db’s Eloise Feilden wins Alan Lodge award

Eloise Feilden has been chosen as the winner of The Alan Lodge Young International Drinks Writer of the Year 2023.

The judging panel for the Alan Lodge Award has crowned Eloise Feilden, Asia editor of the drinks business as their 2023 winner after demonstrating her ability to cover a breadth of topics within the wine and spirits industries.

The judges for the 2023 iteration of the Alan Lodge award were: Becky Paskin, drinks writer, TV presenter and founder of OurWhisky; Millie Milliken, freelance drinks writer and head of content for the OurWhisky Foundation; Kate Malczewski, freelance writer and editor; Laura Foster, freelance drinks journalist; and Felipe Schrieberg, senior contributor for Forbes.com and co-founder of The Rhythm and Booze Project.

The Alan Lodge Young International Drinks Writer of the Year 2023 looks to celebrate up-and-coming writers in the drinks world, covering beer, wine and spirits. The award was established in memory of the late deputy editor of the spirits business, Alan Lodge.

Feilden was selected for the award due to two pieces of submitted work: an interview with Olivier Krug, sixth-generation director of the Krug Champagne house, and a feature exploring the impact a UK-India free trade agreement could have on Indian distillers.

“I was impressed with both – they showed versatility,” noted Foster. “The Krug piece really brought Olivier to life; it was a really accurate and fun portrayal, whereas the India-UK piece was pretty hard-hitting trade journalism, incredibly well written and well researched.”

Milliken added: “The India-UK piece could have been quite an intimidating and dry piece to write, but she still managed to geek out points of interest, and I did find it really interesting. There was an underlying confidence in that writing, which is needed for the gravity of that kind of story. Really impressive – shows a lot of promise for the future.”