FESTIVAL SEASON

Calling all flavour hunters

The Society has covered all bases during festival month this year. From 12 limited edition festival bottles specially crafted by our Whisky Team, to the Society’s first ever feature length documentary celebrating Scotch & Sherry, find out what’s to come as Duncan Gorman uncovers everything on offer this May

WORDS: DUNCAN GORMAN PHOTOS: PETER SANDGROUND

Festival season is finally upon us, where throughout May thousands of whisky lovers from all around the world will make their voyage to Scotland to take part in one of the many renowned whisky celebrations taking place across the country.

Here at The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, we’ll be celebrating in a number of different ways. From one-of-a-kind bottlings and tasting experiences, to online ‘Dram-alongs’ and even a feature-length film, the Society has something for everyone throughout this special month of the year.

At The Scotch Malt Whisky Society 2024 is the year of commemorating our approach to sherry cask maturation, and this month we’ll be living it up with a sherry cask takeover. As well as half of our festival bottlings being sherry cask-matured, we’ll be offering unique sherry-inspired festival events, whisky releases and some fascinating content.

Although there will be a fortunate few who manage to make their way to Islay or Speyside this year (myself being one of them, but we’ll get to that in a moment!), the majority of whisky lovers might not be so lucky. That’s just one of the reasons why the Society’s Whisky Team has opted to celebrate this festival period with a series of small batch releases.

This means there’s a larger offering than our staple single cask releases, which are limited to around 200 bottles. Although still very limited and unique in comparison with other branded releases, these small-batch releases stretch a little further, offering over 1,000 bottles, helping members across the world get a taste of the festival season.

ABOVE: Our trio of bottlings in celebration of the Islay Festival 2024

“I think the interesting thing about all of these expressions is that they’re put together from different casks that all have different journeys … we’ve painted them together to create these pictures for festival season.”

ABOVE: Explore our range of special releases in celebration of the diversity of the Highland region

As I hinted at earlier, I’ve managed to wangle my way into the Society’s team heading to Islay this year, all in the name of ‘work’ of course! Having never experienced any of Scotland’s whisky festivals I can’t wait to discover all this little island has to offer.

We’ll be kicking things off with a takeover at The Ballygrant Inn on Monday, 27 May before spending the day at The Indie Bottler Festival at the Ramsay Hall in Port Ellen on Tuesday, 28 May.

But the grand finale of our time in Islay is something really special, a screening of the Society’s first-ever feature documentary Scotch and Sherry: A Flavour Odyssey at The Machrie Hotel. Ignoring my undoubtable bias from being a part of the SMWS Content Team, this is a must for anyone heading to Islay.

With two screenings set to air on both Wednesday, 29 and Thursday, 30 May, this documentary traces the Society’s sherry cask-matured bottlings back to the forests of Galicia, where they begin uncovering the intricacies of creating and seasoning sherry casks from start to finish.

Not to worry if you’re not heading to Islay this year, the documentary will also be screened at our Edinburgh and Glasgow Members’ Rooms throughout May. But there are limited slots available so book yours today! As always there’s also a great range of member experiences to get involved with The Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s festival celebrations.