old-and-rare whisky dealers, he was a collector. More specifically, he began with miniatures.
That detail matters because miniatures were not just tiny bottles. They were clues. They were a way into distilleries, labels, lost names, old bottlings, and the strange paper trail of whisky history. He started with miniatures, eventually specializing in single malts, then moved toward full bottles as the miniature market became less interesting and more collector-driven.
His first old-and-rare purchase was a full-size bottle from Kirklinton, a closed distillery from the early 20th century. It was the kind of bottle most people would have walked past, but Sukhinder understood what it was and spent a long time convincing the owner to sell it. That became the start of a much larger collecting life.
One of the best parts of this episode is Sukhinder’s explanation of why Italy became such an important whisky collecting market in the 1980s and 1990s. Scotland made the whisky, but Italy collected it with a seriousness and scale that still sounds slightly unreal. According to Sukhinder, Italian buyers had a taste for fine things: wine, cars, watches, fashion, spirits. They also had cellars, cash, and a culture of buying by the case rather than the bottle.
The image he paints is magnificent: a restaurant owner in Bologna with one building full of wine, one full of Ferraris, and one full of whisky cases. Not a few bottles. Cases. Ten cases of one thing, twenty of another, five of something else. In most countries, Sukhinder would find one bottle. In Italy, he found stockpiles.
That collector culture helped preserve bottles that might otherwise have vanished. It also helped shape the old-and-rare market that later exploded around 2014 and 2015. Sukhinder still does not see whisky as an investment first, even though his own collection has appreciated enormously. He buys what fits the collection, what matters historically, and what he believes should be preserved.
The Museum Collection and the Drinking Collection
Sukhinder has two collections: a museum collection and a drinking collection.
The museum collection is largely pre-2000, with some newer bottles added when they fit the profile. It includes more than 10,000 bottles and is built around historical importance, rarity, and the story of whisky. The drinking collection is exactly what it sounds like: bottles he wants to open, share, and understand.
That distinction is important because Sukhinder strongly believes whisky is meant to be drunk. He has no interest in packaging that intimidates people out of opening bottles. He has no patience for whisky that exists only as a trophy. And he has long had a dream of opening a whisky bar where some of the drinking collection could be shared properly.
There is a slight tension there, of course. A museum collection preserves history by not opening bottles. A drinking collection honors whisky by opening them. Sukhinder lives in that tension. The museum bottles are reference points. The drinking bottles are experiences waiting for the right moment.
He also admitted, with admirable directness, that he has too much stock and may sell some of it. Building distilleries and brands takes money. Tormore has been producing, recasking, and maturing spirit for years before releasing a single drop under the new Elixir-era identity. That is a long, expensive road.
Tormore: The Pearl of Speyside
Tormore is one of those distilleries that whisky geeks know, independent bottler fans respect, and most normal drinkers could be forgiven for missing entirely.
That is changing.
Built in 1959, Tormore was the first new Speyside distillery of the 20th century and one of the most architecturally striking distilleries in Scotland. It is often called the Pearl of Speyside, a nickname with several possible origin stories: freshwater pearl mussels nearby, the pale beauty of the building itself, or the idea that Tormore is a hidden beauty waiting to be discovered.
Sukhinder corrected one of my assumptions during the interview, and it is worth repeating. Tormore was not originally built merely as a malt factory for blends. It was designed to make single malt whisky. Its later life, particularly under larger corporate ownership, pushed much of its output into blends, but the original ambition was bigger than anonymous volume.
That matters because Elixir’s work at Tormore is not about inventing an identity from nothing. It is about recovering and refining one.
The distillery has a maximum capacity around five million liters of alcohol per year, though recent production has been lower. Under the previous arrangement, a large portion of spirit continued to be produced for Pernod Ricard/Chivas for three years after Elixir took control. That agreement ended in December 2025. Tormore is now producing around one million liters per year while Elixir considers long-term bulk partnerships and builds the brand on its own terms.
Fruit, Texture, and the Heart of Tormore
The heart of Tormore, as Sukhinder describes it, is fruit. Peaches, pears, orchard fruit, and a gentle dryness that he compares to walnut skin. Ollie Chilton has described Tormore in similar terms: pears, autumnal fruit, rich texture, and peppery spice.
The peppery note became one of the more technical rabbit holes of the episode. Ollie had previously discussed Alan Winchester’s view that some of Tormore’s pepperiness may have come from mashing practices, specifically the use of spent yeast until the late 1990s. Sukhinder said they looked into spent yeast, but the practical problem is scale. No brewer in Scotland can supply enough spent yeast for Tormore’s needs.
Instead, Elixir has leaned into a combination of distiller’s yeast and brewer’s yeast to build fruit and texture. Sukhinder connects that textural quality to distilleries like Ben Nevis, which historically used a mix of brewer’s and distiller’s yeast. The goal at Tormore is not to make something unrecognizable. It is to take a spirit they already loved and make it richer, fruitier, and more mouth-coating.
The team has also looked at barley varieties, fermentation length, cut points, filling strengths, and cask policy. This is where Sukhinder’s production philosophy comes through clearly: flavor first, but not flavor through brute force. He is not chasing wood dominance. He is trying to nurture the spirit.
The New Tormore Range
The first new Tormore core range under Elixir is built around that idea of spirit character rather than cask pyrotechnics.
The entry point is Tormore Timeless, a no-age-statement whisky bottled at 43% ABV with minimal filtration. It is predominantly bourbon cask, with a small amount of cream sherry cask influence to add mid-palate weight.
The 12 Year Old is a mix of bourbon casks, cream sherry casks, and a little American toasted white oak.
The 16 Year Old is sherry cask focused, though Sukhinder is careful to explain that, at this stage, it is sherry finished for roughly two and a half to three years rather than fully sherry matured. Over time, as Elixir’s own sherry cask program develops, that profile may deepen.
The sherry discussion is important. Sukhinder is not anti-sherry. That would be hard to square with someone whose collecting life includes Black Bowmore and old Springbank. But he is skeptical of modern sherry casks that deliver color and furniture polish at the expense of balance. For Tormore, he wants a softer sherry style: fruit, mid-palate, gentle spice, and enough restraint to let the distillate remain visible.
He also talked about working with small bodegas and filling casks with real sherry destined for actual sherry bottlings, rather than relying entirely on the modern seasoning system. That is slower, more complicated, and exactly the sort of thing you do if you are thinking in decades rather than quarterly decks.
Wood as a Mellowing Vessel
One of the clearest philosophical lines in the episode is Sukhinder’s view that wood should be a mellowing vessel.
That does not mean wood is irrelevant. It means the cask should shape, soften, and frame the spirit rather than smother it under oak makeup. He loves refill casks for that reason. They are harder to source, but they give the blender and whisky maker more control. The spirit stays in the foreground.
The problem is that good refill wood is not something you can simply order like printer paper. You need to fill first-fill bourbon casks, dump them, and then build your own refill inventory over time. Elixir is doing that, slowly. Sukhinder mentioned relationships around American whiskey casks, including names like Willett, Michter’s, Wild Turkey, and Jack Daniel’s, but the larger point is not brand worship. It is wood management.
This also explains some of his skepticism toward STR casks and aggressive finishing. They can work, but too often they are used as shortcuts. For Tormore, and eventually Portintruan, the long game is to build wood stocks that support the spirit rather than rescue it.
Portintruan: Building a New Islay Distillery the Hard Way
If Tormore is about recovering a hidden Speyside identity, Portintruan is about building an Islay distillery from the ground up with a very specific set of convictions.
Portintruan will be Islay’s 11th distillery, located on the road between Port Ellen and Ardbeg. The idea goes back to around 2013 or 2014, and the project received planning approval in 2020. It has been a long, complicated build, not least because building anything on Islay is a logistical puzzle box with weather, ferries, roads, materials, labor, and local infrastructure all tugging on the same rope.
Sukhinder is clear that the team eventually learned not to obsess over dates. If one thing is delayed getting to the island, it affects another, and another, and another. The team on Islay, including Georgie Crawford, Jackie Thomson, Fraser, Emma, and others, understands the island in a way outsiders cannot. Sukhinder knows what he wants from the spirit. The local team knows how to make the project work in the real world.
Portintruan is not small. It is designed as a serious distillery with a visitor experience, bar, restaurant, and a destination feel. It also includes a large floor malting setup, direct-fired wash stills, cooling jackets on the lyne arms, and a smaller experimental distillery within the distillery.
This is not a tin shed with a romantic label. It is a statement.
Floor Maltings, Direct Fire, and Old-Style Flavor
Sukhinder has often pointed to a few key elements he associates with great, old-style whisky: floor maltings, direct fire, and fermentation suited to the place and product. Portintruan is built around those ideas.
The floor maltings are expected to be the largest in Scotland, capable of producing the equivalent of at least 750,000 liters of spirit from floor-malted barley, with the final capacity depending on practical learning around bed depth, seasonality, and automation. This is not nostalgia cosplay. It is a flavor decision, though Sukhinder is realistic that something on this scale will require modern handling.
The wash stills will be direct-fired, something not seen on Islay for roughly 60 years. With no natural gas on Islay, the team has looked at biodiesel burners and future options like hydrogen. Direct fire is part tradition, part flavor pursuit, and part engineering challenge. Sukhinder is interested in what that heat can do to texture and depth, including Maillard-driven character.
The distillery is also designed for flexibility. Portintruan can produce multiple spirit styles: light peat, heavy peat, super fruity, rich and oily, and possibly other experimental runs. Sukhinder sees these as blending components. The final single malt may draw from them in different proportions depending on what the whisky needs.
He is also realistic about how long it will take to truly understand the spirit. New make can be promising, but whisky only tells you so much after six months or one year. Tweaks made today may take years to evaluate. Sukhinder expects the first five years to be a learning period, not a victory lap.
Islay, Infrastructure, and Community
Any new Islay distillery brings questions. Housing, roads, ferries, warehousing, water, tourism, and jobs are not abstract concerns on an island of roughly 3,000 people that receives massive seasonal influxes.
Sukhinder understands the tension. He also argues that some issues, particularly roads and broader transport infrastructure, are government responsibilities. Islay produces enormous export value and deserves investment in return. At the same time, Elixir chose Portintruan’s site partly because it is close to the ferry terminal, reducing the need to haul barley, equipment, and spirit across long island distances.
The project has included housing plans, and Sukhinder noted that when they posted two jobs, they received around 80 applications, many from people on the island. That matters. Distilleries on Islay are not just brands. They are employers, tourism anchors, and community institutions.
Sukhinder said the response from locals has become increasingly positive as people have seen the scale and seriousness of what is being built. There is pride in the fact that Elixir did not build something disposable. They built something intended to become part of the island’s landscape and future.
The High-End Whisky Market and the Problem with 50-Year-Old Everything
A few years ago, Sukhinder said the high end of the whisky market seemed to have no upper limit. Today, he is more cautious.
What changed was not simply demand. It was supply. He underestimated how much expensive old whisky brands would release. Once upon a time, a 50-year-old whisky was genuinely rare. Now, it can feel like every major brand has one, then a 52, then a 54, then another 50 still sitting on shelves while the next ultra-aged release appears in a glass sarcophagus wearing a tiny crown.
The problem, in Sukhinder’s view, is not age itself. The problem is that too much whisky has moved from drinkable product to investable object. Some 50-year-old whiskies are excellent. Others exist because the number on the label is impressive. That is not enough.
He praised GlenGlassaugh’s 50 Year Old as an example of a more honest high-aged release, noting that while still expensive, it is priced far below many comparable ultra-aged single malts and, more importantly, tastes excellent. That balance of price and quality is where he thinks the market needs to return.
The broader point is that consumers are becoming more selective. They are not necessarily drinking less. They are drinking better, drinking bottles they already own, and becoming less willing to buy every new shiny thing simply because it exists.
Good, Exceptional, and the Lowering of Expectations
Sukhinder has been critical of a trend where “good” has begun to pass for exceptional.
That line feels especially relevant now. There is more whisky on the market than ever, more limited editions, more finishes, more single casks, more world whisky, more craft whisky, more everything. The flood is exciting, but it also makes it harder to slow down and recognize what is genuinely special.
Writers, reviewers, influencers, retailers, and drinkers are all trying to keep up. Samples arrive. Bottles arrive. The next thing arrives before the last thing has had time to breathe. Sukhinder worries that some of the old-and-rare bottles of the future are being missed because everyone is already looking at the next release.
That does not mean old whisky is always better. He is clear that modern whisky often has better quality control. But he wants drinkers to give whisky enough time and attention to separate pleasant from memorable, good from great, and great from historically important.
Bringing Fun Back to Whisky
When asked about legacy, Sukhinder comes back to inspiration, the next generation, and bringing fun back to whisky.
That does not mean making whisky unserious. Sukhinder is as serious about liquid as anyone. But he remembers an era when brands talked about Scotch as a category, when distilleries helped explain each other, when the point was flavor and discovery rather than brand dominance. He remembers people like Jim McEwan, Richard Paterson, Bill Lumsden, John Glaser, Nick Morgan, Jim Beveridge, and others who helped make whisky feel alive.
His concern is that whisky has become too polished, too expensive, too self-important, and too obsessed with innovation for innovation’s sake. The answer, for him, is not gimmickry. It is going back to basics: good liquid, honest education, shared enthusiasm, and getting whisky into glasses.
Liquid to lips. Again and again.
Final Thoughts
This episode could have been three episodes.
One on The Whisky Exchange and old-and-rare collecting. One on Tormore and the recovery of a fruit-led Speyside distillery. One on Portintruan and the challenge of building a new Islay distillery around floor maltings, direct fire, and long-term flavor.
Instead, we followed the full arc of the story, because sometimes whisky rewards the deeper pour.
Sukhinder Singh is often described as a retailer, collector, entrepreneur, or industry legend. All of those are true enough. But what came through most clearly in this conversation is that he is still, at heart, chasing the same thing that hooked him decades ago: a whisky that changes in the glass, rewards attention, and reminds you why this category became so compelling in the first place.
Not because it was expensive.
Not because it was rare.
Because it was good enough to come back to, again and again, and still find something new.
Links and Resources
Elixir Distillers
Website: https://elixirdistillers.com/
Tormore Distillery
Website: https://www.tormoredistillery.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tormoredistillery/
Portintruan Distillery
Website: https://www.portintruan.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/portintruan/
Single Malts of Scotland
Website: https://singlemalts.com/
Port Askaig
Website: https://portaskaig.com/
Elements of Islay
Website: https://www.elementsofislay.com/
Black Tot Rum
Website: https://blacktot.com/
Elixir Trails
Website: https://elixirtrails.com/
The Whisky Exchange
Website: https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/
Whiskey Ring Podcast
Website: https://www.whiskeyinmyweddingring.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whiskeyinmyweddingring/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whiskeyinmyweddingring/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@whiskeyinmyweddingring
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/whiskey-in-my-wedding-ring/
Listen to the Episode
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-whiskey-ring-podcast/id1559618899
Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/whiskeyringpodcast
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/947ebc95-6e60-4b0e-ad6e-60d3be2d5db3/the-whiskey-ring-podcast
Castbox: https://castbox.fm/channel/The-Whiskey-Ring-Podcast-id4233699
Podcast App: https://podcast.app/the-whiskey-ring-podcast-p6099582
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-whiskey-ring-podcast-3810626
Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-whiskey-ring-podcast-david-levine-uD7OasA9Xqf/
Thanks for Listening
Thanks to Sukhinder Singh for joining me, and thanks to Kurt Maitland and the Manhattan Whiskey Club for the introduction.
If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, rate, review, share it with a fellow whisky obsessive, or send it to someone who thinks “refill wood” sounds boring and needs to be gently corrected with a dram in hand.
If you haven’t joined the Patreon community yet, please consider doing so at patreon.com/whiskeyinmyweddingring
As of December 2025, the $25/month bottle share club level is sold out!
Join at the $5/month level for first shot at an open spot when a member retires and to keep receiving ad-free episodes via Patreon.
If you haven’t yet, please follow Whiskey in my Wedding Ring and the Whiskey Ring Podcast on Instagram and Facebook.
More Show Notes
