The Collector's Pour

What began with stamps and miniature bottles grew into one of the world's most extraordinary whisky collections

- By MAITHREYI SOOREJ

Collectors are a curious breed. There’s something in their DNA, or perhaps in their upbringing, that propels them to accumulate, categorise and cherish. What they collect is often shaped as much by circumstance as by taste, and sometimes by pure serendipity.

For Sukhinder Singh, head of retail at The Whisky Exchange and owner of a collection exceeding 10,000 rare single malts, the path began innocuously enough—with coins and stamps. A corner of the local handyman’s shop devoted to philately was his first brush with obsession.

His parents, pioneers in more ways than one, opened an off-licence in Hanwell, west London—the first Asian family in the UK to be granted a liquor licence. It was here that his love of alcohol and collecting first intersected, albeit modestly, in the form of miniature bottles. Fate intervened again in the form of a local collector: the vice president of the world’s largest miniature-bottle club lived just around the corner. Conversations revealed that Britain’s most serious collectors were, almost without exception, whisky enthusiasts. By the time Singh reached the age of legal drinking, he was already captivated by the subtle variations in age, label, and spirit.