Breaking Barriers: Addressing Sexual Harassment and Gatekeeping in the Spirits Industry

Here is something the industry already knows but rarely says out loud: women make the majority of household purchasing decisions, including alcohol. Women make up 36% of US and UK whisky drinkers alone, and that figure keeps growing. The craft spirits market, forecast to grow at over 20% annually through to 2028, is fuelled in part by rising demand from women and millennials. There is a commercially significant, fast-growing audience actively interested in spirits.

The industry's main response has been pink packaging and lower-ABV products. That is not inclusion. That is condescension with better graphic design.

The problem runs a lot deeper than bad marketing decisions.

The language was never neutral

Tasting notes, scoring systems, and the vocabulary of connoisseurship were built by a narrow demographic and reflect exactly that. Words like "masculine," "robust," and "aggressive" appear in official reviews as compliments. The implied audience has always been obvious, and it was never accidental.

The most visible example of where this goes is Jim Murray's Whisky Bible, the most widely read scoring guide in the industry. Whisky writer Becky Paskin counted 34 references to whisky being "sexy" in the 2021 edition alone, alongside multiple reviews crudely comparing drinking whisky to having sex with women. One review of a Highland Park described a 40-year-old single malt as "a 40-year-old woman who has kept her figure and looks, and now only satin stands in the way between you and so much beauty and experience." The book has sold millions of copies. Brands have celebrated placements in it for years.

Paskin, co-founder of OurWhisky Foundation, was clear about why it matters: "The amount of people who read those sorts of comments and assume that it's OK to speak about whisky in that way is damaging. The message it sends to the whisky industry as a whole and to whisky consumers is that women don't really matter and they are there to be objectified."

Murray's reviews are the most cited example because he was the most powerful critic in the room. But the problem was never one person. It is a culture that allowed one person to have that much influence for that long.

The pipeline tells the same story

It is worth pausing on something that often gets missed in this conversation. Women are not absent from spirits production. They are some of the most accomplished people in it.

Rachel Barrie was the world's first female master blender and now oversees GlenDronach, BenRiach, and Glenglassaugh. Dr Emma Walker made history as the first female master blender in Johnnie Walker's 200-year history. Stephanie Macleod at Dewar's was the first woman to win Master Blender of the Year. At Penderyn in Wales, the entire distilling team is female. Joy Spence became the first female master distiller in the world in 1997 at Appleton Estate, and as recently as 2023 said she is excited to see more women in those roles. Trudiann Branker made history as Mount Gay's first female master blender. Lorena Vasquez at Ron Zacapa pioneered a solera ageing method that changed how premium rum is made.

Closer to home, Sarah Burgess is one of the most respected whisky makers in Scotland. Originally from Speyside, she began her career at Cardhu Distillery and has since worked at The Macallan, Clynelish, Glenkinchie, and The Lakes Distillery before taking on the role of Master of Whisky Creation at International Beverage. I've known Sarah for years. She is exceptional at her job, and she is exactly the kind of person whose career the industry should be making more space for, not less.

The talent is there. The problem is structural, not individual.

The harassment data is not a footnote

A global survey of over 600 women in the whisky industry, conducted by OurWhisky Foundation in 2023, found that 70% had experienced sexual harassment while doing their job. A third had been inappropriately touched. Among those in consumer-facing roles, that figure rose to 44%.

Across the wider hospitality industry, 9 in 10 women have been sexually harassed on the job, compared to 3 in 10 in the general workforce. The spirits industry does not exist separately from the hospitality industry. Bartenders, brand ambassadors, tasting room staff, and festival workers are all subject to the same environment.

More than 80% of female respondents in the OurWhisky survey reported being asked by both colleagues and consumers whether they even like the spirit they are professionally working with. Not once. Routinely. As a matter of course.

This is not a side issue. It is the environment in which women are being asked to build careers and spend money.

It is also worth noting that beyond individual workplaces, this problem is global in scope. In numerous countries across the Middle East and parts of Asia, women face legal, religious, and cultural barriers to alcohol consumption altogether, meaning the spirits industry is not even operating in a framework that acknowledges them as customers. The conversation about inclusion cannot stop at marketing language. It has to account for the full range of what keeps women out.

The commercial case

A $424 billion global industry that treats a growing segment of its consumer base as an afterthought is making a choice. It is choosing to absorb the cost of that exclusion rather than examine what is causing it.

The venues and experiences that do the opposite tell a consistent story. Remove the gatekeeping. Let people arrive without needing to prove anything. Make the format one where no answer is wrong. The result is higher engagement, better guest experiences, guests who come back, and guests who bring other people.

That is not a moral argument dressed up as a business case. It is what actually happens when the room is genuinely welcoming.

What actually changes

Not louder diversity statements. Not dedicated women's whisky events, which solve nothing and signal that the problem is still being treated as a niche issue. Not a pink label.

The specific, practical things that shift an experience are much simpler than the industry makes them. Language that does not assume prior knowledge. Formats where the question is always "what do you get?" rather than "can you find what the label says?" A facilitator who demonstrates expertise without performing it at the expense of the people in the room.

Vantage Creative is built around exactly those principles, because I have spent nine years watching what happens when they are applied and when they are not. The difference is not subtle.

The industry has the women. It has always had them, making the liquid, running the distilleries, building the careers. What it has not always done is make it easy to stay.

That has a cost. The data is not ambiguous about what kind.