Meet the Maker: Annabel Thomas

Annabel Thomas is the founder and CEO of Nc’nean distillery, Scotland’s first 100% organic whisky distillery. Annabel, and Nc’nean have consistently challenged convention and have proved time and time again that exceptional whisky and environmental responsibility are not mutually exclusive.

At Cask Trade, we’re passionate about finding liquid with stories as compelling as their flavours and so a cask from Nc’nean was the perfect choice when deciding on what to bottle to celebrate the new Cask Trade Tartan.

Marketing Manager, Keira Watkins, was lucky enough to sit down with Annabel Thomas herself and learn all about her personal journey into the world of whisky, why the team at Nc’nean refer to themselves as ‘quiet rebels’ and how to balance respect for tradition with evolving for the modern age.

Keira Watkins: Before you made whisky your profession. What was your opinion of the industry?

Annabel Thomas: “Well, really, before I got into whisky, I don’t think I had an opinion of it, apart from, what every other person’s opinion is, which is that largely it’s male dominated. Mostly men drink it. I guess it is very firmly associated with Scotland in my mind, but really, before I started delving into what would become Nc’nean, I would say I hadn’t given it an awful lot of thought in my life.”

KW: How did you go from not giving it a lot of thought to building your own distillery? Was there a pivotal moment?

AT: “I definitely got into it gradually. The distillery is on my parent’s farm. It was originally a family idea that we could put a distillery in the old farm buildings. I had some time off from my previous job and said to my family: “why don’t I write the business plan?”. So, I did a lot of research and visited lots of distilleries and I started to get properly immersed in it. It was really through that process that the idea for what Nc’nean would become started to emerge. I felt like this was something I really wanted to do. It’s really lovely having that on home turf as well, because it’s a home-grown environment.”

KW: As part of the process of building Nc’nean, were there any influential people who really convinced you to make that leap into the whisky industry?

AT: “I don’t think anyone really convinced me in the sense that no one was saying “You’ve got to do this”. I think, if anything, people would probably say to me “this is a totally mad idea.”. But I think meeting and working with Jim Swan [a whisky industry titan and pioneer of distillation methods, often lovingly referred to as “the Einstein of whisky”] was quite essential just to make it possible. If you’re coming into the industry with no experience, you definitely need someone to guide the way. He was quite critical in that.”

KW: You were founded in 2017 on a remote peninsula. Did you set out to challenge convention and build something that was quite different and new in the industry by being sustainable and woman led or was that a natural evolution over time?

AT: “It was totally critical to my thinking from the beginning. Actually, being woman led was not – we’ll come back to that – but the mission has always been to make whisky sustainably. That goes right back to 2012, when I took that sabbatical.

I had no interest in building a business that is just like every other business because there are loads of great distilleries around Scotland putting out great liquid. My observation was that they were all quite traditional, which is fair enough because they’ve been going for many, many decades and hundreds of years, and I think they do a great job of that. But what I felt was missing, was a distillery doing something a bit more modern and forward looking, with a focus on sustainability and things that the next generation care about. That’s what I felt was both the opportunity from a business point of view, but also a need, because I think the industry does need to keep moving forward and it maybe needs new distilleries to take that role on. So those two things were absolutely critical from the beginning. If I hadn’t had that, I would never have started the distillery.

The woman led thing is completely different because obviously it wasn’t my choice to be a woman. That was just what it was. It did not occur to me that that was interesting until many, many years later when people started commenting on it.”

KW: I was looking at your website, and I really like the term “quiet rebels” that you use to refer to your team. It feels intentional and very thoughtful about the way you approach things in the industry. What does being a “quiet rebel” mean to you in practice?

AT: “Great question. I guess we’ve always been presented with this challenge of, on the one hand, wanting to disrupt an industry, but equally having a lot of respect for what has gone before and being very conscious of the fact we are only where we are because we’re building on what’s been done over the last 100 years. I think “quiet rebel” sums that up.

We are here to say we do think the industry should move forward. We think it needs to become more sustainable. I really believe we have a big challenge of bringing new people into Scotch, and I want the industry to grasp that a bit more firmly and move a bit quicker. But equally, we’re not here to say everything that has gone before is terrible. That’s quite a delicate balance to tread, but “quiet rebels” I think sums that up nicely.”

KW: That’s the part that really aligns with what we are showcasing with Siobhan Mackenzie and the Cask Trade Tartan. We don’t want to create a divide. It’s about honouring the heritage but the need to push forwards and bring it into the modern day.

AT: “Absolutely. We wouldn’t be in a position where we can walk into a retailer and say: “Hey, I’ve got a Scotch, would you like to try it?” and they are excited, if it wasn’t for what’s happened over the last hundred years. But equally, if we don’t keep moving forward, we might find that Scotch is not in such a good place in 20 years time.”

KW: Craftsmanship sits at the heart of this collaboration with the tartan and whisky bringing everyone together. But whisky crafting is often thought about as quite fixed, it’s evolved over the years, but it’s rooted in centuries of heritage. Do you think this is something that should continually evolve as we move further into the modern era?

AT: “Definitely. I think that’s quite an interesting way to look at the history of Scotch, because it has always evolved, maybe not always in a good direction, but I think it needs to keep evolving with the times, both from a practical point of view, but also to meet what consumers expectations are.

If you think, in the 1940s, there wasn’t really such a thing as a single malt, and here we are. The way that whisky is made has also evolved a lot over time. What barrels were used, how people thought about yeast.

I think there is a feeling at the moment which I’m quite excited about, about going back and almost reviving some of the quality traditions of the past. We don’t need to bring everything back, but the use of more interesting yeast, the use of higher quality barrels, all these things that would have been more common many decades ago, people are starting to think about again which is quite exciting.”

KW: Yeah, it’s interesting, we are seeing that consumers are wanting more of those flagship expressions, less about the modern twists on this and that, but actually going back to the true quality of the origins. A lot of people are looking for that real, original taste and authenticity. Are there any traditions that you have that you want to continue?

AT: “I’m not sure if we’re old enough to have created any new traditions yet.

I think the thing that we’re building on from the past is the making of super high-quality whisky. I think if you think about every distillery in the past, each would have probably had its own yeast strain that it was propagating, and our work with yeast reflects that. I hope that we’re sourcing very high-quality barrels that are like what might have been sourced in the past.

I think the things that we’re doing differently and want to keep pushing into the future are those that relate to the sustainability side. Now, arguably, if you go way back, maybe they were doing things in a similar way. We’re using wood. They would have been using natural materials for energy. All of the waste would have gone back to the farm. That’s what we’re doing. We’re using water very sustainably. Actually, if you look at the super old bottles, they’re all made out of recycled glass as well. So maybe, a lot of that kind of sustainability side is also going back to the past. But I think that the key bit in this day and age is that we need to find a future for the industry that uses less fossil fuels and creates less waste.”

KW: So, with this collaboration, we want to put heritage and craftsmanship into the modern day. How important is it to preserve tradition while also experimenting with modern expressions?

AT: “I think an industry moving forward is always critical. Tradition is never a fixed thing. Even if the rules for Scotch were written in the 1970s and it seems impossible to change them now, the reality is there is no one tradition of Scotch. That in itself has been an evolution over time. We have to keep moving forward. Consumers are moving forward. The world is moving forward. Keeping something static, I think, is a great way to lose the future generation of customers.”

KW: I think particularly with different people consuming it in different ways now as well.  I mean, I still probably prefer to drink whisky in a cocktail.

AT: “Or with water! By the way, you know, drinking whisky with water is part of the tradition. It’s just been outlawed by the 1980s, and I’m desperately trying to bring it back!”

KW: Why is it important for you and your personal brand to keep engaging with these kinds of collaborations and people?

AT: “Lots of reasons really. I think it’s always a pleasure to meet people who are doing things, making beautiful things, doing things in a great way, bringing whisky to a new audience or bringing it in in a new way. I think that’s amazing. I’m also a big fan of highlighting women who are doing things differently and who are leading things. I think there is not enough of a spotlight shone on women doing that even in this day and age, and I think that’s important, to be honest, in whisky and beyond.”

KW: If you haven’t come from the whisky industry, from an outsider looking in, it can feel quite intimidating. There’s a lot to learn. There’s a lot of traditions. It can come across as quite a male dominated industry. What advice would you give to someone who’s curious about the industry and might want to get into it? Or people who might even just want to start drinking Scotch? What advice would you give to them as somebody who’s broken their way in?

AT: “It’s a very tricky question. I definitely came in naively. I just didn’t recognise any of that as an issue. So, once I was in, it was too late. I do think the industry still has a way to go, especially at the upper echelons of it. I spend still quite a lot of my time in men only meetings. I don’t really care about that, but it shouldn’t be the way it is.

I think from a drinking point of view, though, that’s the part I’m really passionate about. I think whisky is such an amazing product. The rules that have grown up around it, for example that you must only drink single malt neat, and also all these kinds of barriers that have been put up, where it feels to people that if they don’t have the knowledge, they can’t drink it. That’s a great shame. Because I feel that it’s an incredible product and we should be sharing it as widely as possible, rather than gatekeeping it to those with the knowledge.

So, for people who don’t drink whisky currently, my advice would be to find someone who wants to explore with you or someone who already knows about whisky and just start exploring. If you find that whisky neat is too much, which a lot of people do, and that is definitely where I started, try it with water. Try it with soda water. Experiment in drinking it in different ways and then go from there.

I think there is a whisky for everybody and a way of drinking whisky for everybody. It’s just about exploring and finding something that works for you. Don’t worry if you don’t know what the difference between single malt and a blend is. Just get started somewhere, just drink something.”

Learn more about the Cask Trade Tartan and our limited edition Nc'nean single cask bottling here.