Statistician and Whisky Connoisseur, David Wishart was born on 5 July 1943 in Hendon, London and was the only child of Squadron Leader James Wishart MBE and his wife, Margaret. He spent his early childhood in Cornwall and returned to London during his teenage years. He attended Kilburn Grammar School and then the University of St Andrews, where he gained a BSc in Mathematics and Physics. In 1970, he completed a PhD in Numerical Taxonomy, also at St Andrews.

His doctoral work was developed into a suite of computer programs called Clustan, used for the collective study of cluster analysis methods and their application to classification problems in ecology and taxonomy. In response to a strong demand for the programs, the Clustan User Manual was published in 1969 to accompany an extended version of the program (Clustan 1A). Three further editions of the manual were published, including a digitised version in 1987. The Clustan programs are still used around the world today.

In 1975, after 5 years working in London as a Statistician for the Civil Service at the Treasury, David moved to Edinburgh where he joined the Scottish Office as a Principal Statistician. He was promoted to Chief Statistician in 1977 and then to Director of Statistics in 1981. David subsequently served as Director of Statistics, Chief Statistician and Assistant Secretary at the Scotland Office in Edinburgh. He set up MicroCentre, which imported the first personal computers from the United States to the United Kingdom, and became the President of the British Classification Society. He retired in 1995 and joined the School of Management at the University of St Andrews as a Research Fellow in 1998. He was also the Technical Director of Clustan Limited.

David first became interested in malt whisky as an undergraduate when he was introduced to cask-strength Laphroaig by his father. His work on whisky classification aimed to replace the jargon often used to describe single malts with an objective and easily applied guide to taste. This identified 12 attributes to the aroma and taste of a single malt whisky: body, sweetness, smoky, medicinal, tobacco, honey, spicy, winey, nutty, malty, fruity and floral. These features incorporate over 400 whisky terms found in around 1,000 published tasting notes. He used Clustan to classify single malt whiskies by flavour, and constructed 10 groups in which the whiskies all taste similar. This research led to a book, published in 2002, titled Whisky Classified—Choosing Single Malts by Flavour. This book has been translated into ten languages, with the 10th anniversary edition being published in 2012. More recently, David co-authored The World of Whisky and was awarded Keeper of the Quaich, an accolade which recognises outstanding achievements of those who work with, write or evangelise about Scotch Whisky. In 2009, statisticians were given the opportunity to test his classification at the Royal Statistical Society’s Annual Conference in Edinburgh. David delivered a plenary session on the statistical material, followed by a practical tasting of around 30 malts contributed by the whisky producers. He wrote an illustrated guide to The Flavour of Whisky for Significance magazine in 2009. David’s work on the technical aspects of whisky classifications has been published in international journals and he presented at scientific conferences, seminars and whisky festivals around the world. He also conducted surveys in the whisky industry to validate his classification

David had a strong interest in Tartan, and in 1990, designed the Wishart Tartans, having been frustrated at the lack of a family Tartan. He also designed the Tartan of Holland, for use at Scottish events such as the annual Dutch Whisky Festival and the 'Adam Smith' Tartan of the Scottish Economics Society. He founded the Wishart Society which has connected hundreds of Wishart family members from around the world and ran the Society for over 20 years.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and a Vice President from 1986 to 1989. He held Fellowships of the British Computer Society (BCS) and of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). David was both a Chartered Statistician and a Chartered Software Engineer (with BCS), and co-chaired the COMPSTAT, IFCS, BCS and WQD conferences.

David's interest in customer relationship management apparently started with a paper round, where his customers were classified according to whether or not they gave him a tip at Christmas. Fortunately, the former greatly outnumbered the latter, which proved to be a major entrepreneurial encouragement.

In retirement, David enjoyed walking with his dog, being a grandpa and playing golf, although he said that his grandparenting was much better than his golf.

David died in Edinburgh on 12 March 2020. He leaves his widow Doreen, three sons and six grandchildren.

统计学家和威士忌鉴赏家 David Wishart 于 1943 年 7 月 5 日出生于伦敦的亨登，是中队队长 James Wishart MBE 和他的妻子 Margaret 唯一的孩子。他在康沃尔度过了他的童年，并在他十几岁时回到了伦敦。他先后就读于基尔本文法学校和圣安德鲁斯大学，并在那里获得了数学和物理学士学位。1970 年，他也在圣安德鲁斯完成了数值分类学博士学位。

他的博士论文被开发成一套名为 Clustan 的计算机程序，用于对聚类分析方法及其在生态学和分类学分类问题中的应用进行集体研究。为了响应对程序的强烈需求，Clustan 用户手册于 1969 年出版，以伴随程序的扩展版本 (Clustan 1A)。该手册又出版了三个版本，包括 1987 年的数字化版本。今天，全世界仍在使用 Clustan 程序。

1975 年，在伦敦担任财政部公务员统计员 5 年后，大卫搬到了爱丁堡，在那里他加入了苏格兰办事处，担任首席统计员。他于 1977 年晋升为首席统计师，然后于 1981 年晋升为统计主任。大卫随后在爱丁堡苏格兰办事处担任统计主任、首席统计师和助理秘书。他成立了MicroCentre，将第一台个人电脑从美国进口到英国，并成为英国船级社的主席。他于 1995 年退休，1998 年加入圣安德鲁斯大学管理学院担任研究员。他还曾担任 Clustan Limited 的技术总监。

大卫在读本科时第一次对麦芽威士忌产生了兴趣，当时他被父亲介绍给了酒桶强度的拉弗格。他在威士忌分类方面的工作旨在用客观且易于应用的口味指南来取代常用于描述单一麦芽威士忌的行话。这确定了单一麦芽威士忌的香气和味道的 12 个属性：酒体、甜味、烟熏味、药用味、烟草味、蜂蜜味、辛辣味、酒味、坚果味、麦芽味、果味和花香。这些功能包含了大约 1,000 份已发表的品酒笔记中的 400 多个威士忌术语。他使用 Clustan 按风味对单一麦芽威士忌进行分类，并构建了 10 个威士忌口味相似的组。这项研究导致了 2002 年出版的一本书，标题为威士忌分类——按口味选择单一麦芽威士忌. 这本书已被翻译成十种语言，10 周年纪念版于 2012 年出版。 最近，大卫与人合着了威士忌的世界， 并被授予 Quaich 守护者奖，这是一项表彰那些与我们一起工作的人的杰出成就的荣誉，撰写或宣传苏格兰威士忌。2009 年，统计学家有机会在爱丁堡皇家统计学会年会上测试他的分类。大卫就统计资料发表了全体会议，随后对威士忌生产商提供的大约 30 种麦芽进行了实际品尝。他为《威士忌的味道》写了一本插图指南，具有重要意义2009 年杂志。大卫在威士忌分类技术方面的工作已发表在国际期刊上，并在世界各地的科学会议、研讨会和威士忌节上发表了演讲。他还对威士忌行业进行了调查，以验证他的分类

大卫对格子呢有着浓厚的兴趣，并在 1990 年设计了 Wishart 格子呢，因为缺乏家庭格子呢而感到沮丧。他还设计了荷兰格子呢，用于苏格兰活动，例如一年一度的荷兰威士忌节和苏格兰经济学会的“亚当·斯密”格子呢。他创立了 Wishart 协会，该协会将来自世界各地的数百位 Wishart 家庭成员联系在一起，并运营了该协会 20 多年。

1986 年至 1989 年，他是皇家统计学会会士和副主席。他是英国计算机学会 (BCS) 和皇家艺术、制造和商业学会 (RSA) 的会士。David 是特许统计师和特许软件工程师（与 BCS 合作），并共同主持了 COMPSTAT、IFCS、BCS 和 WQD 会议。

大卫对客户关系管理的兴趣显然是从纸轮开始的，他的客户根据圣诞节是否给他小费进行分类。幸运的是，前者的数量远远超过后者，这被证明是对创业的重大鼓励。

退休后，大卫喜欢和他的狗散步，当爷爷和打高尔夫球，尽管他说他的祖父母比打高尔夫球要好得多。

大卫于 2020 年 3 月 12 日在爱丁堡去世。他留下了遗孀多琳、三个儿子和六个孙子。