the lowdown
TO RUN MY OWN BUSINESS BY THE TIME I WAS 30, AND I KNEW THAT IF I WENT INTO BUSINESS FOR MYSELF, I WOULD NEED TO KNOW HOW TO RUN THINGS.”
ALLISON PARC – DANCING TO DISTILLING Many people dream of the stage—that rare space where all eyes are on you and time slows down. For Allison Parc, founder of Brenne French Single Malt Whisky, it’s home. “There’s a performative aspect to selling and promoting a brand that you've created,” Allison says, reflecting on her journey from being a professional dancer to creating her signature craft whisky brand. “[As a performer, I learned] that the show must always go on. It's about embracing mistakes. But it’s also about understanding intrinsically in your body, in your voice, that you have to do eight shows a week for six months at a time, but the audience is new every time. You’re like a chef putting out the same dish. It's up to you to constantly find the freshness of the experience for the person who's across the whisky glass, or sitting in the auditorium, or on the other side of the dinner plate.” This ability to reinvent the traditional is the cornerstone of Brenne and Allison herself. She’s spun across continents and careers, from her days as a ballerina and a singer in a NYC rock band to founding the world’s first 100% French
14 / CIGAR & SPIRITS
NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2023
single malt in a third-generation farm distillery in Cognac, France. Her journey into the world of spirits began after she made the difficult decision to trade in the stage for a role as a national sales trainer. After her first day on the job, she found herself in a bar for after-work drinks with a colleague. “It was the early aughts, Sex and the City had just come out, and the cocktail trend had just started,” she says. “So, my colleague ordered us Cosmos. I’m a dancer. I move a lot. I talk with my hands. The cocktail goes flying out of that damn martini glass. And I realized, ‘Oh, this is not my drink. This is definitely not my glassware.’” Allison came to whisky at that exact moment, for no other reason than because she needed to know what was served in a rocks glass. That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Her first drink was a Dewars Scotch. The second was a stroke of luck. The bartender offered her a Yamazaki 18 because “back then Japanese whiskys were just collecting dust. It was a ridiculously lucky second pour.”
(Left) Photo credit Mari Uchida. (Right) Photo credit Sarah Baumberger.
“MY GOAL WAS