Feddie Ocean Distillery

The Free Bacchus Story

Feddie began with one woman's plan for world-class whisky from Fedje, an island off Norway's west coast, and women have funded it ever since. About 1,100 women have invested, and the company's articles of association say only women may invest until women's share of society's wealth matches men's.

Its single malt is made from malted barley alone, like single malt Scotch, but everything happens on the island. It is brewed, distilled, matured and bottled on Fedje, in a hybrid still that combines a pot and a column, and aged in a quayside warehouse where, the distillery says, wild weather and the nearness of the sea shape how the spirit develops. More than 1,400 casks were maturing there by 2026.

Debio, Norway's organic control body, certifies Feddie Ocean Distillery, and Vinmonopolet, the state retailer, marks the single malt organic. The distillery says everything it makes comes from certified organic raw materials, which makes it, in its words, Norway's only organic whisky distillery. Its spent grain feeds farm animals on the island.

The first Feddie Single Malt was aged four years in first-fill bourbon and oloroso sherry casks and bottled at 47.2%, with no chill filtration and no added colour. Alongside the whisky it makes aquavit, gin and a vodka distilled with oyster shells from Fiskeriet in Oslo.