Stephanie Macleod didn’t grow up sipping Scotch or dreaming of distilleries. In fact, she didn’t even like whisky when she first encountered it. A food science student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, she envisioned a very different future for herself. But a final-year project on sensory analysis and how minute chemical changes alter taste gave her a new fascination and love for the complexity of flavor. When her university supervisor invited her to work with him on researching whisky, it opened up a whole new world for her.
“I started working with different distilleries, looking at the sensory analysis and realizing that from three ingredients—water, malted barley and yeast—each distillery, even though the processes are roughly the same, produces completely different flavor profiles,” Macleod says, recalling her wonder at the process. “How was whisky sitting on my doorstep and I didn’t know these things?”
From the lab to the blending room
In 1998, Macleod joined Dewar’s just as Bacardi had acquired the brand, expanding from one to five distilleries. She began in quality control, leaning on her analytical background. But her sensory expertise was soon put into use, and she moved into the labs. One of her first acts was putting together a sensory panel to ensure consistency.
“When I joined, only one person had a say in the sensory quality of our spirit, and that was the master blender,” she says. “I thought, ‘What happens if he’s on holiday? We need more than just one person.’”
Not long after, her boss asked if she wanted to train as a master blender. “It took me a nanosecond to say yes,” she says, but the doubt still crept in. She would be the first woman and likely the youngest person ever to hold the title. Would she be accepted?
By 2006, she had her answer. Macleod officially took the helm and became the first woman and only the seventh person in Dewar’s 170-plus-year history to hold the title of master blender.
“Becoming a master blender is a journey rooted in both science and sensory immersion,” says Macleod. “I then spent three years studying under our former master blender, Tom Aitken, learning the art of tasting, gradation and blending in minute detail. It’s a deeply hands-on apprenticeship, training your nose, mastering cask sourcing and seasoning and understanding how to harmonize flavor profiles.”
She adds that there was no textbook for her journey, but it was all about learning through experimentation, building a sensory vocabulary and combining academic rigor with intuition and curiosity.
Her first test as master blender was immediate: launching the Dewar’s 15 Year Old Scotch whisky blend in China and Taiwan. “It was almost like the birth of a child, but a lot less painful,” she jokes. The release was well received, and the industry began to take notice.
In the years since, the broader industry has recognized her leadership again and again. She has won Master Blender of the Year at the International Whisky Competition six consecutive times, beginning in 2019, cementing her influence far beyond Dewar’s.
Whisky has long been branded as a “man’s drink,” and the industry often reflects that image. But while outsiders may expect stories of resistance or exclusion, Macleod remembers something different.
“I did feel as if, within the company and outside the company, I was being rooted for,” she says. Mentors—mostly men at the time—invited her into industry organizations like the Scotch Whisky Association and Scotch Whisky Research Institute. “They put me in places where I could network with a wider variety of people and allow them to help me grow as well.”
Still, being the first carried its own pressures: “You want to prove yourself, but you’ve also got responsibility to the brand,” she says. “You often have to put yourself last, the brand first, and then the team.”
Four years into her role as master blender, Macleod became a parent to twin girls.
“If I thought my life was complicated before twins, it got even more complicated with twins,” she says. Support from her husband and parents helped, but the challenge reshaped her leadership style. Today, she is deliberate about supporting team members through maternity leave and other life changes, keeping them looped in if they want to be and ensuring their careers don’t stall.
“I’ve always made it my mission that as the first female master blender, I won’t be the last,” she says.
Innovation within tradition
Macleod’s leadership is defined by both reverence for tradition and a willingness to push its edges. She often cites a line often attributed to Gustav Mahler: “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” For her, that means respecting Scotch’s 200-year heritage while ensuring it stays relevant for tomorrow’s drinkers.
She has championed innovations like Dewar’s “Smooth Series,” which introduced cask finishes more commonly associated with single malts, such as port, Mizunara, rum and even mezcal. “We wanted to show the interesting flavors we can get from different casks, using perhaps a different age statement, just showing a different facet of the Dewar’s style,” she says.
Every decision, though, is grounded in Scotch whisky regulations. “There are lots of things that we would love to try,” she says. “We wouldn’t want to do anything that would harm the category [of Scotch whisky].”
That balance of experimentation within constraints has kept Dewar’s blends dynamic without losing authenticity.
Building a pipeline for the future
For Macleod, who still holds the title of master blender, shaping Scotch’s future isn’t only about liquid in the bottle. It’s about who gets to make it. The whisky industry has grown more inclusive since she joined in 1998, thanks in part to increased visibility and outreach efforts. Today, the majority of people on her blending team are women, and Bacardi has graduate and internship programs that expose students to different areas of the business, from distilling to marketing.
She says the interns help the team see their work with fresh eyes, noticing things they’ve come to take for granted and reminding them how remarkable their industry really is.
Internally, Macleod has helped institutionalize what she lacked early in her own career: structured feedback and mentorship. She works closely with Bacardi’s “Let’s Talk” program to encourage employees to map both business goals and personal development. She also serves as a mentor for OurWhisky Foundation, an organization recognizing, supporting and empowering women in whisky.
“You don’t want to hear people who are constantly negative,” she says. “But in order for you to grow, you’ve got to see where your development areas are, so seeking out people that are going to tell you that is really, really important.”
Advice for the next generation
Asked what she would tell young women eyeing a future in whisky, Macleod doesn’t sugarcoat the path. It is a tough industry, but future Scotch leaders should consider their aspirations within the whisky industry and even beyond, including supply roles. She notes that the path you don’t expect can often be even more rewarding than the one you had originally envisioned.
LinkedIn, she says, can be a practical tool for tracing the career paths of industry professionals. And while ambition is valuable, she warns against burning out by saying yes to everything. “Make sure that you’re leaving space in your life that you can grow,” she says.
For Macleod, growth has meant learning to juggle tradition and innovation, brand stewardship and personal ambition, career and family. It’s also meant ensuring the doors she walked through won’t close behind her.
“The whisky industry is safe when you see the next generation coming through and having the same, if not more, passion for whisky and what it’s all about,” she says.
Photo courtesy of Stephanie MacLeod
