Product Update
Is Whisky Me Still in Business? (2026 Update)
Is Whisky Me from Dragons’ Den still around in 2026? The deal it made, the dragons who invested, and where to buy Whisky Me today.
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Whisky Me built a subscription business around a genuinely simple pitch: a curated dram lands on your doorstep every month, no trawling specialist shops required. It landed backing from three Dragons at once, and it is still delivering, now under new ownership.
The short answer
Whisky Me is still in business. The whisky subscription service continues to send monthly deliveries to subscribers, and recent customer reviews from early 2026 show it operating normally. The company was acquired by Glenkeir Whiskies, owner of The Whisky Shop, in a deal announced in December 2024, so it now trades under new ownership rather than as an independent startup, but the subscription product itself has kept running throughout.
Acquisition is not the same as failure. Being bought by an established specialist retailer in your exact category is often a sign the underlying business and customer base were valuable enough to be worth folding into a bigger operation.
Subscription businesses in particular are frequently built to be acquired rather than to run independently forever. A curated subscriber base with proven retention is a genuinely valuable asset to a specialist retailer that already has the sourcing relationships and warehouse infrastructure but lacks a recurring revenue product, which is precisely the gap Whisky Me filled for its new owner.
The Dragons' Den pitch
The founders pitched Whisky Me in series 18, episode 7, presenting a subscription box built around discovering new whiskies each month, aimed at drinkers who wanted variety and expert curation without having to become whisky obsessives themselves.
They asked for £75,000 in exchange for 15 percent of the business, a relatively modest equity ask for a subscription model, a business type the Dragons tend to scrutinise closely for churn and repeat-order economics.
Subscription pitches live or die on retention numbers, and the Dragons typically press hard on how many subscribers stick around past their first box versus how many cancel after trying it once. A founder who can answer those questions with real data, rather than optimistic projections, tends to fare far better in this kind of pitch than one relying purely on enthusiasm for the product.
The deal that got done
Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden and Tej Lalvani teamed up to back the founders, splitting the full £75,000 investment between the three of them for the 15 percent equity requested. Three Dragons backing one pitch jointly is a strong signal, it takes real conviction from multiple independent investors to share a single deal rather than one of them simply outbidding the others.
That combination gave the founders a broad base of support: Jones's experience scaling consumer brands, Meaden's retail instincts, and Lalvani's understanding of subscription and repeat-purchase health and wellness products.
Expansion, then acquisition
Whisky Me expanded its subscription model beyond whisky into gin in 2022, broadening its customer base before eventually being acquired by Glenkeir Whiskies, the parent company of The Whisky Shop, in a deal announced in December 2024. That kind of acquisition by a specialist retailer already deep in the same category is a natural, and generally positive, exit path for a subscription brand that built real customer loyalty.
The subscription service has continued operating under the new ownership, with monthly deliveries still going out to customers as of early 2026 based on recent reviews.
Diversifying into gin before the acquisition also likely made the business a more attractive target, since it demonstrated the underlying subscription infrastructure, curation model and customer relationships could work across more than one spirit category rather than being narrowly tied to whisky alone.
For the three Dragons who backed the original pitch, an acquisition by an established specialist retailer is a genuinely favourable outcome. It typically means the underlying business had real value, rather than needing to be wound down, and it gives subscribers continuity rather than a service that simply stops.
The bottom line
Whisky Me asked for £75,000 for 15 percent, got exactly that jointly from Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden and Tej Lalvani, expanded into gin, and was acquired by Glenkeir Whiskies in December 2024. The subscription product is still active under its new owner.
If you want to subscribe, the Whisky Me website is still taking sign-ups, now operating as part of the Whisky Shop group rather than as an independent company.
Where to buy Whisky Me
Still selling as of 7 February 2026. Check today's price and availability.
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See the full Whisky Me deal breakdown and term sheet →
