Annabel Thomas Wants to Spread the Word of Modern Scotch

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“It’s ‘nook-knee-ann.’”

When you meet Annabel Thomas, the CEO and founder of Nc’nean, you’ll probably have many questions — about the Scotch distillery’s award-winning whisky and aggressive sustainability goals, or even how a single-malt upstart succeeds in an industry dominated by centuries-old brands.

But really, you have to start with the name. 

“The pronunciation, that’s an often-asked question,” says Thomas, laughing. The short story is that the inspiration for the name comes from Neachneohain, an ancient Gaelic goddess. “She was known as the Queen of Spirits and a fierce protector of nature,” as the Nc’nean website notes. “Strong and independent, she was never afraid to walk her own path. We try to follow her ethos in everything we do.”

Once you’re comfortable with the name, stay for the longer story behind Nc’nean. Not only does the distillery produce one of our favorite whiskies despite being a relative newcomer to the Scotch world, but it’s one of the few B Corp-certified spirits brands (loosely, B Corp certification means a company has met verifiable high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability). Launched in 2013 as an independent producer when Thomas was just turning 30, Nc’nean started with lofty goals surrounding environmental impact and renewable energy, which meant radical rethinking how Scotch is made. 

“I wish more whisky brands and distilleries would be sustainable, and that’s a big part of our mission,” says Thomas. “It’s not only for us to be as sustainable as possible [but also to] try to bring the rest of the industry along as quickly as we can.”

Thomas’s journey into Scotch wasn’t exactly linear, but her background proved helpful; she started her career as a strategy consultant in central London at Bain, but her family owned a farm in Scotland. “You can’t be on the west coast of Scotland without thinking about whisky,” she admits. “We always had this family idea to start a distillery in our farm buildings. I had a chance to take a sabbatical from my work, so I said to my family, ‘We keep talking about a distillery, so shall we do it? I can write the business plan while I’m off.’” 

That idea led her to the island of Islay, a whisky mecca known for its peated single malts. “It’s where I started to like whisky — not peated, interestingly,” she says. “But more importantly, I was going to all these distilleries who were saying, ‘We’re doing things the way they’ve always been done.’ And I was coming from a perspective of caring about sustainability — I had done some work of that kind in the food space, and I was seeing how these food brands were reflecting the values of the next generation of consumers.” 

In particular, she was impressed with the work of a brand called Innocent. As she told Quine magazine last year: “I had thought, ‘Well, companies make profit and charities do good’ but at Innocent, they had an attitude that is now very common but really wasn’t back then – they were purpose-led and wanted to do good for the world, while also building a great business, too.”

That attitude, unfortunately, was lacking in the whisky world. “It wasn’t happening in Scotch,” she says. “I thought, if the industry doesn’t start to reflect the next generation’s values, it’s going to struggle.”

Thomas and her team enlisted the help of Dr. Jim Swan, the late whisky expert and consultant who was known for his mentoring work with nascent spirits brands, from Taiwan’s Kavalan to this country’s single-malt innovators at Virginia Distillery Co. 

“He was pretty essential,” Thomas says. “He gave us and future investors confidence that we could make great whisky, and he helped us connect to the right people in the industry.” He also introduced the idea of using STR (shaved, toasted, re-charred) barrels in the maturation process, which make up a good portion of the barrel aging at Nc’nean, along with (to a lesser extent) ex-bourbon and ex-sherry barrels. 

“Another reason working with Jim was so important is that he helped us make a great young whisky,” says Thomas, noting that the brand only began distilling in 2018 and releasing whisky two years later. 

Her sustainability goals had sweeping and immediate impacts on production. Thomas decided not to make peated whisky (“It isn’t very good if you want a sustainable profile,” says Thomas). The distillery only uses organic barley, which adds a lovely creaminess and texture to the liquid. They also only utilize renewable energy — a biomass boiler fueled from an on-site commercial forest, where all the trees are replanted, along with small amounts of renewable electricity — and bottle the whisky in 100% recycled clear glass bottles and divert 99.7% of their waste from landfills.  

That commitment has come at a financial cost. “Every decision we’ve made has been more expensive,” says Thomas. “But we got to start from scratch. It’s admittedly harder for older distilleries to retrofit for renewable energy. But when it came to the 100% recycled glass bottle or the packaging, I do feel like other people haven’t tried hard enough. The U.K. introduced legislation recently that gift packaging has to be fully recyclable. We’d already done that. We should be doing the right thing without the government forcing us to.”

Sustainability is great, but how’s the liquid? As we noted, we’re already huge fans — wonderfully floral and fruity on the nose, you’ll find notes of citrus, peach, apricot, cocoa and butterscotch across the Nc’nean line. And that flavor bomb belies the modest age of the product: under a decade, which isn’t a rarity but is certainly noticeable in an industry obsessed with age statements, which usually start with bottles at 12 or 15 years.

The whisky world is also taking notice. Nc’nean’s first whisky broke an auction record in 2020 when it became the most expensive bottle sold from a new distillery. In 2023, Nc’nean won Craft Producer of the Year at the Icons of Whisky Scotland Awards, and whisky experts are effusive in their praise for the brand. 

“Nc’nean is a whisky I love recommending to customers,” says Mike Vacheresse, owner of New York’s Travel Bar (one of the world’s best whisky bars). “Especially the Aon series. We sell the seven-year ex-bourbon single barrel cask and the seven-year Calvados single barrel. These whiskies are around 120 proof, taste clean and show a point of view, light on the palate — similar to a Japanese-style whisky.”

Even older Scotch brands have taken notice. “I’ve been surprised, but everyone has been incredibly friendly and welcoming,” says Thomas. “I was an outsider, and we went in saying the industry needs to change. Most people have been in the industry their whole lives, and their dads were in it their whole lives. So I was apprehensive, but I’ve never met a friendlier group of people. Thankfully, the Scotch world is collaborative, not necessarily competitive.” 

That said, even for a brand that touts itself as “uninhibited by tradition,” Thomas recognizes the impact and legacy of her chosen field — she’s just trying to move it forward.

“Scotch is amazing,” she says. “It has history and tradition, and it’s really important to Scotland — culturally, economically and socially. I just want to spread the word of modern Scotch.”

Photography: Johanna Stickland for InsideHook