Against the Grain

Three homegrown distilleries are overcoming limitations to craft their single malt and single grain dreams from scratch.

- JUNE LEE

The future of whisky in Singapore has never been more spirited. With some of the most avid drinkers and collectors in the region, it may seem natural for Singapore to produce its own drams — but that has not been the case until very recently.

Without a history or industry of distilling on the island, coupled with a resolutely tropical climate not suited for the long ageing process, the barriers to entry are daunting, to say the least.

It falls to a merry band of passionate craft distillers who are beginning to define what it means to have a true Singapore whisky, with all the benchmarks that would make us proud. It’s not a coincidence that all three distillers we spoke to eschewed shortcuts to complete all six processes from start to finish — malting, mashing, fermentation, distillation, maturation, and bottling.

A MADE-IN-SINGAPORE SCOTCH

While Brass Lion Distillery is well-known for its Singapore-style gin, it has ventured into whisky territory, with its single malt whisky slated to launch in September.

Founder Jamie Koh, who set out to pioneer Singapore’s gin industry in 2018, configured her pot still to be able to distil rum and whisky as well. Just a year later, she took up the opportunity to produce whisky. “We are quite experimental, and at the time we had the resources to make whisky, so why not?” she recalls.

In Scotland, many distilleries make gin as a cash flow solution while waiting for their whisky to mature. It was not the case for Brass Lion, which has always envisioned itself as a gin maker. “In fact, we had to pause production for a week and run the still 22 times around the clock, day and night, to turn 2,000 litres of wash (the alcoholic ferment) into 180 litres of whisky,” Koh says, still in slight disbelief.