Cooper King Distillery

From Backpacking to Award-Winning Sustainable Distillery

It was a backpacking adventure to Australia that changed their lives – and saw the creation of Cooper King Distillery.

In their late twenties, Chris Jaume had just qualified as an architect and his wife Abbie was a scientist with a PhD - and within a year, they realised they hated it.  They quit their jobs, bought one-way tickets to Australia and set off with no plan, just a hunger for adventure.

That decision led them to Tasmania, living in a car and fruit picking to extend their visas.  They then stumbled across a whisky distillery that had just made the world’s best single malt whisky – and discovered a total of eight distilleries on the island.

“We just fell in love with it,” says Chris.  “Small producers, using local grain and local casks; they weren’t working with supermarkets and didn’t have big export targets. They were making it because they loved it.”

They learned all they could from the Tasmanian distillers before heading back, penniless, to England where they pitched the idea of their own distillery to the bank and were given a resounding ‘No!’  So they crowdfunded, bought land, self-built the distillery and even imported their whisky still from Tasmania.

At the time, gin had made a revival and so they started making gin with great success, but whisky was, and is, their first love.

“The gin helped us fund the whisky and raise brand awareness.  Our first whisky release – and also the country’s first net zero energy whisky -  sold out in eight and a half minutes. After ten years of dreaming about launching a whisky, we suddenly had no whisky again!”

Why sustainability was a must, not a maybe

The idea of meaningful business was there right from the start.  Chris continued:

“While we were in Tasmania, big wildfires ripped through close to where we were staying - much of which was protected wilderness – which was terrifying to witness.  We also lived up near the Great Barrier Reef and witnessed the destruction that was happening up there as well.  So our idea was, if we were going to come back and build a business, then we would use it for good and use it to protect or even create some of those environments that we'd seen so destroyed while abroad.  That was always the underlying goal.”

They were also inspired by Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard.  His business philosophy was that if you’re making something, it always has an impact - so minimise it, or better yet, reverse it.

Embedding purpose into every part of the process

“We started by looking at every step - where the wheat and barley came from, the glass, how we powered the distillery, where the waste went.”

The aim was to leave no stone unturned.

They used local ingredients, honey from the bees in their own apiary and even grew lemongrass themselves. “Someone once said, ‘That must be cheaper.’ It’s not! It costs ten times more.  But that’s what it takes.”

They worked with a local sustainability consultant during lockdown.

“The result?  We produced the first carbon-negative gin in the UK.  We put out a press release. Next thing we knew, we were on Sky News. And Selfridges and The Natural History Museum called asking us to make their gin. We couldn’t have hoped for a better response.”

How values shape strategy

“Every product, supplier, collaboration - we ask whether it aligns with our values. Does it dilute our mission?”

They’ve said no to supermarket contracts more than once. “We work with growers, farmers and bakers. Supermarkets don’t support the food system we believe in.”

They also launched the UK’s first refill scheme.  “It made complete sense. But HMRC wasn’t prepared for it. It took us ages to get through the red tape. Now we refill bottles, save carbon and create loyalty.”

Their entire team works a four-day week, they take part in volunteer conservation projects and help plant wildflower meadows and woodlands.

“We do a lot with a local charity, Yorkshire Dales Millenium Trust.  We were the first distillery in Europe to formally sign up to 1% for the Planet (a network of businesses that donate 1% of their annual turnover to environmental organisations.)  Currently, we are exceeding that. Since 2018 – when our first product launched - we have donated over 2% of our entire turnover, having planted 35,000 square metres of woodland in Yorkshire, 5,000 square metres of wildflower meadows and we’re now funding apprenticeships in rural North Yorkshire from the sales of our whisky.”

Defining success beyond profit

They’ve documented every square metre of woodland and meadow restored, tracked volunteer hours, published carbon reports and shared everything publicly.

“We've found our customers really engage because they can imagine what a square metre of woodland might look like.  Being able to quantify what we do and how they contribute themselves has certainly formed part of our success.

But success, for us, isn’t based on turnover. We’ve got tawny owls nesting in trees we planted eight years ago.  Wildlife is thriving here.  And we’re supporting the region’s future through apprenticeships.  These principles are embedded in the business, so when people do discover us, they see it's not just surface level greenwashing, it actually runs through everything we do.  And the business has grown far bigger and quicker than we'd ever anticipated, because of our commitment to our core principles.”

Future plans

“From dreaming of employing five people and working with a Michelin-starred restaurant, Cooper King is now 15 strong and still growing. We’re endlessly inquisitive. If we ever thought we’d made it, that would be the start of stagnation.”

On sunny days they run entirely on solar power – and may well be the first whisky distillery in the world to do that.  They’re now looking at capturing carbon from fermentation too.

“It’s not factored into most carbon calculations yet.  We want to be the first in the industry to tackle that too.”

Advice to other business owners

“Don’t try to be perfect. No-one is.  Pick one meaningful thing and do it properly.  Start with something small and tick off a quick win, to help boost confidence.  Ask questions and seek outside opinions. We’ve worked with coaches, Natwest and accelerator programmes who challenge your thinking.  And ask questions.  Constantly. Our whole team questions everything. It’s helped us stay resilient.”

Creating a stronger, purpose-led business community

“As businesses we need to talk to each other and share best practice.  We collaborate with some amazing restaurants, wedding venues, bakeries and farmers.  We give our waste gin botanicals to our local bakery who use it in to make bread and pastries.  Spent barley grain from whisky mashing is collected by a local farmer for cattle feed because it is nutrient rich.  It saves them money, saves us disposal costs and supports the rural economy.  It doesn’t have to be complex.  Just think outside the box, ask questions and talk.  You’d be amazed at what you can do.

“If you’re a business new to thinking like this, the potential is there.  I mean, who doesn’t want a more stable and sustainable business?”