Hall of Fame

Sukhinder Singh and his brother Rajbir were born into the world of drinks. Their parents became the first Asian immigrants in the UK to be granted a liquor licence and subsequently opened what became an award-winning off-licence in west London. It was at his parents’ shop that Sukhinder’s interest in whisky, particularly single malt, was born.

After graduating university, Sukhinder helped to redevelop and restructure the family business, which led to numerous award wins through the 1990s. Concurrently, he was starting to build a significant personal whisky collection.

When their parents retired in 1999, Sukhinder and Rajbir took the decision to sell the family business and founded The Whisky Exchange: an online portal where whisky fans could buy, sell and swap bottles. It quickly became a leading platform for single malt whisky sales, and within a decade was named online whisky retailer of the year in the Icons of Whisky. The company now has three shops in London in addition to its online retail business, and also organises The Whisky Show, an event that has set the benchmark for engagement and education between whisky producers and consumers over the past decade.

Assisting in his parents’ business, building his own whisky collection, and eventually running his own whisky retail site gave Sukhinder an encyclopaedic knowledge of whisky and he is regularly called on by individuals, associations, companies, and media around the world for his expertise.

In 2003 Sukhinder launched wholesale business Speciality Drinks, which grew from a side-line operation selling spirits to the on-trade in the early days of The Whisky Exchange. The business grew over the ensuing years and now incorporates an independent bottling arm, a distilling division (Elixir Distillers), and a rare spirits auction website (Whisky.Auction).

Sukhinder is also an advocate for maintaining authenticity and trustworthiness in the secondary whisky market; he and the Whisky.Auction team recently assisted an investigation by London’s Metropolitan Police to track down the the fraudster behind a significant number of forged rare spirits.