A dram with Dawn Davies

Master of Wine, Dawn Davies made the transition to whisky years ago to become the buyer for Sukhinder and Rajbir Singh's Whisky Exchange. Over a virtual dram with Ron Emler, she urges the industry to get back to basics and stop pandering to the richest 1% …  

The sweatshirt typifies Dawn Davies. She is a tsunami of enthusiasm and drive, qualities that made the buying director for Speciality Drinks and the Whisky Exchange the Drinks Business 'Woman of the Year' for 2025.

"I'm just a goddamn good buyer," says the Master of Wine. The award citation went further, calling her "inspirational and visionary" and praising her as an educator and innovator. Besides the day job she's a broadcaster, chair of the IWSC whisky judges in North America and an increasingly influential industry commentator.

In addition to making the company's annual Whisky Show in London bigger, better and more profitable every year (October's event is almost sold out already) she is also the driving force behind We are Whisky, a platform launched last year to "celebrate all the people behind the global whisky community, and all the ways they make this so much more than just a drink”. 

Last year she ran four spirits shows attracting 6,800 customers each generating a 10% rise in sales at the pop-up shops against 2023.

She also travels the world extolling whisky. For instance, we talked between a whistlestop visit to the US and a teaching trip to Ireland.

At the Whisky Exchange she stocks more than 20,000 products of which whiskies comprise "probably about 60%" with sales split roughly equally between the on-trade and mail order. The three London retail outlets, she says, "are a quite a small percentage, but mighty”. 

Where did she discover her love of Scotch?

"I went to university at Edinburgh. If you don't drink whisky in Edinburgh, you might as well just leave, "she says.

She worked in a pub and just loved it. "My boss then was really passionate about whisky, and he let me taste on the back bar. Then, if I were in a whisky bar, I'd always try stuff. I wasn't an expert, but I just loved the flavour.

"I have always been a foodie, trying lots of different things. I've always had a real affinity and passion for flavour, and then I went to an amazing restaurant in Sydney and saw the service element of pairing wine and food, and thought, 'Oh my God, this restaurant is amazing.”

Back in London she went from server to sommelier in quick order. "I just didn't have any experience particularly, but was really just passionate" so much so that she was spotted by Gordon Ramsay and whisked off to his Hell's Kitchen in Foxwoods, Massachusetts, and then back to the Ledbury, where a regular customer was Selfridge's head buyer.

He hired her, and that was where she met Sukhinder and Rajbir Singh, who founded the Whisky Exchange in 1999. 

"Sukhinder and I were good friends and often would talk about what we could do together, and then one day he and Rajbir asked me if I would consider being their head buyer. The deal was sealed over a vintage Negroni."

In 2021, the Singh brothers sold the Whisky Exchange to Pernod Ricard, who wanted to boost their e-commerce interests. Does that mean she is influenced by Chivas Brothers, the French group's Scotch behemoth?

There are some shared back-office disciplines such as HR and accounts but none that affects her strategies, she says. "I have autonomy over what I buy.”

"I think having an amazing relationship with my customers and having a real kind of service, forward-thinking attitude really helped me over the years. Probably it's more by luck than anything else that I am where I am today.”

She has forthright views on the state of the Scotch Whisky industry.

"I want people to go back to drinking core whisky. Drinking whisky, not just buying it to sit on it and then hopefully sell it for a vastly inflated sum down the line.

"We've had a reality check, and I'm really glad, even though it's hard in the short term. I want that reality check because whisky is there to be drunk. It's not there to sit on the shelf being looked at.

"Scotch needs a further reality check. Those prices have to start moving south. They [the distillers] can't just be launching all these stupidly crazy expensive things to 1% of the population.

"We need people drinking it if we're to survive, if we're not to have closures. We've got to stop that. You've got to focus on your core range. We've got to engage a new consumer in a clever way that isn't tokenism or isn't being just "Oh, we're going to do it for the sake of doing it”. Really understand who your consumer is and engage them. And really make it fun and entertaining.”

"If we didn't have marketeers telling everyone what was trendy and what the pricing should be we would have a lot more people involved in the industry. We'd have a lot better products, and we'd all be able to afford a bottle.

"They're driving the pricing up, it's Marketing 101. They don't really understand who the customer is, so they're appealing to people who are not interested in whisky, but they think they should be interested in whisky. It's the wrong way to talk.

"Understand your customer and then create a marketing strategy once you know who you're talking to. Go after a new customer, but go to the right new customer.

"Today, people are more likely to buy a nice bottle, but they may not buy three of them. People are watching their pennies, but they're still engaged and interested.

"Put passion back in the industry, which I think is maybe lacking a little bit. We need some really great ambassadors out there. This is not the time to get rid of your ambassadors.

Does she have another message for the industry?

"I've just come back from America, and the Americans make us look like complete amateurs. Whisky tourism in Kentucky is at the next level for the family with really incredible food.

"I know we're getting there in some places, but there it's also very accessible.

"There's a real inclusivity about the whisky tours in America, which is really, really amazing. I think it's a real Bullion Avenue to bring more people into the industry, but I think we've got to up the game in Scotland.”