Handcrafting A Gin Revolution

When she launched Inverroche Gin in 2012, Lorna Scott had never worked in the liquor industry, but she was driven by her passion for sustainable development.

- Glynis Horning

When Lorna returned to South Africa after working in marketing in Scotland and settled in Still Bay, she became a marketing consultant for her local Hessequa municipality, working with female recipients of land-reform projects.

‘They had commercially unproductive land covered in indigenous fynbos,’ she says. ‘But with input from some wonderful local retirees with horticultural backgrounds, I learnt about fynbos and developed recipes, and helped the women start a jam project.’

Inspired, Lorna studied with the Sustainability Institute in Lynedoch, which is part of Stellenbosch University, while serving as deputy mayor of Hessequa, and launched a number of green projects. But she wanted one that ‘really told the story of this extraordinary strip of Africa with the longest relationship between man and nature globally, where people had a history with medicinal and culinary plants going back 250 000 years.’