We catch up with Moa Reynolds to discuss her career as Swedish Whisky Girl, what she loves about the industry and her go-to drams.
Tell us a bit about your career path in whisky?
I am originally from Sweden but moved to Scotland in 2015 to study and accidentally ended up in the whisky industry after taking a job at The Scotch Whisky Experience. I didn’t know anything about the industry but found it fascinating.
Swedish Whisky Girl started as an Instagram page to document the whiskies I tried just so I could remember them and grew to become something I could work with through content creation.
Nowadays I split my time between photography, which spans from weddings to portraits and branding shoots, to whisky and travel writing for various publications as well as my content creation. One of my career highlights is writing a whisky book alongside The Balmoral Hotel called SCOTCH: The Balmoral Guide to Scottish Whisky. I basically grew up in a library carrying as many books home as I possibly could, so having my name on a hardcover was really special.
What inspired your career in whisky? Did you have any misconceptions about the industry before entering?
I have always liked learning new things and when travelling I found it fascinating to learn about flavour in connection to culture and history, so whilst studying I also did courses in wine. Once I discovered a fascination for whisky, curiosity led me to uncovering why whiskies can be so different and where flavour comes from. This in combination to meeting interesting people and hearing their stories and connection to whisky made me stay in the industry.
How has the trajectory of your career shaped your views on whisky?
I never expected the whisky world to have so many lovely people and if my career has taught me anything it’s how important the people in the industry are. There can be such a disconnect between how consumers see whisky distilleries versus the experience of knowing the people behind the scenes, but throughout whisky it is a recurring theme that it’s something worth savouring and appreciating in good company, which I really like.
Something that has come to light whilst working with whisky are both the positives and the stories of connection, but also the negative effect it can have on people struggling with addiction or using alcohol as a tool to moderate emotions. I have close family members and friends who have had a lot of issues with alcohol, so I spend a lot of time thinking about balancing my role influencing people to drink whisky while also trying to encourage a healthier relationship with alcohol consumption. It can be really difficult and it’s something I will continuously work on and continue to re-evaluate.
One thing that my career has taught me so far and that I will nourish moving forwards is that learning more about something makes you realise how little you know and that it’s incredibly valuable to always strive to learn more and not think you’ve reached a point where you ‘know enough’ and become ignorant.
What was your inspiration behind creating Swedish Whisky Girl?
My Instagram account was originally called ‘The Peaty PT’ as I wanted to do a personal training course after graduating and it was peated whisky that made me fall in love with scotch whisky. However this was not as clever or easily recognised as I might’ve hoped so I changed it to Swedish Whisky Girl as a placeholder which I thought was very self-explanatory until I could think of something better.
I’ve always been intrigued by photography as a way to capture memories and it seemed like a good way to document my journey in whisky as a diary for myself. I never expected it to be interesting to others as well.
Where is the most interesting or unconventional place you have enjoyed a dram?
That is a good question. I’ve enjoyed a dram of whisky in quite a few interesting locations, on a beach during a storm on the Isle of Islay, whilst skiing in the Austrian Alps and in an almost 500 years old church in Perthshire. But the one that feels most like a fever dream is next to an indoor waterfall at The Chuan Distillery in China. I never thought I would even have the chance to visit China before my role in the whisky industry presented an opportunity to visit the distillery in Sichuan Province, China. It’s such a surreal adventure and I loved experiencing it, although I am still not 100% sure it was not a dream.
What is your controversial/unpopular whisky opinion?
That cask strength whisky is not always better than whisky at 40%. I think that a lot of people’s palates get used to drinking whisky at higher strengths and therefore think that anything near to 40% tastes ‘weaker’ or ‘watered down’. There is a narrative often expressed around cask strength being superior to 40%, but I often find that the alcohol overwhelms the flavour in cask strength whiskies. But there are of course great and less good examples of both. The main thing is to let people enjoy what they want to enjoy and also understand that for a lot of people even 40% ABV is very strong.
What is your go-to dram and what is the dram you have as a treat?
Go-to dram is always a tricky question to answer as I don’t really have just one. It really depends on my mood – and I’m very aware that I am incredibly lucky to have quite a well-stocked whisky shelf but I do like whiskies that have been matured in first fill ex-bourbon. And Ardbeg 10 Year Old is a classic for me as it was the first-ever whisky that I really enjoyed which then became my gateway whisky. Any older whisky from the now-closed Cambus Distillery is such a treat for me because it’s of course not the easiest to get hold of now. I just love aged grain whisky from them as it reminds me of my favourite ice cream as a child which was the Sundborn Punsch.
What international dram are you enjoying at the moment?
At the moment I absolutely adore the Bivrost Vanaheim from Aurora Spirit Distillery which has the influence of teak-cask maturation and tastes so much like Nordic apple pie!
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