If Wes Anderson ever wanted to set a film in a whisky distillery, Tormore would be the obvious choice.

It does not feel like an industrial site so much as something fashioned out of a mischievous architectural dare to make it impossible to ignore to even people with no intention to buy whisky. A verdant wall of trees in the surrounds, landscaped lawns lined with manicured topiaries clipped into the bulbous shapes of stills and bells, large distinctive metal roofs weathered into a copper-green patina, an imposing clock tower that plays traditional Scottish melodies every quarter of an hour and finally palatial-looking buildings that look like they should be run by bellboys rather than mashmen.

The distillery’s visual oddness conveys a particular kind of confidence, one born of the post-war economic boom in which it was originally built. Opening its doors in 1960, Tormore was the first Scotch whisky distillery to be built in the 20^th century. This was a peculiar mid-century moment when Scotch whisky stopped being just an agricultural product of rural Scotland and became a geopolitical export commodity. The United States had become the principal arena where blended Scotch brands competed for dominance. To quickly increase production and grow in America, a Scotch company needed reliable access to malt whisky.

That is where American capital enters the picture.

Schenley Industries, a major US drinks conglomerate, had already built a formidable domestic portfolio when it turned its attention to Scotch. In 1956 it acquired Seager Evans & Co, the company behind the Long John blended whisky brand – a serious export brand with ambitions in the American market. But ambition required supply.

Malt whisky is a key component of blended Scotch. By the mid-twentieth century, many established Speyside distilleries were already tied into long-standing blending contracts. If Schenley wanted Long John to compete properly in the US, it needed control over malt production at scale. Building a new distillery was not a romantic gesture for these men, but a logistical need.

Tormore’s construction thus began in 1958 to answer that need. It was designed from the outset as a modern, high-capacity malt distillery capable of feeding a blend whose fortunes were increasingly linked to export growth. In a sense, it was originally built thanks to American capital, for the American market.

For most of its life, Tormore’s job was not to be famous; it was to be dependable. Its primary output was intended to feed blends. The official Long John brand page today still specifically identifies spirit from Tormore to form “the heart of the blend”.

Ironically, this distillery built to supply blends was also meticulously designed by its architect to be physically unforgettable. Moreover, the whisky-making facility was only part of an extensively planned complex with warehouses, a manager’s house, offices, generator house, and employees’ cottages. Remarkably for the 1960s, each residence came with a direct telephone line to the distillery. There was perhaps a deeper post-war-industrial logic here: a kind of model-village impulse, a belief that an industrial site could also be an orderly community.

Ownership and corporate context shifted, but the distillery’s role as a blending workhorse persisted. In 2005, Tormore entered Pernod Ricard’s orbit (via Chivas Brothers) with the acquisition of Allied Domecq.

While Tormore remained a blending asset of the Pernod Ricard group, this was the era where Tormore as a single malt becomes a flicker. An official 12-year-old release in 2004 which was replaced by 14- and 16-year-old bottlings in 2014 – initially launched in France.

The paradox is that the distillery’s reputation among whisky fans often grew through the gaps Pernod left: independent bottlings, single-cask releases, and odd parcels that made it out into the world without official fanfare.

Then came the moment that made many whisky people stop treating Tormore as merely a handsome curiosity and start watching it as a live project again.

In June 2022, Pernod Ricard announced the sale of Tormore to Elixir Distillers, the company founded by brothers Sukhinder and Rajbir Singh. To a casual drinker, this could have looked like just another corporate transfer. To anyone who has followed modern whisky seriously, it felt bigger than that. Sukhinder Singh is not simply an owner with capital and a taste for old distilleries. He is one of the most influential figures in contemporary whisky retail and cask selection, best known as the co-founder of The Whisky Exchange and, through Elixir Distillers and The Single Malts of Scotland, part of the small circle of people who helped shape enthusiast taste around bottling transparency, cask quality, and flavour-led selection.

That is what made the purchase feel momentous. Tormore was not a silent, mothballed site waiting for a romantic revival. It was, and remains, a large working distillery with serious capacity, a long history as a blending malt, and a spirit character that many whisky lovers had only encountered in fragments through independent bottlings. Elixir did not acquire a blank canvas. It acquired a functioning system with legacy stocks, architectural grandeur, production obligations, and a distillate whose official identity had never really been fully defined.

After acquiring Tormore Distillery, production under their ownership began in 2023, under distillery manager Polly Logan, and the work that followed was not limited to releasing a few special bottlings. Elixir Distillers began refurbishing the distillery, rebuilding how the site could support a proper single malt programme, and developing visitor-facing plans as part of a longer-term reintroduction of Tormore to the whisky public.

For all its ambition, Sukhinder’s team is honest about the stage at which they’re at. Rather than declaring all of its choices upfront, the team is continuing to assess the spirit’s character as it ages and is still spending time understanding the live inheritance.

And Tormore, by its peculiar design, is the sort of place that resists simple production narratives. Tormore’s current spirit is being made with Laureate, Fireworks and Sassy barley varieties. The distillery uses cream yeast and runs two distinct fermentation regimes, a shorter 52-hour fermentation and a longer 100-hour fermentation. It also has a full lauter mash tun (10.4 tonnes) feeding eleven washbacks, with those washbacks spread unusually across the site rather than concentrated in one conventional fermentation hall. Some are located near the stills, some are housed in the clock tower building, and others sit above the boiler house. Fermentation is thus managed across multiple different environments rather than one neatly controlled room.

Tormore has shared that for the first several years, a large part of its product is still devoted to Chivas Brothers. However, when it produces for its own stocks, the distillery uses that window to experiment with fermentation and cut points.

Tormore is described as a spirit with real substance: fruity, lightly nutty, with notes of pear and stone fruits, and generally more body than the shorthand category of “light Speyside” might suggest. It is a distillate with enough character to reward restraint.

That is why American oak ex-bourbon maturation has appeared so central to the emerging Tormore identity under Elixir. The team believes that refill casks and ex-bourbon casks are the best way to hear the spirit properly before layering on heavier wood influence.

Elixir’s attempt to turn Tormore into a true single malt brand has begun with a series of preludes.

The recently-launched Tormore Blueprint series saw three 10-year-old single malts at 48% ABV matured in three distinct styles, bourbon barrels, cream sherry casks, and toasted barrels. The intention is clear: these are the first entries in a series intended to map Tormore’s flavour “building blocks” one cask style at a time.

When I interviewed Sukhinder, he shared that he felt validated by the strong response for the Blueprint series. A great many drinkers were impressed by its quality, and many commented that the overall approach felt more like the work of an independent bottler than a conventional distillery relaunch. After all, this is a producer doing its best to show its single malt as honestly as possible, without asking heavy cask influence to do all the talking. It was in part a statement about how Sukhinder thinks Scotch whisky should be introduced.

Alongside Blueprint, Elixir also released the Tormore Legacy series, drawing from older stocks acquired with the distillery. If Blueprint was about construction, Legacy was about inheritance. These bottlings are intended to show mature Tormore spirit character from before Elixir ownership, and to make that pre-Elixir distillery profile legible on its own terms. Presented in vintage-led releases, these are positioned explicitly as a bridge between the inherited stocks and the future permanent range expected this year.

Tormore isn’t a clean-slate craft restart. It is a live distillery being re-authored in real time by some of the most respected whisky experts in the world.

I had the opportunity to taste the 22-year-old Tormore Legacy 2002 at Whisky Live Singapore 2025. Here are my notes.

Whisky Review: Tormore Legacy 2002, 22 Years Old Single Malt, Single Cask #1443 First Fill Bourbon Barrel, 48.5%

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Light gold

Nose: Expressive and layered. I get a bright mix of citrusy notes and light smoke to start, with smoked lemons, orange peel, and a gentle smoked tea influences. Leans into orchard and tropical fruits with soft apricots, pineapple, gooseberry and a bit of guava. There is a clear floral side as well, with chrysanthemum and white flowers over a meadowy, slightly grassy backdrop. Some honey, vanilla cream, and a core of malt and graham crackers. A touch of nutmeg and light beeswax add a slightly spicy, waxy detail and finally some clean chalky, mineral spring water notes

Palate: Lively and complex, with a medium-bodied weight. Opens with some tropical twangy fruits with a slightly musky edge, a mix of mangosteen, guava, gooseberry and peeled pomelo. Fruitiness is backed by honey and vanilla cream. There is a repeat of the light smoke and smoked tea from the nose, plus chrysanthemum and other floral tea notes. Gentle ginger warmth builds through the mid-palate and as it evolves, the flavours become increasingly more honeyed and creamy along with soft black tea notes toward the back of the palate.

Finish: Medium-long, fading from honeyed sweetness into a drier, structured close. Trailing notes of honey and graham cracker with a good warmth and firmness. Meadowy and grassy notes, chrysanthemum and some white flowers, and a light lemon echo. Black tea and a touch of tannin drying the tongue just enough. Just a touch of a woody dried-leaf note of tobacco box.

My Thoughts

Full of layers and character. For a bourbon cask Highland whisky, this has a lot of moving parts, but they sit together in a very harmonious, cohesive way. It moves confidently between citrus, light smoke, floral tea, tropical fruit and honeyed malt. It’s very engaging in terms of complexity and evolution and I also like how the tropical green fruits never become sticky or overripe; they stay fresh and slightly sharp to keep the palate lively.

What stands out most to me, though, is how much character there is in the spirit itself, with the first fill bourbon barrel acting more like a frame and mellowing vessel than a loud flavour source. If anything, this makes a strong case that with Tormore, a relatively neutral bourbon cask is already very enticing because the spirit has enough personality to carry the whisky on its own.

@CharsiuCharlie