Nc'nean Distillery

We are women in whisky. Though everyday is International Women’s Day here at Nc’nean, sometimes it’s good to have an excuse to talk about why diversity is great, and how it has naturally become a core part of our business. Perhaps it’s having a female founder that makes women feel more empowered to apply for roles with us, or the fact that we recruit not worrying about how much time people have or haven’t spent in the, historically male, whisky industry. All we know, is that a diverse gender balance brings out the best in our team, creatively, logically, and best of all, it makes it way more fun. So today, and everyday, here’s to the quietly rebellious women who make up over half of our team. #iwd #internationalwomensday Annabel Thomas Sasha Smyth-Osbourne Amber Morrison Amy Stammers Beth Stephen Suzanne Rivière

“But while folks may disagree on the merits of how Nc’nean (pronounced “Nuck-NEE-an”) is made, one taste of their delicious whisky could, I believe, bridge the partisan divide and, if enough people were to drink it, quite possibly bring about peace on earth, or at least a really fun party.” A lovely surprise to see this brilliant write up come out last night, thank you Tony Sachs for the deep dive into Huntress, and the depths in which you’ve understood our brand and mission as distillers. Thank you also to Claire Butler and Wild Card PR for helping to make this happen, brilliant as always. Nc'nean Distillery Annabel Thomas

https://lnkd.in/gJJEX6Ed Sustainability will be the future, or else there will be no future. I support and champion brands who care. This can be adhering to organic standards, and or enacting sustainable practices. Are they making any meaningful effort to improve or trend lightly upon the world? The ‘constraint’ is fun as it allows me to re-engage with my passion with fresh eyes. Since doing this I have explored a host of new brands; Fielden Whisky , Circumstance Distillery , Nc'nean Distillery, Glengoyne , Cotswolds Distillery and Lochlea Distillery to name a handful. Fielden are able to produce incredible whisky precisely because they do not use pesticides etc. The act of caring translates into (in my view) an objectively superior product. The legacy thinking will die out and we all will too if we do not act like we care. What are we all doing here if not to care?

Ever wondered what it's like to work in a distillery? Quiet Rebel Roberto takes us through a day mashing and a day in the stillhouse in our new blog series 'Day in the life'. https://lnkd.in/epx2vVh7 He starts off with mashing, the first stage of whisky making. He goes into the process, what the team are trying to achieve, as well as where all of the left over waste products end up. Read "Day in the life - mashing" now: https://lnkd.in/eigfBB6Q Then he goes onto a day in the stillhouse itself, quite a different process and set in the heart of the distillery. Warning, a lot of coffee is drunk throughout both days. Read "Day in the life - distilling" now: https://lnkd.in/edy7FnTf

Each year we host a cocktail competition for industry leading bartenders to celebrate top talent across the on-trade. The 2024 competition was open to bartenders from all over Europe and the hugely deserving winner is Norbert Drozdowski of Rick Stein's The Seafood Restaurant in Cornwall. Norbert's coastal home, admiration of nature’s true beauty, and cocktail making skills encouraged him to enter the contest.   Today is the official launch day of his chosen single cask. Norbert selected this ex-white Port cask for its complex nutty and chocolatey notes; spiced orange, chocolate hazelnut and cedarwood. There are just 258 bottles of this whisky and more than half have been snapped up yesterday by our newsletter subscribers.   It has been a pleasure to work with Norbert on this single cask and we hope that you love it as much as he and the rest of us do. Order today for delivery in time for Burns Night. Link to shop in the comments. 

Fill your stockings with whisky. We’re chuffed announce the launch of Scotch whisky’s first 100% recycled glass miniature bottles, just in time for Christmas. Our new 5cl bottles are now available to buy from our UK website, in flagship, Botanical Spirit, cask strength and Quiet Rebels Amy. Every bottle is made from 100% recycled glass which saves 40% of the carbon compared with a bottle which uses new (extra flint) materials. We've been working on a viable solution for upping the production for our miniature bottles for a while now. Since we launched our first whisky, we had kept our original 5cls (made from extra flint glass) for sampling only, keeping production low on purpose as typically the glass to liquid ratio on miniature bottles is incredibly high, making them very carbon intensive. We've spend the last year or two exploring everything from pouches (which we did a small run of for a campaign earlier in the year), to aluminium bottles (still exploring this space but it wasn't right for now). But we are so pleased to have found a solution in 100% recycled glass from the same supplier as our whisky bottle. Using the slightly tinted glass from the high recycled content brings it closer to our bottle for the consumer, plus it has a considerably lower carbon footprint (40% less) than our previous glass minis which were bottled in extra flint glass. For now these are only available for UK delivery from ncnean.com, and on board the Caledonian Sleeper, but will be launching into retail across the UK and Europe very soon. Happy Christmas everyone.

Such a fun evening supporting our great low carbon travel partner Caledonian Sleeper. Our very own Lorne Robb piping guests into the lounge too!

It's been an incredibly exciting week for our team of quiet rebels, as we’ve just been ranked 21st in this year’s Drinks International Top 50 Most Admired Whisky brands in the world. We take the same position for the second year in a row, with only older, more established distilleries ahead of us. We are flattered to be amongst some of the world’s biggest heritage brands, and are excited to feel like we've found our feet in this amazing community that is the whisky industry, whilst staying true to our mantra of being made by nature, not by rules. We can't wait to get stuck in to what's next, whilst continuing to pioneer sustainable production and walk our own path along the way. #madebynaturenotbyrules

Eco-conscious travel at its finest. We are so excited for this partnership, bringing our low carbon Organic Single Malt Whisky in 100% recycled glass to the iconic Caledonian Sleeper train. The perfect partner to launch our new 100% recycled glass whisky miniatures with, marking us as the first whisky distillery in Scotland to bottle 5cl miniatures in 100% post consumer recycled glass. Guests who join us both on the Caledonian Sleeper can reduce their CO2 emissions by almost seven times compared with other forms of transport like planes or cars. Big thanks to Tom Duffy and GHF | Building The Iconic Drinks Brands of the Future for helping make this happen and our joint marketing teams for bringing this to life! Caledonian Sleeper Lorne Robb Beth Stephen Sasha Smyth-Osbourne Kat Presley Matt Hastings

Telling people's stories is one of our favourite things to do at Nc'nean. It resonates so well with our consumers, receiving the highest engagement out of all our content, because as we all know humans are a nosy bunch, and people love people. Today is another celebration of that, with the launch of our fourth Quiet Rebels release in the series, this year with our Head of Sustainability Amy at the helm. A big congrats to our team on this one, especially Amy Stammers for her delicious bottling and all her efforts that go into helping us pioneer sustainable whisky production, Matt Hastings for blending the bottling and for putting together this brilliant video. And to local videographer Dave for capturing the magic - we love it.