“My advice, continuously take every opportunity you have available to you in the industry”

Alice Pearson was one of 2021’s joint winners of the IWSC Emerging Talent in Spirits award, sponsored by Whyte & Mackay. She joined the spirits industry following her summer job working on the bottling line at the Cotswolds Distillery, after which she applied for a part-time job working in the lab for new product development. It was from these modest beginnings that she has risen through the ranks, gaining her general certificate of distilling. Her creative drive has led her to spearhead development of new lines for Cotswolds, including the highly reviewed Gin Essence plus the Cotswolds Cloudy Christmas Gin which sold in the tens of thousands.

What adds to Pearson’s creative drive and passion is her advocacy of distilling as a career, evidenced by the many talks and presentations she gives. The panel were thrilled to see that youth does not need to be a barrier to rising through the ranks in the industry, impressed by her dedication to the field of product development and approaching it with curiosity and passion.

As the IWSC launches its 2022 Emerging Talent awards, we caught up with Alice for a quick chat:

Alice, it’s a year since you received our Emerging Talent in Spirits title, over the past 12 months have you found the time for any new innovations or creations?

A lot has happened in the last year, I have had a particular focus on existing product development in order to improve and scale up recipes and meet increased demand, this comes with its own sets of challenges and has been a great experience for me. Towards the end of this year, I have also increased my involvement in our whisky NPD which is seeing a lot of activity at the moment. My passion for whisky has been growing quietly for the last couple of years, so to be involved in this is really exciting for me and has only fuelled this passion further. I am hoping to continue my involvement in our whisky throughout 2022 as well as heading up a few interesting projects on the ‘gin side’ too!

While we realise the ongoing pandemic has likely put a bit of a hold on travel plans, have you been able to use the travel bursary for educational development or made any plans with what to do with it?

Unfortunately, between travel restrictions and a very busy few months I have not yet been able to use my bursary, however I do have lots of ideas floating around for when I am able to do so- the difficult bit is choosing what to do first! I did manage to visit Islay briefly in October 2021, it reminded me just how much I love the place, so I am eager to get back there in 2022 for a longer visit and plenty of distillery (and beach) exploring! As well as Islay, I have recently become interested in learning more about the wine industry, mostly sparked by looking through catalogues of different ex-wine casks for our whisky. I realised I hadn’t heard of half of them and had no clue about their flavours, so I think a trip to France or Italy is definitely on the cards too as I would love to learn more about that.

What advice can you share to assist anyone thinking of entering the award for 2022?

I think my best advice would be to just continuously take every opportunity you have available to you in the industry, including things like applying for this award! And when applying, talk to your family, friends and colleagues about your application, I found there were a lot of small things I had either forgotten about or thought weren’t important enough to include, however the people around me encouraged me to include them and I think it really did strengthen my entry.

The IWSC’s Emerging Talent awards are open for entries until 18 February.

Emerging Talent in Spirits and Emerging Talent in Spirits Communication awards are sponsored by Whyte & Mackay.