{"id":60474,"date":"2025-10-29T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"\/blog\/post\/women-in-whisky-past-and-present\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T09:38:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T09:38:32","slug":"women-in-whisky-past-and-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/post\/women-in-whisky-past-and-present\/","title":{"rendered":"Women in Whisky: Past and Present"},"content":{"rendered":"

The history of women in whisky<\/a> <\/strong>is as long as the history of whisky.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not that you would know that from the way the story is so often told. Even when I was growing up, in the 90s and 00s, whisky was associated with men. For some, that’s still an automatic connection. I don’t know a woman in this industry who hasn’t been met with condescending surprise when they express their love for whisky.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Look at the advertisements, the stock images, each pop cultural reference. The suave gentleman. A maltman sweating over the mash tun. The patriarch by the fireplace. Beards. Cigars. Kilts. Dads. Grandads. Men.<\/span><\/p>\n

Peel back all that and peer into the real story of whisky, and a more rounded picture appears. One with characters often hidden behind initials, marriage certificates, or family names. Women in whisky.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The role of women in drinks<\/b><\/h3>\n

Interestingly, scientific studies show women tend to have a slight edge in olfactory tasks. Large-scale <\/span>meta-analysis<\/span><\/a> found that women outperform men in identification (naming smells), discrimination (telling smells apart) and detection threshold (detecting faint odours). The distinction is perhaps narrower than some have claimed, but in a field where nuance is paramount, any edge in blending, tasting, and assessing aroma can make an impact.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe past civilisations knew more than us. Across history, women haven\u2019t just drunk alcohol; they\u2019ve made it, sold it, and shaped its rituals. There have been cultures and societies where the creation and serving of alcohol was considered something best handled by women. The earliest brewers were women*. <\/span><\/p>\n

From Mesopotamia to Medieval England, alewives brewed and sold beer from their homes or taverns. The Sumerian goddess of brewing, Ninkasi, even had a hymn dedicated to her that doubles as a recipe for beer. In the babushka samogon<\/em> scene, Soviet-era grandmothers kept Russia\u2019s spirit alive (literally) by distilling illicit samogon<\/em> (moonshine) when state vodka ran dry. West African pito<\/em> and burukutu<\/em> brewers, Peruvian chicheras,<\/em> Japanese sake onna t\u014dji<\/em>, Mexican mezcaleras<\/em>, Scandinavian farmhouse brewers… all examples where women were at the core of drinks production.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The recent resurgence of women distillers, brewers, and blenders isn\u2019t a revolution; it\u2019s more of a homecoming.<\/p>\n

\"Annabel

Let’s talk about women in whisky<\/p><\/div>\n

Women in Whisky: Past and Present<\/b><\/h3>\n

In fact, if you go back to the early days of the whisky industry, the 17th century, you will find women were among the first whisky makers recorded in Scotland. One was <\/span>Jonet Cochrane<\/b> of Glasgow, who supplied the Rector of the University of Glasgow with generous quantities of Scotch whisky<\/a> for \u201cmen employed on university business\u201d. Her transactions weren\u2019t illicit, but they weren\u2019t exactly formal either. In this era, there was whisky being made in kitchens and farmhouses, often by women, and sold locally to supplement the family income.<\/span><\/p>\n

Historian<\/span> Iseabel Glen<\/b>, researching the trade in Kintyre, found evidence that more than a fifth of the customers of Campbeltown<\/a> coppersmith Robert Armour (who made and repaired stills in the early 1800s) were women. Gregor Adamson, in his history of the whisky industry on Arran, found many references to women making whisky on the island before the 1820s. <\/span>Peggy Donaldson\u2019s<\/b> name is preserved in parish records, so we know she was a brewer at Glenshant Distillery on Arran<\/a> in the 1790s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Women worked together, sometimes as widows, sometimes as business partners, operating communal stills in small rural <\/span>fermtouns<\/span><\/i>. These weren\u2019t hobbyists. They were producers, selling their barley spirit to smugglers and dealers who distributed it across Scotland\u2019s growing cities. Whisky, for them, was survival and self-sufficiency. For some, it was even agency. Like it was for the alewives, the burukutu<\/em> brewers…<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Two

Women have always played a part in whisky<\/p><\/div>\n

The erasure<\/b><\/h3>\n

Then came the erasure. As distilling professionalised, women were quietly pushed out. It’s a scene you’ll recognise if you’ve ever read about the repression of factory women in post-war Britain, or the footballers banned from the pitch once men returned from the front.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the British government introduced the <\/span>Excise Acts of 1822 and 1823<\/b>, enforcing new licences and higher costs, small-scale makers were crushed. The domestic craft became an industrial business, and men wrote the rules.<\/span><\/p>\n

From there, the public face of whisky became overwhelmingly male. Yet women didn\u2019t vanish; they just moved behind the scenes. They would often hold secretarial and junior clerical positions or work in bottling halls in towns and cities across the country. The industry they had helped to build was still running on their labour; it just stopped naming them. But you can\u2019t keep pioneers down forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Helen

Helen Cumming, raising the famous red flag<\/p><\/div>\n

Beyond the red flags<\/b><\/h3>\n

Even through the 19th century, women were quietly running distilleries, often widows holding the line when their husbands died. <\/span>Jane McGregor<\/b> ran <\/span>Littlemill<\/b>, <\/span>Elizabeth Conacher<\/b> managed <\/span>Blair Athol<\/b><\/a>, <\/span>Elizabeth Phillips<\/b> oversaw <\/span>Glenturret<\/b><\/a>, and <\/span>Marion McFarlane<\/b> of <\/span>M. McFarlane & Co.<\/b> held the reins at <\/span>Port Dundas<\/b><\/a> in Glasgow. Their names appear on contracts and deeds that prove they weren\u2019t just placeholders.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some faced steeper climbs. <\/span>Margaret Sutherland<\/b>, the widow of Dalmore\u2019s<\/strong><\/a> owner, Donald Sutherland, tried to take over the distillery in the mid-1800s. Her father and brother took control \u201con her behalf\u201d, drove it into bankruptcy, and left her ruined. Her story, told by whisky historian Fred Minnick in <\/span>Whiskey Women <\/span><\/i>(2013), shows how women\u2019s leadership was often undermined by the systems around them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet in pockets of Scotland, women continued to shape whisky\u2019s future. On Speyside, <\/span>Helen Cumming<\/b> began distilling illicitly in 1811, raising a red flag to warn neighbours when excise officers were near. She and her husband John, went on to found <\/span>Cardhu<\/b><\/a>, and her daughter-in-law, <\/span>Elizabeth Cumming<\/b> later expanded it into a modern, legal distillery. By 1884, Elizabeth had built a new site and struck a deal to sell the old one to <\/span>John Walker & Sons<\/b>, helping to propel <\/span>Johnnie Walker<\/b><\/a> into global renown.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nick Morgan\u2019s research for <\/span>A Long Stride: The Story of the World\u2019s No.1 Scotch Whisky<\/span><\/i> (2020) adds another forgotten name: <\/span>Elizabeth Walker<\/b>, wife of the original John Walker. She played a major role in running the family grocer\u2019s business after her husband\u2019s death, influencing branding, decision-making, and even blending alongside her son, Alexander. Her fingerprints are on the birth of Johnnie Walker itself; she just never got the label credit.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A

The famous Bessie Williamson, in front of the Laphroaig Distillery<\/p><\/div>\n

Elizabeth \u201cBessie\u201d Williamson: the backbone of Laphroaig<\/b><\/h3>\n

Into the 20th century, women\u2019s visible presence in whisky dwindled to near invisibility, but a few exceptional figures did break through.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among them was <\/span>Elizabeth \u201cBessie\u201d Williamson<\/b>. She joined the <\/span>Laphroaig<\/b><\/a> in 1934 as a summer typist and ended up running it for decades. When owner Ian Hunter suffered a stroke, Williamson took over operations, guiding the Islay distillery<\/a> through wartime production when the government repurposed it for military use. She safeguarded workers from conscription, signed off on ammunition shipments stored in the malt barns, and later became one of the first to champion single malts in the American market.<\/span><\/p>\n

Williamson was also the first and only woman to own and manage a Scotch distillery in the 20th century. Her leadership transformed Laphroaig from a local producer into an international name. In 1963, she was appointed to the Most Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem for her service to her community, the woman who kept Islay\u2019s spirit alive through war and beyond.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The

Masataka Taketsuru and Rita Cowan in a blending lab<\/p><\/div>\n

Rita Cowan: the heart of Japanese whisky<\/b><\/h3>\n

While Bessie was holding Islay together, another Scotswoman was laying the foundations for Japanese whisky<\/a>. <\/span>Rita Cowan<\/b>, a doctor\u2019s daughter from Kirkintilloch, met <\/span>Masataka Taketsuru, a young Japanese chemist studying distillation in Glasgow, in 1919. They married, which meant Taketsuru could have stayed in Scotland. But Cowan reminded him of his dream: to make whisky in Japan. So, off they went. The genesis of Japanese whisky owes everything to this headstrong, independent woman, and arguably whisky\u2019s greatest love story.<\/span><\/p>\n

The two moved to Japan, Taketsuru working for Suntory creating the first Japanese whisky, then leaving to found the <\/span>Yoichi Distillery (now <\/span>Nikka<\/b><\/a>) in 1934. Some of the funding came from investors from Osaka, whose children had been taught English or piano by Cowan. Dave Broom, in his book <\/span>The Japanese Way of Whisky <\/span><\/i>(2025), even suggests the distillery’s location was influenced by the couple\u2019s happy days in Campeltown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During the Second World War, Cowan endured isolation and raids by the Kempeitai, accused of being a Western spy, but she stayed. She opened a nursery for orphans of the conflict, and today, the main street in Yoichi is called Rita Road in her memory. Those at the distillery believe Cowan and Taketsuru continue to watch over them today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n