Difford's Guide

Team Difford image 1

Team Difford

We might have a huge website but we are a small wellformed team, each with our areas of expertise.

Simon Difford - Founder & CEO

Simon lives and breathes the modern drinks industry. His private bars, at his and Paloma's home and at our office, the Clocktower in East Sussex, are among the best-stocked bars in the world. He has become an authority on cocktails and is respected for his encyclopedic knowledge of spirits and liqueurs. And when he's not tasting and testing new products, he's out there 'in the field' road-testing bars around the world. Read Simon's story.
Likes: Humanism, Scotch whisky, beer (particularly British cask ales), his bars, his Caterham 7, blue shirts, gadgets and everything just-so.
Dislikes: Religion, social media, public transport, slow drivers, slow drinkers, drunks, the colour pink and cold weather.

Paloma Alos - Managing Director

Simon's partner in business and in life, before meeting Simon, Paloma was a high-flying global director at KPMG and although she now looks after much of the business side of our company, her skillset for many years has been marketing and communications. Paloma keeps us in touch with the rest of the drinks industry as well as organizing Simon. She has judged numerous cocktail competitions and is one of the first people to be awarded the WSET Level 3 Award in Spirits.
Likes: That she is named after a cocktail, her fluffy Siberian cats and POETS day.
Dislikes: Indecision, her alarm clock and proofreading our 600+ page book.

Dan Malpass - Art Director

Dan is our happy-go-lucky Art Director and has worked with Simon for over 20 years on all our publications. Happiest when taking photographs, he lives with his two sons and many dogs in Lincolnshire and makes sporadic appearances at Simon's bar on days when there's something to photograph. He also looks a bit like Bruce Forsyth.
Likes: Drinking, smoking, stripes, sheds
Dislikes: Colour, pictures of people smiling, pickled onion Monster Munch

Harry Webster - IT Director

Harry jumped aboard the good ship Difford in July 2010 as our pet geek. He's responsible for taking us into the 21st century and beyond and has built our website from the ground up using several of the ten different computer languages he's conversant in. All the more impressive since he does it from picturesque Derbyshire.
Likes: Golf, darts and anything IT-related
Dislikes: Buses, triple-bogeys, Watford Gap Services (M1)

Matt Mason - Senior Production Engineer

Matt is our IT whizz kid from the tech generation: he could code before he could walk, and we suspect he sees the world like it's The Matrix. He abandoned a prospective job in animation (he decided it was a Mickey Mouse career) and ventured into web development instead. He works with Harry and Alex in Derbyshire where he's credited as being the creative force and the one that makes our interface understandable by mere mortals (us non-tech folk).
Likes: Rum, making music and Italian food.
Dislikes: Autotune, balloons and ankle sprains.

Alex Mac - Junior Frontend Developer

Alex is our multi-talented Junior Frontend Developer with a passion for cars and the latest hardware. Alex joined the development team in August 2021 and quickly settled into the world of fast-paced development and social gaming.
Likes: Cars, blowing all his money on tech, tequila, DIY, dogs.
Dislikes: Roadworks, high latency, pickles, shopping on a Saturday.

Our Global Team

We aim to make Difford's Guide a global go-to resource for all things drink and bar-related and are being joined in this pursuit by our talented partners:
Australia - Jane Ryan
Greece & Cyprus - Denny Kallivoka and Eleni Nikoloulia

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