Joel Harrison & Neil Ridley are at the forefront of providing expertise and innovation in the spirits world. From whisky to gin, cognac to exotic drinks, the duo has a wealth of knowledge to share with audiences across the globe.

They write about whisky on their award-winning website Caskstrength.net and regularly pen articles and whisky features for a number of different publications such as Whisky Magazine, Imbibe and the Evening Standard, as well as becoming judges for the World Whisky Awards and the prestigious I.W.S.C. awards.

Joel and Neil approach the drinks world with an irreverent, independently-minded spirit and, in the last two years, the duo have hosted over 250 whisky and other spirits tastings around the world from Japan to Lithuania.

Gavin D. Smith is a freelance journalist and author who specialises in drink subjects, most notably whisky. He is the author and co-author of some 30 whisky books and contributes regularly to a wide range of publications. He lives in the Scottish Borders.

David Wishart became interested in malt whisky when, as a mathematics undergraduate at St Andrews, he was first introduced to cask-strength Laphroaig by his father.

Following his father into the Scottish Office, David qualified as a Chartered Statistician and served as Director of Statistics. He gained a PhD in classification methodology at the University of St Andrews, where he was an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Management from 1996 until 2015.

David's research field is Marketing. He chose the Scotch Whisky Industry for specific study because it is a vital Scottish industry having the largest exports by value (excluding oil), is supported by a large and diverse workforce, and an icon of Scotland throughout the world.

He is invited to give whisky talks and tastings to postgraduates and at international conferences.