Sukhinder Singh doesn’t need to tell you he knows whisky. The six bottles in front of you do that at the masterclass
When we sat down for his masterclass at The Whisky Event in London, expectations were high. Sukhinder is the founder of Elixir Distillers and one of the most respected whisky curators in the industry and previously owner of The whisky exchange. But what set this evening apart from an ordinary tasting wasn’t the bottles. It was the way he talked about them.
Not all casks are created equal and you can taste the difference
Sukhinder spent more time talking about wood than about distillates. That wasn’t by accident.
His central point was simple: you can’t bottle your way out of a bad cask. It doesn’t matter how good the new make spirit is, if it’s resting in a cask that has nothing left to give. This have been seen in previously in the industry that cask that have been you have been to used or not good enough to the new make.
And the reverse is equally true: an exceptional cask can lift a spirit beyond itself.
That’s the philosophy behind Elixir Distillers. The team only bottles whiskies they would drink themselves. Not whiskies that look good on paper, not whiskies that sell because the distillery is trendy. Only the ones they can genuinely stand behind. They keep a close eye on your whisky and taste it every year. For them, the taste is what matters most, not the age of the whisky.
It sounds simple. It isn’t.
The tasting: from youthful freshness to 40 years in Cask
We tasted six whiskies that evening from a 12 year old Aultmore to a Caol Ila that has been sitting in cask since the early 1980s.
Aultmore 12 Year Old Refill Bourbon Cask A strong starting point. Light, fresh, with apple and grain up front. The refill bourbon cask leaves room for the distillate itself here it’s Aultmore’s character that speaks, not the wood. A whisky that reminds you that simple isn’t the same as uninteresting.
Benrinnes 18 Year Old Bourbon Cask Benrinnes is an underrated distillery. Here we got a whisky with more body than the Aultmore, with vanilla and a light nutty character from the cask. Sukhinder noted that it’s precisely Benrinnes’ distillation style partly using a worm tub that gives it that weight, which the bourbon cask suits well.
Dailuaine 18 Year Old Sherry Cask The shift to sherry was noticeable. Dried fruits, dark chocolate, a spiced edge. Dailuaine is a distillery rarely seen as a single malt most of it goes into blends and that creates a particular freedom in selecting the right casks. This was an example of sherry maturation done properly: it doesn’t overpower, it adds.
Benriach 34 Year Old Directors Special This is where the tables went quiet. Three decades in cask have turned Benriach into something other than itself. Complex, developed, with fruit that has moved from fresh to preserved. The kind of whisky that asks you to sit still for a moment.
Imperial 32 Year Old Directors Special Imperial distillery is closed. What remains of it now exists only in casks like these. There’s a strange melancholy in tasting history out of a bottle, knowing there won’t be more.
Sukhinder was candid about it: Imperial is one of the distilleries he wishes he had discovered earlier. He came to it too late. And it’s clear from the glass why that bothers him the whisky is simply too good for someone not to have seen it coming. That kind of recognition can only come from someone who has tasted enough whisky to know exactly what they missed.
Caol Ila 40 Year Old Directors Special The evening’s highlight. Caol Ila is normally a powerful Islay distillate with smoke upfront. Forty years in cask have done something different: the smoke is still there, but integrated. What was once sharp is now rounded. What was once simple is now layer upon layer. It’s hard to describe a whisky older than many of the people tasting it, but “complete” is the word that fits best.
What 40 years in the Industry actually looks like
To understand Sukhinder Singh, you need to know where he comes from. He was the former owner of The Whisky Exchange one of the world’s most respected whisky retailers and that’s where the foundation was built. Decades of tasting, buying, selling and learning whisky from the inside out, at a level most people never get close to.
But it wasn’t until after the sale of The Whisky Exchange that he found the time to do what he truly cared about. Not selling other people’s whisky. Making his own. Finding the right casks, waiting on them, and releasing whiskies on his own terms. That took time. He has that time now.
Elixir Distillers is the result of that freedom and of all the knowledge that came before it.
It takes two things at once: patience and an unwillingness to compromise. Patience because the best casks take time. And an unwillingness to compromise because you can’t rescue a mediocre cask by putting a beautiful label on the bottle.
You taste that philosophy in all six glasses.
You can find the full Elixir Distillers range at elixirdistillers.com. If you ever get the chance to attend one of Sukhinder’s masterclasses — take it.
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