Feddie Ocean Distillery with Martin Tønder Smith Show Notes

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Feb 11

Feddie Ocean Distillery: Norwegian Whisky at the Edge of the Map

There are distilleries that trade on history, and there are distilleries that trade on geography. Feddie Ocean Distillery does both, even though its whisky story is barely a decade old.

On this episode of the Whiskey Ring Podcast, I travel to Norway’s far western edge, closer to the Shetland Islands than to Oslo, to speak with CEO and blender Martin Tønder Smith about building a modern whisky distillery on a granite island of just 500 people. It’s a conversation about place, patience, and the quiet defiance required to make whisky where almost every system seems designed to make it difficult.

From Brewery to Whisky, by Way of Survival

Feddie Ocean’s origin story isn’t romantic in the traditional sense. A small island brewery launched in 2015 with ambitions that exceeded its capital, closing just a few years later. Rather than letting the idea die, founder and principal shareholder Anna Koppang took over the remains of the business and committed to whisky instead.

The first cask was filled in the summer of 2019. Full production began late that year, and almost immediately ran headlong into COVID. A single traveling Scottish distiller, strict isolation rules, and long pauses between production runs made the early years anything but smooth. Still, the casks kept filling. The distillery survived. And the identity sharpened.

What emerged was a distillery focused entirely on spirits, with beer reduced to its most essential role: wash for whisky.

Whisky as Community Infrastructure

Feddie Island is not remote in the romantic Highlands sense. It’s working-class, wind-beaten, and practical. Jobs are scarce. Young people leave. Like Isle of Harris or the Faroe Islands, the distillery was envisioned not just as a producer of whisky, but as an economic anchor.

That ambition has been harder to realize than hoped. As Martin puts it, running a distillery is mostly about asking yourself uncomfortable questions and answering them honestly. External shocks, market headwinds, and Norway’s regulatory environment make optimism a risky indulgence. What’s left instead is transparency, realism, and slow progress.

Norway Is Not a Whisky Country. Yet.

Despite common assumptions, Norway is a tiny whisky market. Spirits production was illegal outside government control until 2005. Retail sales remain under a strict monopoly. Alcohol advertising is effectively forbidden.

Historically, Norway drank vodka and aquavit. Cognac held cultural cachet through old trade ties with France. Whisky arrived late and cautiously. Even today, all Scotch whisky sales combined amount to roughly 1.5 million liters per year nationwide.

And yet, change is happening. Not through hype, but through curiosity. Martin has watched Norwegian drinkers shift from brand loyalty toward flavor exploration. Blind tastings replaced labels. Conversations deepened. The audience grew smaller, but smarter.

A Distillery Powered by Women

Feddie Ocean’s most distinctive structural decision predates Martin’s arrival: the company was founded with 100% female investors, now numbering over 1,200. In an industry where venture capital and ownership skew overwhelmingly male, the choice was intentional, political, and unapologetic.

Today, the company is roughly 50/50 in its workforce. The whisky label carries the phrase Powered by Women front and center, not as branding gloss but as provocation. It starts conversations. Sometimes awkward ones. Sometimes necessary ones.

Martin, a man in his 50s with decades of whisky experience, is keenly aware of the irony. But he’s also clear that neutrality is overrated. Values, like whisky, should be felt.

Making Whisky Where the Sea Gets In

Technically, Feddie Ocean does very little by the book, because Norway never wrote one.

The distillery uses a hybrid still with a single-pass distillation, producing a fruity, malt-forward spirit. Fermentation is treated as the primary flavor engine, with long fermentations, lactic influence, and experimentation over time.

The water source tells its own story. Drawn from a shallow lake surrounded by bogland, the water can change color after winter storms. Saltwater intrusion during heavy North Sea weather subtly alters mineral content. The result, consistently, is a briny note that shows up across casks.

Maturation happens in a former mechanical workshop just meters from the shoreline. No insulation. Concrete floors. Surprisingly low humidity. Alcohol strength rises instead of falls. The sea doesn’t whisper here. It presses.

An Unlikely Market Breakthrough

When Feddie Ocean released its first single malt in 2024, expectations were modest. What followed was not.

Roughly 7,500 bottles sold out in just over a month, making it the best-selling single malt in Norway for the year and the only non-Scottish whisky in the country’s top 20. In a tightly controlled monopoly market, that kind of velocity is almost unheard of.

The whisky wasn’t positioned as luxury. It was priced to be opened. The bottle was lightweight, recycled glass. The closure was a screw cap. Every design choice pushed against the idea that whisky must be precious to be good.

Why Export Matters

Norway’s rules make storytelling nearly impossible at home. Abroad, the opposite is true. Listings in Sweden, Switzerland, and especially the UK opened doors that domestic channels never could. Being available through retailers like The Whisky Exchange didn’t just move bottles, it created awareness.

Collaborations like Friends in the North with Woven Whisky further amplified that reach, proving that small producers don’t need loud marketing when they have honest liquid and trusted allies.

Slow, Steady, and Still Standing

Feddie Ocean is not big. It doesn’t pretend to be. It has roughly 1,500 casks maturing, most in full-size barrels, and production pauses when the math stops making sense.

What it does have is clarity. Whisky made at its own pace, shaped by a specific place, and sold with the expectation that it will be drunk, not admired from afar.

Norwegian whisky is still finding its voice.
Feddie Ocean already knows what it wants to say.

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Feddie Ocean Distillery