FOTSB - The Whisky Exchange

Welcome to a new feature: Friends of The Scotch Blog: shops, sites and people associated with Scotch whisky that I've met along the way...

The Whisky Exchange & Sukhinder Singh

On my last trip to London, I had a chance to have dinner with John Glaser (Compass Box), John Milroy of Milroy's fame, Sukhinder Singh of The Whisky Exchange, Nadi Fiori (Italian importer - High Spirits) and Jakob Bruhns, André Doerlit, & David Larsson (of Danish importer QualityWorld).

I got to sit next to Sukhinder and chat with him a bit.

The Whisky Exchange was established in 1999 primarily as a mail order business - offering a variety of spirits - with Single Malt Whiskies at the forefront.

Suhkinder is a collector and a purveyor, but above all, he is a lover of whisky. Says Sukhinder:

The Whisky Exchange came about due to my passion for Whisky and in particular for Single Malts.

I originally started collecting Miniatures at the age of 12. When I purchased a very large collection of minis I was faced with the dilemma of "where do i keep 8000 miniatures?"

I decided to specialise in Single Malt Whisky minis - I sold everything else and ended up with 300 or so minis. 20 years of collecting later and I have 4500 Single Malts in miniature and now the task is to find a place to display them all.

About 12 years ago, I started getting interested in the larger bottles and started with collecting only 1 bottle from each distillery.

I now have about 1000 different bottles, dating from the 1880's.

The profile of the collection is a mix between drinking whiskies and collecting whiskies...

Whisky is of course for drinking; therefore I have set aside a large number of bottles, which I feel are very good drinking whiskies - to be drunk in the future.

On the collecting side, as with every other collector I would like to get an example from every distillery that has ever existed in Scotland. Many bottlings from distilleries which were easy to find a few years ago, are now getting difficult and of course pricey!!!!! (eg: Kinclaith ).

This will only continue to happen as stocks from closed distilleries are used up.

Original distillery bottlings are always better, but not possible in many cases such as Banff, Convalmore, Kinclaith, etc.

Limited Edition bottlings are usually interesting, with the best example being Black Bowmore.

My main areas of great interest are Ardbeg, Bowmore, Macallan, Port Ellen, Springbank and of course Lost Distilleries.

Some bottles from my collection may be seen in our Rare/Old Malts section.

Located in London, between Heathrow and Central London, close to the Boston Manor tube station. Sukhinder says that customers are welcome to visit their facility by prior appointment, and they'll even pick you up from the station.

We have a large showroom with over 1200 new & old expressions of Single Malts to choose from with a price range to suit everyone from £10 - £20,000.

We can recommend drinking whiskies to suit your taste, help with collecting and advise for investment purposes.

If you are looking for something in particular, please check as we have many items arriving everyday and these may not have been added to our list as yet.
Sometimes special whiskies are kept back for customers making enquiries only.

The Whisky Exchange also recently opened a satellite location - inside the incredible Vinopolis. Located close to the Borough Market under London Bridge, Vinopolis is a massive educational center - originally designed to highlight wines, the center was expanded to include  spirits.

With the addition of the Whiskey Exchange shop and The Still Room (set up by Diageo with an emphasis on Talisker and Johnnie Walker Black Label) Vinopolis now helps visitors appreciate whisky.

The guys from QualityWorld and I took a field trip to the Vinopolis shop.

At the Vinopolis location, The Whisky Exchange has a range of about 500 Single Malts, 200 other Whiskies, and about 150 other premium spirits including cognac and rum.

"We also have 5 casks on display, you can fill and label your own bottle. The spirits have not been filtered in any way so this is as close as you will get to drinking "Straight from the Cask."

The current choices are 3 Single Malts, a Bourbon and a Rum.
 Longmorn 1990 from a Bourbon Barrel
Clynelish 1994 from a Sherry Butt
Caol Ila 1991 from a hogshead
A 6 years old Bourbon Whiskey and
Pampero 1992 Rum from Venezuela.

The also have a nice selection of books and whisky related gift items.

Next time you are in London, visit one of the two locations, I'm sure you'll walk out with something interesting.

Comments

[Mike]

Reading about the casks at the Whiskey Exchange reminds me of the store I visited when I spent a week in Newcastle -- in one of the malls there there's a store, The Whiskey Shop (http://www.thewhiskeyshop.com) that did the same thing -- I don't recall all the ones they had in their casks, though I did bring back a Deanston 12 yo that I have yet to open (I'm being good, and finishing the bottles I've started, since I've currently got three going.

[Mary Muroski]

I need information on very old Vat 69 scotch whiskey #on bottom of bottle WX745 and also a #8. Who could I contact to find age and worth? Thank You, Mary