I’m sitting outside the Craigellachie Hotel awaiting my ride to the airport after five days at this year’s Spirit of Speyside festival. As the judge for its coveted Best New Event award, I have spent my time at one of the industry’s calendar highlights touring the likes of The Glenlivet, Tormore, and Dunphail; been blindfolded with Duncan Taylor for a night of ‘drams in the dark’; and danced to an acoustic version of Britney Spears’ ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ on the grounds of Speyburn.
Drams were plentiful, ceilidhs were boisterous, and I came away with emails and messages on Instagram and WhatsApp from new friends made over a shared love of whisky. I even fed a Highland cow an entire packet of digestive biscuits. For the 25th year, the Speyside whisky community showed visitors from all over the world just how special this wedge of Scotland really is. More than 7,500 tickets were bought for the near-700 events that took place over the week — rumour has
