The Scotch Malt Whisky Society – Wigtown Book Festival, Day 1
The Wigtown Book Festival ran from the 23rd September to the 2nd October and as The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) were the Principal Supporter, it was important that The Society was there and host a series of tastings. We were asked to spend three
days in Wigtown as Ambassadors for the Society and host a number of tastings during the opening weekend.
The town was buzzing and trying to get a car parking space was a trial on it’s own. As we were both staying in the Brora Lodge which was within walking distance of all the venues, parking was not an issue. We have to mention that the Brora Lodge was a spectacular B & B and certainly the best that I’d stayed in.
So, it’s day one and our first event was The SMWS Party which was held in the large Festival Marquee at 9 pm on Friday night. This event was by invite only and approx. 200 guests who were speakers, sponsors, volunteers, ambassadors and donors.
We both embraced this fine opportunity to host tastings and share the virtues and the benefits of becoming a member where they can experience one of a kind, single c
ask Whiskies and exciting, flavour – led Whisky experiences. The joy of such events is to speak to as many people and in some cases to enlighten them to new flavours and the enjoyment of single cask, cask strength drams.
We set up our stand early and laid out our selection of Society drams which included two Speyside’s, one Highland, one Lowland and a delightful Islay. Our Lowland was a 25 Year old Bladnoch and as the distillery is only a hop. skip and a jump from Wigtown it had to be on our list.
At 9pm the Marquee was opened and the guests poured in, on arrival they were all handed a glass of white/red wine on entry. Some guests as they entered the main Marquee holding their glass of wine then spotted the SMWS stand turned around and placed their wine back on the table and came over to enjoy a dram instead. Many of the guests that we chatted too had booked the up and coming tastings on the Saturday and the Sunday.
We both felt this was a great introduction of the SMWS to the people of Wigtown, when we explained that one of the drams was from their local distillery they we all interested if we had any information about the new owner and when and if it was going to start distilling.
See the next post day 2 where we paid a wee visit to Bladnoch Distillery.
