New place for whisky retail

The whisky scene in Singapore is getting hotter. There are more retailers, and new releases are coming in here faster than they used to. Demand and supply, and stuff like that. Places that I've been to for whisky shopping: Duty Free (Changi Airport), Vom Fass (Orchard Ion and Westgate Jurong East), Fine Spirits by La Maison du Whisky, Liquor Bar, 1855 The Bottle Shop, Standish (Holland Village), The Single Cask (CHIJMES). I think that's about it...? For physical shops/stores, at least.

Things are about to get even hotter, with a new shop on the scene. (NB: This is totally not a sponsored post. I wish it were, but it isn't. Sad. Maybe if enough people visit and mention that they visited it after reading about the shop here...)

Introducing: The Whisky Distillery! (I hope they have a website or something up soon. The name of the shop makes it rather hard to Google-search for)

This store that specializes in selling whisky (duh!) just opened last weekend. And as you can tell, the floor is drooling with excitement, leading it to become wet, and hence, the cleaning staff.

The Whisky Distillery is situated on the fourth level of Orchard Ion, beside Oak (which sells whisky, wine and cigars) and Vom Fass (which sells whisky, wine, vinegar, oils, and other liqueurs).

The good thing is, The Whisky Distillery isn't actually really competing with the other two shops. It's on a whole different level when it comes to prices and quality of product.

The whiskies sold here are mostly old or rare, and in many instances, both. There are some affordable Ardbegs and Glenmorangies: The Ardbeg 10, Corryveckan, Uigeadail, and the Lasanta, Quinta Ruban, Nectar d'Or from Glenmorangie. These were selling for roughly $150. Pretty decent.

Slightly higher up the price scale are is Royal Lochnagar Selected Reserve (purple box). That's mid 300s. Pretty steep, but for something hardly seen in Singapore, maybe worth a pop if you've spare cash lying around.

Beyond that price range is where this store really shines.

Lots of really old stuff, and some very reasonably priced (for what they are). For example, there's a Glenury Royal 50 (50 years!!) selling at $8000, if age floats your boat. Not cheap, but I think the shop's profit margin isn't going to be very big with a price like that for a 50 year old. Another highlight would be the Port Ellen's, from several different releases. Glenfarclas 40 was also there, and a couple of other old vintages from various distilleries.

Some of the bottlings are at high prices, which Chris (the boss of the place and a chap who knows the drinks, knows the people in the industry, and has a sense of humour) told me are a result of the prices at which he was able to procure the whiskies. Whiskies that he was able to procure at lower prices, were offered at lower prices. Some of the whiskies were selling for prices that were more or less what I would have to pay if I bought them online from The Whisky Exchange and paid the levy and shipping fees. In particular, I was checking out the Talisker 25 and 30 that they carried, which were from the earlier cask strength releases. Alas, the Macallan 30 was rather...less affordable than the Talisker 30, due to the supplier that he got the stock from.

So, if you're searching for some rare and old premium malts, this would be a good place to go. Chris also shared some of his future plans, which sound like they are going to make the whisky drinking scene in Singapore even more exciting in the future.