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Speyside Whisky Festival 2009 – Spirit of Speyside

Speyside Whisky Festival 2009 – Spirit of Speyside

www.spiritofspeyside.com

Friday May 1st until Sunday May 10th 2009.

Whisky, Music, Fun and maybe the Whisky Boys (don’t forget Nicola our Webmaster and trainee malt taster)

This festival is now about to have its 10th birthday. This festival covering vast areas of our native and spiritual land.  It will range from the hills and mountains around Aviemore, the Cairngorms, along the Bonnie Banks of the river Spey and that wonderful Moray Firth.

Not quite, but there is as many Distilleries in this area as there are sheep. Therefore if Jim and Dougie can manage to visit we shall have to be very particular where we spend our valuable time and taste buds. So many distilleries so little time.

This list will be added to over the next few months as we do some important tastings of the malts of Speyside.  But very high on our list will be the following. (in no particular order)

Glen Grant Distillery, Rothes

Whilst at the Whisky Live festival in Glasgow we initially by-passed the Glen Grant stand, this was due to our past thoughts of Glen Grant being an old mans drink, always one of the only malts on the gantry of “drinking pubs” of years gone by, with an old fashioned label and nothing to tell you if it was any good.

Barmen in those days were only interested in taking in money for drink,how things have changed.
We did go back to the Glen Grant stand and had a long chat with the manager who let us taste the 5 yr old, 10 yr old and a 27 yr old cask strength.

How the tasting and the chat with the staff have changed our minds, these were smooth delightful to taste and for ever more the Glen Grant bottle on the gantry will not be ignored.  If you have not tasted this malt for a long time, please try it now, you all will be more than pleasantly surprised.

Ardmore Distillery, Kennethmont

Although not a Speyside, but a Highland Malt this distillery is a must on our tour.

Again when meeting the guys from Ardmore and tasting their malt we were nothing but completely impressed by the enthusiasm of the lads and the beauty of their malt.

This malt is one for a cold wintry night sitting by an open fire with the wind and snow outside, me inside with light music and heat from the fire, some cheese and oatcakes by the table peace and tranquillity, canny wait.

Tomintoul Distillery, Ballindalloch

What a setting this distillery has, set in beautiful Banffshire this relatively new distillery produces whisky that some old and established distilleries only wish they could, whilst there it is small step to visit The Whisky Castle an emporium of pleasure to the malt Whisky drinker and collector.

Remember this list will be added to as days and weeks go by, keep logging on and checking. Also check our tastings.

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1 Response

  1. Jim Davis says:

    Hi Jim

    The festival has always been a great event and well organised and I look forward to coming along again next year.

    We would love to get involved and could perhaps offer some of the partakers in the festival a chance to imbibe with the very water itself that makes the worlds best dorp! At the same time a chance to clear the head and reinvigorate the senses for those that might have been carried away on soft notes resulting in a hard head!!

    My suggestion is this; we arrange some bespoke journeys down the rivers of the area, we could do a gentle float down the River Spey finishing at Knockando and arrange for a tour of the distilleries thereafter and for those with a west coast taste for adventure after something with a little more tannin a wilder ride down the River Findhorn with a tour of the Dallas Dhu distillery museum to finish off a great day out.

    Happy tasting, Jim

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