Scotland has opened its first fully organic distillery located in the Highands called Ncn’ean.

Named after Neachneohain (pronounced Nook-knee-anne), a witch-queen in Scots Gaelic folklore, this 100% organic barley distillery started production 3 months ago. They expect to release their first bottle in 2020. In the meantime, whisky lovers can purchase barrels starting at £3000 per cask.

Ncn'ean is located near the western Scottish town of Oban on the Drimnin estate.. Not only does it use 100 % organic barley, it could very well be the greenest distilleries in the country, sourcing all its energy from renewable sources and recycling by-products from the process.

This is the brain child of female distiller Annabel Thomas, a former London strategy consultant. Dr. Jim Swan, legendary figure in whisky production, was also instrumental as the master distiller consultant for Ncn’ean’s founding and creation over the last five years.

Thomas has described the environment as one of the things they are passionate about. She added that " we also want to play around with how we make the whisky...[and] are going for a relatively young, light style of spirit as a basis, but we have a number of ideas up our sleeve."

By: Nokulunga Msibi