In the years since separating from The Whisky Exchange (supplier of my day job), the team at Elixir Distillers have been busy. From tinkering with the Black Tot range to continuing to release Single Malts of Scotland bottlings, to say nothing of building Portintruan distillery on Islay and running Tormore<\/a>, they\u2019ve not had much time to create new things. However, despite all that, they have done so, repurposing an old name with a new idea: introducing The Whisky Trail. Again\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before Elixir Distillers became a company in its own right, it was the independent bottling arm of The Whisky Exchange. I first encountered The Whisky Trail in my early days at TWE, when we had a few bottles of a Macallan<\/a> left over after a project that we\u2019d bottled with a \u201cThe Whisky Trail\u201d label, and decided to pop them on the website. Some more Macallan and a Caol Ila followed, but then things went quiet for a few years.<\/p>\n Elixir Distillers was spun off as a more separate entity in 2017 and the team started looking at creating new ranges to sit alongside Port Askaig<\/a>, Elements of Islay<\/a> and Single Malts of Scotland. The Whisky Trail popped up as the perfect addition to the lineup, and a series of quartets of whiskies with themed labels was born.<\/p>\n Shortly after The Whisky Exchange was sold<\/a> in 2021 and Elixir Distillers started its new era as an independent company, The Whisky Trail went quiet. However, in 2025, the team decided to revive the name as part of a new project: The\u00a0Elixir Trails<\/a>.<\/p>\n Looking beyond just a single category of drinks, The Elixir Trails potentially spans the world of spirits. Starting with The Whisky Trail and The Rum Trail, the idea is to curate a range of small-batch releases:<\/p>\n Elixir Trails invites you on a journey of flavour discovery, through a series of bottlings of exciting spirits from around the globe \u2013 rums, single malt whiskies and more \u2013 selected by your navigator and liquid travel guide,\u00a0Sukhinder Singh \u2013 a passionate, world-renowned connoisseur and champion of exceptional drinks.<\/p>\n \u2014The Elixir Trails website<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The first four releases from The Whisky Trail are now all in the wild, with whiskies from Thy, White Peak, Chichibu and Westland in the lineup.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve spent a lot of time over the past couple of years talking about Nordic whisky. While Finland and Sweden have led the way, Denmark is rapidly becoming well known as a producer of interesting whisky. There\u2019s a huge amount of variation between the distillers, with Stauning sticking to more traditional flavour profiles while Copenhagen seem to come up with a new craziness on a monthly basis.<\/p>\n Thy is again something very different, focusing even more than others on grain. Nose<\/strong>: Toffee apples and Christmas tree pine followed by fruity jelly: lemon and orange. Buttery grain notes build: American grits with a touch of salty Scottish porridge. Brown sugar and raisins develop with time in the glass.<\/p>\n Palate<\/strong>: Brown sugar and baking spice lead with lots of freshly crushed grain and spiced custard. Minty notes build with hints of liquorice and leafy ferns. Apple sauce sits underneath along with candied lemon peel, sharp green apples and apple peel.<\/p>\n Finish<\/strong>: Brown sugar slowly fades to leave freshly crushed rye and cooling mint.<\/p>\n This is a great example of modern European rye whiskey. Very grain forward, and with the herbal and spicy notes you might expect of American rye balanced by fruit. My favourite expression from Thy that I\u2019ve tried yet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n While you might expect the Chichibu in the lineup to get the most buzz, it\u2019s actually been this release from Derbyshire\u2019s White Peak distillery. I will admit that I\u2019m a bit of a fanboy, and I have my own cask turning three in April 2026. I managed to try this at Whisky Show 2025, after hearing great things from people who\u2019d tried it at Whisky Live Paris a few weeks earlier, and it lived up to expectation.<\/p>\n White Peak uses a combination of brewer\u2019s yeast (from local beer-maker Thornbridge) and regular distiller\u2019s yeast in fermentation \u2013\u00a0an approach that Elixir is now using at Tormore. The team also mix in some peated malt, creating a fruity spirit with a soft underlying smokiness.<\/p>\n Nose<\/strong>: Custard cream biscuits and baked apples covered in toffee sauce and cinnamon sugar. Hints of peat smoke and warm gravel develop, along with Pasteis de Nata and shortbread.<\/p>\n Palate<\/strong>: The smoke is much more prominent on the palate, with gravel and char leading to singed apples, burnt toffee and crisp pears. Rich and buttery caramel notes are joined by cooling mint and granny smith apples, with apple Jolly Ranchers and pear drops floating around on top.<\/p>\n Finish<\/strong>: Soft wood smoke and pink shrimp sweets linger, backed up by a touch of damp oak.<\/p>\n I bought this on the day it landed in the UK, and it\u2019s one of my favourite releases from White Peak so far. The distillery\u2019s Wire Works Bourbon Barrel<\/a> picked up The Whisky Exchange\u2019s Whisky of the Year<\/a> award this year, so it seems that it\u2019s not only me who\u2019s a fan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This is whisky which you almost certainly won\u2019t be able to find from the initial releases. It is further evidence of Sukhinder\u2019s love of the distillery\u2019s whisky matured in beer casks, and uses casks that previously held Shiga Kogen\u2019s frankly ridiculous The Far East imperial IPA. The beer seems to vary from release to release, but each batch uses a variety of methods from the following list:<\/p>\n In short: a big IPA with some secondary-fermentation and cask-maturation character. I\u2019ve not managed to try the beer, but all tales of it cement it as a mad thing that I need to try. Some of Chichibu\u2019s most celebrated beer-cask-matured whiskies have used similar casks, and the bar is very high.<\/p>\n Nose<\/strong>: Jelly babies and milk chocolate, with malted milk biscuits and chocolate fudge brownies. Marzipan and Play-Doh notes develop, along with bourbon biscuits and crunchy nut cornflakes.<\/p>\n Palate<\/strong>: Rich and oily with stacks of fruit at first: pineapple, mango, anonymous gummi bear fruits, star fruit and very ripe pear. Chocolate and spice build: dry Cocoa pops, more chocolate fudge and a touch of baking spice. Pops of candied peel, wine gum and sherbet pip fruitiness appear.<\/p>\n Finish<\/strong>: Spiced dark bread, raisins and sultanas fade to leave fruity jelly baby notes.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a bit much for me, but if you like these beer casks then I suspect this will be one for you. While I loved the last one we had at The Whisky Exchange (Chichibu 2014 Martial Arts<\/a>), this one is a step too far, with the chocolate adding too much richness and the fruit being slightly cloying \u2013 this was matured for 6 years in the beer cask, and that has taken it a little over the top for my liking. It is an impressive whisky, but not one that I\u2019d ever want more than a single dram of in an evening.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nIn the beginning was\u2026 The Whisky Trail<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>The Elixir Trails<\/h2>\n
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The Whisky Trail: Batch One<\/h2>\n
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<\/figure>\nThe Whisky Trail Thy 2020 4yo Danish Malted Rye Whisky<\/h3>\n
The Whisky Trail\u2019s release is one of the distillery\u2019s more conservative grain bills, being simply malted rye, and this leads to something much more familiar to most whisky drinkers:<\/s> The Whisky Trail release is the distillery\u2019s spelt rye mash bill: 60% malted rye, 30% malted Odyssey barley and 10% spelt \u2013\u00a0almost a European take on the ratios you find in American ryes.<\/p>\nThe Whisky Trail White Peak 2018 7yo English Single Malt Whisky<\/h3>\n
The Whisky Trail Chichibu 2014 10yo Japanese Single Malt Whisky<\/h3>\n
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