Tormore, the Speyside distillery bought in 2022 by drinks entrepreneurs Sukhinder and Rajbir Singh, will launch its first core range of single malt whiskies.

The Singh brothers and their team at Elixir Distillers used a lunch in Edinburgh earlier last week to reveal the line-up, which consists of 12- and 16-year-old single malts, and “Timeless”, a whisky without an age statement, which follow last year’s release of two limited-edition bottles.

“One of the things we fell in love with about Tormore was its fruity character,” explained Sukhinder. 

“Today, the industry has gone down a different path — I think too many brands have gone towards that bigger, heavier, more sherried style.

“But I missed the lighter, elegant, fruity style, which I fell in love with back in the 1980s and 1990s. For us, it was important that we had the right spirit, but we ensured that the cask influence did not take over and instead complemented it.”

Distillery manager Polly Logan and head blender Oliver Chilton introduced the three whiskies in the core range, all three of which reflect the flavours of “peaches, pears, and creamy nuttiness” found in the underlying spirit.
One of the first tasks facing Oliver after the Singh brothers had bought the distillery was to assess the “tens of thousands of casks scattered across 50 different warehouses across Scotland” that were included in the deal.
“A lot of it was in refill bourbon casks and was designed to go into blends like Ballantine’s,” Oliver said. “We came to the conclusion that the heart of our whisky should be a ‘peach tart’.”

Timeless, bottled at 43% ABV and carrying an RRP of £41.95, includes first-fill bourbon casks “to build up a little bit of richness in the background”, and “a tiny amount of cream sherry just to give you a little bit of spice.”

Sukhinder explained: “We purposefully designed this whisky to be mixable as well, because we believe there’s no single malt specifically designed for the on-trade.”

Oliver added: “We’re not talking about a niche product — Tormore is a big place and so we want to be able to produce a lot of this, which we want to get to as many people as we possibly can.”

He described Tormore as a big distillery owned by a small family company, pointing to its five million-litre capacity. If Timeless is a “peach tart” then Oliver turned the 12-year-old single malt into a “peach crumble”, with “warmth” and “nuttiness”.

“With the 12 year old, we’ve used a majority of first-fill bourbon, some first-fill American oak cream sherry, and a small amount of first-fill or new American oak toasted and charred,” Oliver explained.

Completing the peach theme, Oliver described the 16-year-old sherry cask single malt’s flavour profile as “peaches and custard”, with the vanilla notes coming from American oak.

“The whisky for the 16 year old has all been re-wracked into sherry casks,” he added. “We use around 60% American oak cream sherry, and around 40% French oak Oloroso butts.”

The focus on cream sherry — particularly those made by blending Oloroso and Pedro Ximenez — was inspired by the style’s popularity during the mid-20th century, when Harvey’s Bristol Cream was the best-selling brand, and many of the transport casks sold to the Scotch whisky industry from Spain would have held the sweet liquids.

Tormore has a colourful history — it was built in 1959 by American-owned Long John Distillers and opened in 1961. Brewing behemoth Whitbread bought Long John and its distilleries in 1975, before Allied Distillers took over in 1989, and then French spirits giant Pernod Ricard’s Chivas Brothers division in 2005.

“The distillery was set up to make this beautiful spirit,” explained Polly. “The stills are very large — our wash stills sit at about 18,500 litres, but we only ever fill them to about 12,000 litres. 

“At the top of the stills we have these enormous purifiers – they’re huge additional copper pans with a single baffle plate inside them. Everything is designed to increase that copper contact and allow those beautiful fruity spirits to come through.”

The Singh brothers bought Tormore just months after selling The Whisky Exchange, their online shop, to Pernod Ricard, triggering a £150 million profit in their annual accounts.