Charlene Rooke is a Vancouver-based drinks journalist and educator. She is WSET Certified in both Wine and Spirits, and a WSET spirits educator. She also holds the SWE’s Certified Specialist of Spirits, various category-specific certifications (for tequila, Scotch and more) and studied small-batch distilling at Moonshine University in Louisville, Kentucky. She's the Drinks Editor of the LCBO's Food & Drink and a contributor to many other publications.

Charlene is CASC’s Lead Judge.

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Tom is a drinks writer, consultant, and judge who has been travelling the world and pulling corks for over twenty five years. He is the Managing Editor for Culinaire Magazine and is the Competition Director for the Alberta Beverage Awards. His formal training includes certification with the WSET and the ISG, and Tom has judged at domestic and international competitions around the world.

He has no qualms about tasting first thing in the morning, and his desk is covered in paper and bottles - somewhere under all that, a corkscrew might be found. 

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Neal McLennan is the British Columbia-based food editor at Vancouver Magazine as well as the long-standing travel editor at Western Living Magazine. He covers food, wine and spirits for VanMag as well as writing for enRoute, Travel + Leisure and the Globe and Mail.

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Craig Pinhey is a Nova Scotia born beverage writer and consultant. His love of spirits started with Lagavulin while in university in the early 80s. An Engineer by education, Craig worked in Ontario, where he gained his appreciation for local wine and beer in Niagara in the 90s. Returning to the Maritimes in late 1998, Craig became a certified Sommelier and started his new career as a beverage writer in New Brunswick; his weekly Good Drink column has been running for 20 years. Craig travels the world visiting distilleries, breweries and wineries, writes, runs tastings, and judges national and local competitions, and is a regular writer for Quench and Atlantic Business magazine. He loves premium rum and local eau de vies.

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Jennifer Tyldesley is a retired Canadian Air Force captain and airline pilot. She moved from the cockpit to cocktails in 2016, launching Free Pour Jenny’s in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. She makes handcrafted cocktail bitters, shrubs, and tonic syrups that showcase the unique ingredients found in the boreal forests of the Yukon. Jennifer is the author, with Michele Genest, of both "Cold Spell, Cocktails and Savouries for a Northern Winter" (Borealchemy Press, 2017) and "Add Light and Stir, Cocktails and Savouries for a Northern Summer" (Borealchemy Press, 2018). Jennifer is certified with a WSET Level 2 in Spirits. When she's not running Free Pour Jenny's, you can find Jennifer spending time with her husband & two daughters, foraging, or restoring a tiny Gold Rush era Victorian home in Atlin, BC.

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Debbie Shing DipWSET is the founder of Quvé, a Toronto-based boutique import agency. She has more than 20 years of beverage business leadership experience across Canada and worked for some of Canada's largest national firms as well as BCLDB.

She is co-founder of Canadian non-profit organization Vinequity, past director on CAPS Ontario's (Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers) board of directors, and has judged for Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants as well as Intervin Wine Awards.

Debbie is also a WSET Diploma instructor at IWEG Drinks Academy and has worked as guest sommelier at Barberian’s Steak House and BlueBlood Steakhouse.

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