ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Welcome back to Data and Drams, I’m joined by Angela D’Orazio the Creative Director of Whiskymaking at Compass Box.
With a career spanning more than two decades at the cutting edge of whisky innovation, Angela has a global reputation for fearless creativity and flavour experimentation.
Angela spent over 20 years at Mackmyra, where she served as Master Blender and Chief Nose Officer, and was responsible for some of the industry’s most unconventional releases - from award winning green tea finish to Swedish oak on cloudberry wine and Calvados finishes to Sweden’s first smoky whisky. She also helped develop the world’s first whisky designed using AI.
She’s a World Whiskies Awards ‘Whisky Legend’, an inductee into the Swedish Whisky Hall of Fame, and a globally respected judge at major competitions including IWSC, ISC, and the World Whiskies Awards. She broke boundaries when she ran the world’s largest whisky tasting and has spent her career mentoring and inspiring the next generation of whiskymakers.
As Creative Director of Whiskymaking at Compass box, Angela brings her passion for boundary-pushing flavour and storytelling to a whisky brand equally committed to questioning conventions.
Now when I first got my hands on the AI Intelligence whisky, I thought wouldn’t it be amazing to interview the mind behind this. Fast forward to now, I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to do just that.
We spoke about Angela’s journey into whisky, navigating male dominated spaces and her advice on how to lead within them; we also talked about how the industry is balancing tradition with technology, industry cost cycles and digitisation.
Plus we dove into her experience on the AI Whisky Project and what those inputs, interactions and constraints were and how she sees whisky and their recipes evolving over the next decade.
Angela’s immersive storytelling was amazing, not to mention a special appearance from her poodle Doris and hearing from other farmyard friends. This is an interview I won’t forget for a long time.
So pull up a chair, pour yourself a drink and join Angela and I for Data and Drams.
