Making Whisky Fun: Dawn Davies on the "Smoky Cokey" & Other Geeky Secrets

Cask to Glass · Aug 13, 2026 · 30m

Whisky should be fun, declares Dawn Davies, outgoing commercial buying director for global whisky retailer The Whisky Exchange.

She wants to shatter many of the myths around whisky. Like you can't mix Lagavulin with Coca-Cola. She calls it the "smoky cokey". And "it's absolutely delicious," she says.

Then there's the "geeky" stuff.

"I'm a fermentation geek through and through," she admits, because different yeasts create different flavours. Before that there's the grain: barley, corn or rye... etc. Each gives a different flavour.

Then there's the type of still that's used to create the new…