It was Eady Butler's undeniable talent for selecting and blending whiskeys that elevated her to the role after the very first batch of 1884 Small Batch Whiskey she curated earned numerous awards including Best American Whiskey at the China Wine & Spirits Awards, a distinction earned again stateside in 2021 at the prestigious Ascot Awards. The appointment also made her the first African American master blender for a major spirit brand.

Maria Jose Huertas Vega is currently a sommelier at the 2 Michelin star Paco Roncero Restaurant, Madrid. She is also a wine critic with a monthly column for the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. She has won numerous sommelier awards including the 2003 National Prize in Gastronomy as a sommelier (Spain), the 2003 Metrópoli Award of El Mundo as Sommelier of the Year, etc.

Andrea Robinson is a world-renowned Master Sommelier who takes the seemingly daunting subject of wine and food, and brings it down to earth for all to understand and enjoy. Robinson, one of only 34 female Master Sommeliers in the world, couples this distinction with a strong culinary pedigree as a graduate and former Dean of the French Culinary Institute, and the winner of three James Beard Awards.

Gamper currently lives in Pamplona, Spain, where she works as a sommelier at the 2-Michelin-starred restaurant, El Molino de Urdániz. She is also a member of the board of the Argentina Sommeliers Association. She was trained in Centro Argentino de vinos y Espirituosas (CAVE), one of the best institutes for sommelier studying and training in Argentina and used to work at the restaurant of the Four Seasons Hotel in Buenos Aires.

Nina Højgaard Jensen is an award-winning sommelier and Editor-in-Chief of “SOMMELIER” for Danish Sommelier Association. She has won Sommelier of the Year of DEN DANSKE SPISEGUIDE in 2020 and Sommest Award of WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP FOR SOMMELIERS (ASI) in 2019.

She studied from Eddy, who has served as a judge in major international bartending competitions. After 4 years in the industry, she won the second place in the BACARDÍ Legacy Cocktail Competition in Shanghai Eastern District in 2017, and she was the national champion of the Cointreau Queen's Competition in 2018. Then she returned to Wuhan to open her first bar S-Triple Gate.

After two years in New York and with dreams for their own venue, Johansson and Hiddleston opened Swift bar in London’s Soho, where she is currently owner and general manager. Two years after opening, Swift was named Best New International Cocktail Bar at Tales of the Cocktail’s Spirited Awards in 2018. This year also saw Johansson become the London chair of the United Kingdom Bartenders’ Guild (UKBG).

In 2015, Marrero opened and is now the Bar Director at Brooklyn hotspot The Llama Inn and the newly opened Llama San, which just received a glowing three-star review from the New York Times. She was awarded Food & Wine and Fortune Magazine’s Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink in 2015, Wine Enthusiasts’ Mixologist of the Year in 2016 and Drinks International Bar World 100.

While studying at university, Maura Latini began working in various positions, until she was hired as a cashier at Unicoop Firenze. She later became Unicoop Firenze Commercial Director and Sales Director. Then, she continued her career as Coop Italia’s Vice President, later becoming its General Manager. In 2019 she was nominated Coop Italia’s CEO.

Since opening Garage Wines in 2013, Ivone has sought to focus on small producers, some of whom are unknown to the general public, as this will allow her customers to find interesting discoveries that they would otherwise hardly have access to.