New episode out now: Myken – The world’s most remote distillery
The latest episode of Barley’s New Adventures in Whisky travels north of the Arctic Circle to Myken, a remote Norwegian island that has defied the odds, transforming from a dying fishing outpost into a thriving whisky community
When the fishing boats stopped coming, the people of Myken thought their days were numbered. A storm in 1981 claimed seven local lives and when the fish factory burned down two years later, most residents left. By the 2000s, only a handful of pensioners remained on this rocky island two kilometres long and barely 400 metres wide.
Then, one stormy night, new arrivals appeared. Roar Larsen and his wife, Trude Tokle, were sailing the Norwegian coast with their four children when bad weather pushed them into unknown waters. “We had never heard of Myken,” Tokle admitted. Few Norwegians had. But, she says, “Three days were enough for us to fall in love with Myken. The sky, the sea and the people.”
Those few days changed everything. The couple decided to take a sabbatical and move to Myken but says Larsen, “there was very little income here, very few jobs. If we were going to stay, we needed something to do.”
So they did what islanders do best – improvised. The idea came to life one night over a bottle of whisky. “We were watching the waves hitting the sea wall, splashing higher and higher,” Tokle reminisced. “One of us said: ‘Why don’t we make whisky here? We have the same maritime environment as Scotland, the sea, the sky…’
“It says a lot about the island that a full-blown whisky distillery was probably the least crazy idea,” laughs Tokle.
Within months, ten islanders pooled their savings, bought the derelict fish factory, and began salvaging pipes, pumps and stills. In 2014, they lit their first fire and began to distil spirit.
Three years later, their first whisky was ready – and it caught the attention of investor Marius Vestnes. With new funding, production expanded and the island began to hum again.
At the centre of island life now stands the Whisky Cathedral – a striking glass-fronted building completed in 2023. Built to store ageing barrels, it also serves as town hall, community centre and dining hall.
And now, more than a decade on from those early days of part time distilling, Myken Distillery employs most of the island’s residents and attracts visitors from around the world. But more than jobs or tourism, it has given the community back its purpose – proof that even the smallest place can dream big.
