Interview: Lauren and Steph Murray, Dowans hotel
Sisters Lauren and Steph Murray have owned the Dowans Hotel in Speyside with their parents since 2012. After more than 10 years at the helm, we talk to them about being brave with cocktails, hosting the whisky industry and being women in charge.
There are two things most people who travel to Speyside are going for: salmon and whisky. The former are mostly found in the fastest flowing river in Scotland, the River Spey; and the latter at any of the 50 distilleries that call the northeast region of Scotland home. Sitting overlooking the River Spey and with a bar that holds around 700 bottles of whisky, the Dowan’s Hotel is unsurprisingly a popular destination for fishing and whisky fans alike.
But it was coffee that started the journey of sisters Lauren and Steph Murray – and their parents – toward owning the 19th-century, 16-bed hotel in Aberlour. “Mum and dad were looking to retire, I was finishing off my degree in hospitality and Steph was working as a hospitality manager for lots of hours for little pay,” explains Lauren. “I was trying to get into the workforce and there just weren’t any opportunities, so it started off as an idea to own a coffee shop in Glasgow.” When an offer was made on a site and subsequently fell through, the notion of owning a hotel began to take shape.
Come 18 December 2012 the Murrays had the keys to the Dowans Hotel. Renovations, 24-hour working days and not much sleep followed. While all five members of the family were involved in getting the business off the ground (the fifth member being their brother, Sean) Steph and Lauren, in their 20s at the time, began carving out their roles within the business. “From the beginning, I had more experience in food,” explains Steph, while Lauren – the younger of the two – carved out a passion for drinks. Whisky was fairly new on both their radars but having inherited a rather impressive collection, the sisters started to get more and more interested: “If we’re passionate about something,” says Lauren, “we will go to the nth degree to get the information.”
Whisky wall: The Still at The Dowans is home to around 700 bottles of Scotch
Championing change
Taking over a traditional hotel comes with its challenges and Lauren and Steph faced their fair share of pushbacks. “People using the hotel and in the local area were telling us that we couldn’t do what we were trying to do,” explains Lauren of the local expectation for Dowans. Steph adds: “They thought Scottish hospitality had to have tartan and stags’ heads… The difference of 10-12 years is night and day, there have been so many massive changes. Ten years down the line and those same people are now our regulars.”
Of course, it wasn’t only the décor and operation of the hotel that changed, but also the F&B offering. They were the first people in Speyside to offer cocktails on a menu, including whisky cocktails – something they still get some pushback on today. They also introduced the idea of food and whisky pairings. “I was taught by a master sommelier and pairing with wine was standard to me, so we started doing whisky pairings,” explains Steph.
And then there is, of course, The Still – its destination whisky bar holding not far off 700 bottles of whisky. “We recognised the direction of the business was skewed from reality,” says Steph of the hotel when they bought it. “It was the sporting hotel of Speyside, directed towards a 50-year-old+ community, but that demographic amounted to 4-6% of the business, whereas the mainstay was the whisky industry.”
How do you present such a vast array of bottles? They are arranged on the wall, lined up side-by-side and alphabetised so guests can easily see the full range. It can be overwhelming they admit, but the purpose of The Still is to open whisky up to people who haven’t had access to it before, as well as offer those who have a space to enjoy them in.
The hotel’s approach to serving whisky is also low-key – basically, however their guests want it: with water, without, or with Coke, no matter how expensive the dram.
And training the team to be knowledgeable around guests has been a big focus too. One of their staff built a training programme for the rest of the team to undertake, while brand ambassadors from surrounding distilleries are also brought in to share their knowledge. It’s not just the Dowans team learning either – they phone local businesses and offer their teams the training too. “We don’t gatekeep training because that’s useless,” says Lauren matter-of-factly. “For us to succeed, everyone needs to.”
Speyside icon: The Dowans Hotel is also a famous whisky destination
Women in charge
Have they faced any sexism being two young women running a hotel? “All the time,” says Lauren. “I’ve experienced someone come in and ask to talk to a man about the whisky… I harp on about the fact I was 22 when we bought the business but something I’ve had to endure is people saying to me ‘I want to speak to the owner’. That happened last year: a guy shouted at me in the face as he couldn’t get around the fact I was the owner.”
“I don’t really speak about it but I was sexually assaulted in my own hotel at midday by a person who had come here for whisky,” she tells me. “That was many years ago and now the men within the industry are standing up and distilleries are backing us. If they don’t back women, we won’t keep going.”
In 2022, Steph and Lauren were named Spirit of Speyside’s Ambassadors of the Year, a position usually coveted for people making whisky or working in one of its distilleries. It was a huge and well-earned achievement, showing just how much these two sisters who, 10 years ago, didn’t know much about whisky. How do they think they did it? “We wouldn’t be where we are now without the people that supported us,” says Lauren. “Know when to stand your ground, listen to other people and ask for advice from others, as who we had supporting us 10 years ago are the same people supporting us now.”
Steph gives a bit more of a bigger sister answer: “We work incredibly hard in an industry that we love, but equally those people have a love and a passion for what they’re doing and they need people to have a consistent level of service. It is mutually beneficial and I don’t think we can put our whole success on the whisky industry: it’s hard work on our part and benefits them to know they can bring people in who will be given a real experience.”
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