An exciting new appointment. See Whisky takes off.
We are delighted to announce that, in recognition of the increasing importance of the subject, and interest in it expressed by Purple Pagers such as here and here in our Members’ forum, we have just added a whisky/whiskey specialist writer to our team. Dave Broom is admired throughout the world for his expertise and fine writing on the subject.
Born in Glasgow, he has been writing about drink for over 30 years and has specialised in spirits since 1996. In his time, he has contributed to Whisky Magazine, Whisky Magazine Japan, Whisky Advocate and Scotchwhisky.com.
He has written and presented two films, Cuba In A Bottle and the award-winning The Amber Light.
But some will know and admire him most for the 14 books he has written, including the very beautiful The Way of Whisky: A Journey into Japanese Whisky, which won the John Avery Award in the 2017 André Simon Awards, and The World Atlas of Whisky from Mitchell Beazley, the same publishers as The World Atlas of Wine.
His most recent book, A Sense of Place, examining the role of community, culture, location and sustainability in Scotch whisky, was shortlisted for the André Simon 2022 Drinks Book of the Year and was named one of the top six drinks books of 2022 by The New York Times. He has been appointed drinks books assessor for the 2023 André Simon Awards so this year he will be busy reading, as well as writing for us every two months.
Broom now lives in Hove, close to Wild Flor restaurant, which he recommended to Nick and me. Their wine buyer, Rob Maynard, told us how, before Maynard knew who he was, Broom came in for dinner with two friends. After their meal the two friends summoned Maynard and asked him to take them through each of his single malts, one by one with full background on each. He passed the (very naughty) test apparently.
The Irish Times (correctly) described our new whisky correspondent as ‘an agreeable man with a pepper-and-salt beard’. Broom has described himself as ‘a Glaswegian who gets paid to drink and then write and talk about it. He’s been getting away with this for over a quarter of a century.’
His portrait above is by Grant Anderson.