Business Of Stars- Jeremy Paxman: His New Investment In A “Green” Distillery In Scotland

The University Challenge presenter, Jeremy Paxman, decided to invest in the drink industry like many other celebrities. British journalist and author invested in Scotland’s first organic whiskey distillery, which is called Scottish Nc’nean Distillery, located on the Morvern Peninsula in the western Highlands. Of course, this story’s impressive point is not that this distillery produces organic whiskey. The impressive point about this story is that the distillery was founded by Derek Lewis, the former Director General of the Majesty’s Prison Service in England. Jeremy Paxman and Derek Lewis are connected with an interesting story.
On 13 May 1997, Paxman interviewed Michael Howard. He had been Home Secretary. The interview came some days after Michael Howard had a meeting with Derek Lewis, head of Her Majesty’s Prison Service. The interview was about the possible dismissal of the governor of Parkhurst Prison, John Marriott. Derek Lewis, when he retired, bought the Drimnin Estate, where the distillery is located, on the Morvern Peninsula off the west coast of Scotland. Jeremy Paxman asked Michael Howard many times (more than ten) the same question. The question was: “What happened with Derek Lewis? Did you pressure him into a decision?” Later, during a Newsnight episode, Paxman, to justify his behavior, explained to Howard that he had simply been trying to gain more time for the interview due to television reasons.
Now, some important information about the distillery. The company produces whiskey from organic ingredients using renewable energy sources. Whiskey is offered in bottles made from recyclable glass. At the same time, a nearby farm recycles 99% of the waste produced by the distillation process. Jeremy Paxman is 71 years old. In an interview, he said, “I’ve been drinking whiskey for a lot longer than I like to admit. I was eager to take the opportunity to produce a Scotch whisky that was environmentally conscious. How frequently can you claim that your enjoyment does not cause harm to others?”. Nc’nean was established in 2017 when the company’s chief executive left his position as a management consultant. Nc’nean is short for Neachneohain, the Scottish goddess of spirits. Paxman owns a 0.6% investment in the company, and other investors helped it fund 7.5 million pounds to grow.
Paxman joined the graduate trainee program at BBC in 1972. Soon after he began his professional career there, his first professional step was at BBC Radio Brighton. There, he started his radio career locally. He relocated to Belfast and covered the Troubles there. Later, in 1977, he relocated to London. He moved from the Tonight show to Panorama two years later. He worked for five years in countries like Beirut, Uganda, and Central America before spending two years at the forefront for the Six O’Clock News and then switching to BBC1’s Breakfast Time program. He started presenting Newsnight in 1989. In addition to hosting numerous other television programs, Paxman has written several books.
Paxman has received a lot of public criticism during his career. Journalist Michael Deacon called the interviews with Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May conducted by Paxman in 2017 for the general election “embarrassing.” Deacon stated that Paxman had grown weary of his pugilistic line of inquiry and that he had been “doing an impression of himself.”

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