Gabrielle Pharms announced as IWSC's 2022 Emerging Talent in Spirits Communication winner

After the positive response the IWSC received from the trade for last year's Spirits Communicator award, we created a new award for 2022, our Emerging Talent in Spirits Communication award, sponsored byWhyte & Mackay. This future-looking award aims to recognise new talent in the industry, as the IWSC continues its quest to propel the new generation of communicators.

Following our announcement last week of our four fantastic shortlisted candidates for this award, we are delighted to name our first winner of our Emerging Talent in Spirits Communication as Gabrielle Pharms.

Gabrielle’s breath of work really impressed our judges, she showed in the last couple of years how outstanding she is as a writer, demonstrating her unique point of view in her spirits writing. The judges found Gabrielle’s work to be incredibly exciting and believe with her willingness to continue to keep learning and her tremendous passion that her voice will only get more amplified.

Gabrielle really embodies what the IWSC and our judges believe emerging talent is. She is continuously curious and has a thirst for knowledge and insatiable desire to learn which comes across in her communications. Gabrielle is a true communicator; she is able to bring her readers along for the journey and perfectly conveys excitement in the interesting topics she writes about.

Our judges admired Gabrielle’s passion for advocating for women of colour, she wrote in her application that “when the industry intentionally (and unintentionally) leaves out minorities, it’s a loss of a multi-cultural voices/perspectives”. Our judges were greatly impressed by Gabrielle’s awareness of her position in the trade and her desire to positively educate others through a collaborative and non-competitive stance, raising up others in the industry.

Yasmin Winslade, Communications Manager, from our sponsor Whyte and Mackay commented, ‘As an industry we want to make certain that we welcome people as they discover the incredible drinks our category has to offer – from Scotch to Shōchū. Behind every great spirit, is a great story. As communicators our task is to share these stories, to inspire and to welcome people as they explore incredible spirits brands.

Whyte and Mackay are proud to partner with the IWSC and celebrate emerging talent in our industry. Our panel, led by Becky Paskin, has chosen a very worthy winner, a champion storyteller. Congratulations Gabrielle’.

Gabrielle will be awarded a £2.5k educational travel bursary from the IWSC Foundation, as well as being invited for a bespoke visit to the Whyte & Mackay Production Centre of Excellence in Invergordon. Gabrielle intends to use the bursary to write a book about music and spirits, exploring how these two passions interconnect.

The IWSC would like to wish Gabrielle all the success in communicating her spirits message, and we look forward to seeing what the future holds.