Spirit of Speyside - What's it all about?

OK, I'll hold my hand up, I'm excited! In less than 3 months I'll be heading up to Speyside for the first time to visit the Spirit Of Speyside festival. First time you say? Yes my first time - previous whisky trips have got me as far as Campbeltown, Arran, Alexandria, Crieff, Glasgow and Pitlochry but the furthest North I've reached is Dalwhinnie. This time we'll go a 'little' further up the A9 and reach Speyside!

This is the first of a series of blogs, vlogs and tweets over the next three months about our planning for, preparing for, travelling to and enjoying the Spirit Of Speyside festival in May 2019.

So let's breakdown what it's all about.


The Spirit of Speyside is a whisky festival held in the Scotch whisky 'region' with the most distilleries, just over 50 at last count. The festival has been running since 1999 making this the 20th Anniversary! This year it takes place between Wednesday 1st and Sunday 6th May.

The Festival reflects the rich heritage of whisky-making which is an integral part of the lives of the Speyside communities.

From exclusive behind-the-scenes tours and tastings at distilleries that are never usually open to the public, to fun community-led events with music and food, the festival organisers are promising something for everyone regardless of their level of interest or knowledge about Scotland’s national drink.

There's two key parts to the Festival - a whisky competition and a calendar of events for visitors.

The Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival Whisky Awards remains the only whisky awards competition in the world that places the power to determine the winning drams in the hands of the public!

It's run in two parts - a blind tasting where an expert panel of nine judges have selected two finalists in four categories, then during the Festival, visitors and locals can cast their vote. So which drams made it to the final?

	12 Years & Under : Benromach 10yo & Cardhu 12yo
	13 - 20 Years : Benromach 15yo & Glen Grant 15yo
	21 Years & Over : Aultmore 21yo & The Glenlivet 21yo
	NAS : Glen Moray Elgin Classic Cabernet Cask Finish & Tamdhu Dalbeallie Dram

The Festival combines over 650 events across the region ranging from distillery tours to Heritage Weekend. Most events are ticketed, some are free and can be booked via the festival website. At the time of writing the majority of these have been sold out, so if you're planning a visit get them booked quickly!

James Campbell, Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival chairman, said: ‘We are absolutely thrilled to be celebrating our 20th anniversary this year so it is incredibly fitting that the 2019 festival will be the biggest on record, in terms of the number of events being hosted.’

The Festival will of course feature strongly on social media - the organisers use @spirit and we're all asked to use the hashtag for the 2019 festival #dram19

I'll be visiting along with Mike and Grimm as part of The @WhiskyFamily, we'll be joined by Jack and Damien.

We have a number of events we're booked into as visitors, a few where we're going to 'help' and we'll try and get to as many other as possible to talk to other visitors, record vlogs and have a good time!

We'd love to meet up with some of our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram friends during the week, so let us know what events you'll be attending!