A Korean-American founder, a Scottish distiller and a Korean team.

Three Societies is a single malt whisky distillery in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, in the hills north-east of Seoul. The design magazine heyPOP described it in November 2023 as a Korean single malt whisky distillery, opened in 2020; Just Drinks reported in August 2024 that the company was set up that year, and the Korean daily Sports Kyunghyang reported in September 2025 that production began in June 2020. heyPOP placed the site in Hwado-eup, in a basin below the mountain Baekbongsan, where it said summer heat climbs into the high 30s Celsius and winter temperatures fall close to minus 30.

The founder and chief executive is Bryan Do (도정한), a Korean American. The Korea Times reported in September 2021 that he had worked as a reporter for Arirang TV, at the PR firm Edelman and at Microsoft before he founded the craft brewery The Hand & Malt Brewing Company in 2014, which he sold to AB InBev in 2018. Just Drinks added that the brewery is now run by AB InBev’s South Korean arm, Oriental Brewery.

His master distiller and blender is Andrew Shand, a Scot whom The Korea Times described as having around 40 years in whisky. The name follows the team. heyPOP explained that “Three Societies” stands for the three societies its people came from: a Korean-American founder, a Scottish distiller and Korean staff, gathered to make a Korean single malt.

A word for beginning, a tiger, a unicorn and an eagle.

The company name sits behind a product name in Korean. The whisky is called Ki One, written 기원 in Hangul, and Bryan Do told The Korea Times in 2021 that the word carries two meanings in Korean: a beginning, and a hope or wish. heyPOP gave the same double reading. The company’s gin took a related name: heyPOP reported that it is called Jung One (정원), the Korean word for a garden where many plants grow, and that it is made from the same malt spirit with eleven botanicals including perilla leaf, ginseng, Korean prickly ash and pine needles.

The first bottles came out in September 2021. The Korea Times reported that this first limited edition ran to 1,506 bottles, matured for about a year, and was already sold in Korea and five other territories, including Singapore and Hong Kong. Korean law allowed a one-year-old spirit to be called whisky, the paper noted, while Scotland and Europe require three years. Etoday reported in March 2024 that the first regular batch followed in February 2023.

The house’s symbolism is built from the three societies themselves. heyPOP reported that the limited Society Collection was named for three animals, each standing for one of the three countries: the tiger for Korea, the unicorn for Scotland and the eagle for the United States. All three, the magazine said, were drawn from spirit distilled on 7 July 2020 and differed in how long they had aged. Tiger, Unicorn and Eagle editions are now listed by the company’s American importer, Skurnik.

The equipment is part of the story the company tells. heyPOP reported that the copper still was designed by Andrew Shand and built in Scotland by Forsyths, the still maker, whose craftsmen hammered the copper by hand over about six months. The same series carried the company’s line “한국의 사계절을 담은 위스키”: a whisky that holds Korea’s four seasons.

Design and documentation.

The six brands in this group are all spirits from Asia: Omar, Godawan, Kamet, Solan Gold, Three Societies and Kiyomi. Five are whisky names, from Taiwan, India and South Korea, and one is a rum from Okinawa. Spirits brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from small independent distilleries to labels that belong to much larger drinks groups or state-linked companies, and a single name can be sold everywhere from a duty-free shelf to a bar list abroad.

A spirits brand’s identity is usually carried less by the liquid than by a label, a name and the place it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands or names, sourced its grain or cane from elsewhere, or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its spirit is actually distilled, matured and bottled.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its spirit is made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From a Korean hillside to an international trophy.

The business is privately held. Just Drinks reported in August 2024 that the local investment firm Saehan Venture Capital had backed the company since its launch and was its largest shareholder, though not a majority owner; Bryan Do said he was next in line, with Andrew Shand the third-largest shareholder. The same report listed seven export markets — the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Kazakhstan — with the British launch made through The Whisky Exchange.

Most of the grain is still imported. Do told Just Drinks that about 98 per cent of the company’s barley came from British maltsters, with a small share grown in Korea, including on its own fields, and that an all-Korean single malt using Korean malt, water, yeast and oak was planned. Etoday reported in March 2024 that everything from fermentation to maturation takes place in Korea. Do has also spoken about packaging in commercial terms: he told Just Drinks that under Korea’s liquor tax, “the better packaging you make, the more expensive your whisk(e)y is.”

Recognition came in 2025. The International Wine & Spirit Competition announced on 4 September 2025 that its Worldwide Whiskey Trophy had gone to the Unicorn Korean Single Malt, which the judge Dawn Davies MW called “unforgettable”; the IWSC had earlier reported the whisky’s Gold Outstanding medal. The competition listed the producer as Ki One Whisky Distillery, and Skurnik now describes the company as The Ki One Distillery, formerly Three Societies.

The old name needs care online: the domain threesocieties.com now carries an unrelated Hindi-language news site, so it should not be treated as the distillery’s address.

For a design guide, Three Societies shows how a founding team can become a brand system: three countries become three animals, and a single Korean word, 기원, carries both a beginning and a hope. Compare Kavalan, the Taiwanese single malt from Yilan, and Hwayo, the Korean rice spirit. For this guide we use tiger amber, pine ink and still copper with a modern serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Three Societies’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.