Emma Cookson announced as IWSC's 2024 Emerging Talent in Spirits Communication winner

Following last week’s announcement of our 2024 shortlist for our Emerging Talent in Spirits Communication award, sponsored by Fettercairn Whisky, we are delighted to reveal that our winner is Emma Cookson.

Based in Australia, Emma is the whisky specialist for The Whisky List. Emma was actually shortlisted for this award last year, and our judges were so encouraged to see how much she has grown over the past year, making her an incredibly worthy winner of the award.

Our judges praised Emma’s accessible writing style, the way she shares technical information, as well as information about lesser-known areas, without losing her audience, but instead bringing them along for the ride. Emma has knack for emersing herself so deeply in a subject that she really brings it to life. Our judges were blown away by Emma’s level of detail that goes into her content, her knowledge and passion is palpable, she really lives and breathes it.

Our judges understood Emma’s frustration of how geography can make you feel detached at times, so it was encouraging for them to see just how Emma would use her winning bursary. Emma hopes to put the money towards travel, visiting the UK and enabling her to conduct more in-person interviews with distillers and distillery managers, as well as using the research trip for both educational content and hopefully a foundation for a book in the future.

We are delighted to present Emma as our winner for our 2024 Emerging Talent in Spirits Communication award, a candidate whom our judges said, “could make a real positive impact from this win”.