Chris Thomson’s journey from rocking stages to rocking stills as Lark’s master distiller

“I'm absolutely in love with the brand, absolutely in love with whisky, and absolutely in love with my team,” Chris Thomson tells Whisky Magazine when asked what keeps him passionate about his role year after year.

This is just the start, however. For Chris, each of these three pillars and especially how they interact is something he reflects on daily. 

“Tasmania is a wonderful melting pot. Australia is a wonderful melting pot. In fact, whisky as a global thing is this wonderful melting pot, and the connections of each producer and customer and consumer all melds into this wonderful jigsaw puzzle that keeps evolving and changing. 

“The only way that I can describe it is, when you play music, when you're jamming with a band and you're making it up as you go, but yet everybody's in tune and feeling it and something like magic happens. You can't write music in the same way as you jam it out – it's organic. And Lark is right at the forefront. It feels like we are sometimes the central point for that jam.”

From rockstar to rock distillar:

Chris Thomson started his journey at Lark Distillery in 2007 and became Master Distiller three years later. At the time, he was part of a pretty successful electronic rock band (think The Killers/Muse) and a university drop-out, where he had been studying science but realised the research roles he could see himself doing down the track didn’t require a degree. 

Whisky was never meant to be his final calling, and instead is something he fell in love with after starting at the company he remains at to this day.

For this, he has one person to thank: his mother, Mrs Thomson. 

“I needed a job and I got a job at this bar/this distillery and what I found out is that my mum knew Bill and Lyn [Lark] and she was like, ‘Oh, I don't know about Chris at the moment. He probably needs a bit more stability in his life. He's going out and partying too much and playing gigs every weekend’. And so I got a job on the bottling line.

"I was probably best described as an obsessive, intense sort of human, and I really fell in love and got really interested and had some great opportunities. God knows how I wasn't fired for the first five years, you'd have to ask Lynn that.” 

Chris Thomson with Lark's founders, Bill and Lyn Lark

Single malt hits puberty:

Lark’s Master Distiller will be celebrating his 20th anniversary at the helm of Australian whisky later this year – an incredible achievement matched by very few Australian distillers in any category. 

Throughout this time, he says his mission has remained the same: to make whisky more accessible to all and to remove the barriers to entry the category still faces. 

“The rules of whisky, I think, are at times ridiculous,” he says. “My bit is about bringing people together – that should be the goal. So whenever a ritual or a rule happens that takes people away from that … [and] whenever things feel forced, then you should step away from it.”

He says the most obvious example is when and how whisky is enjoyed. “The best thing about whisky, you can drink it neat and on ice, you can make cocktails with it. In a bottle of wine, you get one bottle of wine. But in a bottle of whisky, they're pretty infinite.” 

Lark’s new core range portfolio of three widely available single malts and one global travel retail exclusive is a liquid manifestation of Thomson’s and Lark’s views on how the industry should be levelling up to better service its drinkers by meeting the vibes of the moments in which they are drinking. Fire Trail is intended to fit the high-octane party moment. Devil’s Storm meets the traditional whisky moment. And Ruby Lark meets the premium moment. 

Each delivers a unique style while balancing Lark's signature style, shaped by a soft full mouthfeel, extended maturation and ex-fortified casks.

Together, they represent what Chris hopes will be the new-age of single malt whisky – and not only in Australia.

"Fundamentally, I think single malt's in its teenage years: I think it's full of itself and thinks it understands exactly who it is, but it's never really gone out and grown up yet," says Thomson.

“I would like to think (and I think that this is where we are to date) of Tasmania as the leader of new world whisky. Not just as an icon eventually, but as being the place where the next revolution of what whisky can be has come from."

This is what Chris most wants to be remembered for: as someone who has led not just the Lark but the Australian whisky ship into its adult years. 

“I really like to think this: that we're going to do this revolution thing and that whisky will grow up; and it will feel so seamless and so natural as though nobody ever instigated it, and that it was just always there. That would be my dream,” he said.

You can read our review of Lark Ruby Abyss here.

Chris’ favourite drams?

Lastly, we asked Lark’s Master Distiller about his favourite whiskies, both those he has made over the past two decades and those from other distillers. 

Of his own children, he lists Wolf of Willows IV, Mizunara, Chinnotto, Dark Lark, and a yet-to-be-released version of Devil’s Story: “I’m going to get in so much trouble for putting this into print, but there's something coming for Devil's Storm at a higher ABV and I'm obsessed with that whisky at the moment.” 

Outside of Lark, he lists Sullivan’s Cove, Highland Park, Glenmorangie, and what he describes as a “not-kind” love affair with Ben Nevis. 

“The Ben Nevis independent bottlings, two out of 10 will be the most mentally insane best whiskies you've ever had, and eight will be train wrecks, but I just have this love affair with Ben Nevis at the moment,” he said.