The Sexton: from north coast to world stage

After cutting her teeth at the world’s oldest licensed distillery, master blender Alex Thomas took the skills she had honed during her tenure and channelled them into making her own Irish whiskey brand, The Sexton.

As with many typical conversations between people from the UK, my conversation with Thomas, master blender of The Sexton and Bushmills, began with a discussion about the weather. However, this was more than just small talk, but rather an important factor that helped to establish the character of the liquid we were meeting to discuss. “We are located in, I think, the perfect climate,” she says.

The Sexton is produced on the north coast of Northern Ireland, “a stone’s throw from Scotland,” she explains, “just next door to the Giant’s Causeway, the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, Portrush – and the coastline is right beside it.” Because of this location, Thomas explains that they do not experience a lot of change between the winter and summer seasons, “ours here is actually quite flat. It’s usually just cold and wet, if we’re really honest about it. Temperatures never rise and fall for any long period of time, so for me, we are in the perfect place to have that wonderful north coast breeze blowing in and around, and keeping those temperatures just at the perfect position for maturation.”

This consistency, she says, means she doesn’t have to worry about discrepancies with expressions brought out at varying times of the year: “That consistency will still be there, and as a master blender, that’s what you want to be able to create. You don’t want that level of variation going into one particular product. You would create those as separate products, if that was happening.”

She adds that the climate stability “just gives you that time. There’s nothing rushed about it, just that natural, patient, breathing in and out of the cask, drawing in and expelling all of those different flavours. It just works well.”

Thomas released The Sexton’s flagship single malt whiskey, The Original, in 2017, following years of training and experience gathered during her time at the brand’s stablemate, Bushmills.

However, prior to starting her career in the whiskey trade, Thomas worked in the wood industry, which likely helped to shape her passion for the maturation process: “I very quickly fell in love with maturation. Even though I’d worked in all of the different areas [within the distillery], there was just something magical about how you can take a clear liquid and transform it into something wonderful – how you can change and create wonderful liquids by innovating your cask profiles and how you distil.”

This inspired her to learn more about the process and earn her master blender qualification in 2012, and it was soon after that she was given the freedom to experiment and see what she thought the next vision of Irish whiskey would look like.

It was through that experimentation and dedication to paying homage to those that came before her that Thomas was able to carve out the brand that would become The Sexton.

The story of The Sexton

The Sexton name, Thomas explains, comes from Medieval Latin, and means a custodian of precious objects, “or more simply put, it’s a traditional keeper of sacred things, and as a master blender, I am that caretaker, that keeper of those sacred things,” she says. “There’s lots of secrets hidden away in The Sexton barrel store waiting for its moment to shine. So it was very important for me to have something that represented the industry and the work that goes in to creating every whiskey.”

While there are a number of elements that go into making the liquid that forms The Sexton’s single malt whiskey, Thomas stresses that one of the most important factors for the brand is its storytelling.

“I think it’s something we inherit here in Ireland,” she explains. “We are storytellers. You go anywhere and you sit down with someone, and they will tell you all about the past, all about the future, and that’s what I grew up with. It’s about remembering all of the heritage that we have here. So it plays a big part in my life, and a big part, I think, in the people of Ireland’s life. So for me, that’s what The Sexton is all about – It is about capturing each of those moments and giving you an opportunity to tell a story while you enjoy the whiskey. I know that other brands are starting to do a little bit more of that, but The Sexton has been doing it from the very beginning.”

Mystery in the bottle

One way in which The Sexton tells its story, Thomas says, is via its hexagonal black vessel in which it is presented. “I picked this bottle because it was all about the sensory experience for me,” she notes, explaining that the shape directly references the Giant’s Causeway. In addition, she shares how the chunky black bottle also pays homage to the 500-litre Sherry butts that hold the maturing whiskey. “They are half a tonne when full,” she says, “but I can move them. Whiskey is like your life: give it a nudge in the right direction, and the momentum will carry you forward. So for me, this brand is all about looking forward to what’s coming next and enjoying your life and celebrating that life.”

The storytelling is enhanced, she says, by the mystery that the opaque bottle creates. “Having it hidden away there is making your sensory palate come alive.”

She explains that seeing the colour of the liquid prior to tasting often allows consumers to draw their own conclusions of the flavour profile of the whiskey. “By taking that away, your palate becomes alive the minute you taste it. So it really gives the whiskey the time to tell you it’s story. Rather than your brain telling you what it should taste – you actually taste what is there.”

She says that for her, that is a big part of being a master blender. “It’s about giving the whiskey time to tell it’s story, because when you do that, you get such a depth of flavour that you don’t get when you visually have already told your brain what you’re going to taste.”

The bottle, she says, therefore gave her the opportunity to provide that experience to her consumers, while also offering “a little bit of intrigue of what’s going to be like. It’s been such a long time in the dark, in the cask, breathing in and out, that when you release it for the first time into your glass, it’s like the first day I released it – got to taste it for the first time, got to smell those wonderful aromas. You get to do that as well when you open the bottle for the first time. So again, that little bit of storytelling along with it and that sensory profile is really important.”

Whiskey to be drunk

Beyond the story, of course, is the liquid itself. With Thomas’ passion and deep understanding of the maturation process, she has always been very particular about the barrels used in the ageing process of her single malt – which is made with 100% Irish malted barley, triple distilled in copper pot stills – with a particular preference for Sherry casks.

Both The Sexton Original, and the newly released 11-year-old global travel retail exclusive, have been aged in oloroso Sherry casks sourced from the Antonio Paez Lobato family bodega in Jerez, Spain.

The result, specifically for the 11-year-old, Thomas says, is a smooth whiskey with notes of dried fruits, milk chocolate, and Christmas cake – “all the flavours that make you want to share,” she says.

And this is very much a whiskey that has been created to be drunk, in any way a consumer chooses, Thomas declares.

Less than a year after first launching The Sexton, it became the number one Irish single malt whiskey in the US.

On why the brand found such success in the States, Thomas puts it down to being “a younger whiskey at an affordable price that people could drink whatever way they wanted. They were no longer being told: ‘you have to drink it neat because it’s single malt’. I was inviting them to try it their way, and they jumped at it. They were adding all sorts of mixers. They were drinking it neat.

“They really embraced it in the cocktail side of things, and that started to bring more and more people into the sector, because we discovered the 40% alcohol was maybe too much for some people, but by putting it into a cocktail and bringing it down in ABV, they were starting to experience whiskey, and they were becoming whiskey lovers.”

She shares that those people kept going back to the brand, sharing it with their friends, and teaching them about whiskey’s versatility.

“It captured the imagination of the people – it captured the imagination of why whiskey has been part of our Irish history for so long.

“It’s no longer seen as an old man’s drink. It’s something that you can enjoy whatever your celebration in life. So it’s wonderful to see how it was embraced, and now it’s worldwide, in many, many different countries, and being enjoyed the same way.”

Thomas notes that Poland and Germany are two markets that have also received the brand well, in addition to England, Ireland and France, and going forward, she says that the exclusive launch in travel retail will also give her the opportunity to take the brand further afield, and hopefully continue to grow in new markets.