Spirit of Speyside 2026: Sold Out, Shortlisted and Slightly Unhinged

There are whisky festivals, and then there is the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival. For a few glorious days each year, Speyside becomes the centre of the whisky universe. Distilleries open their doors, rare drams appear, whisky fans descend from all over the world, and the whole region becomes one big celebration of Scotch whisky, local stories, good people and questionable hydration choices.

For CopperCairn and Not Another Whisky Podcast, Spirit of Speyside 2026 was our biggest festival yet.

We hosted a packed programme of whisky safaris, live podcast recordings, sensory tastings, blender conversations, distiller showdowns and full-blown competitive whisky chaos. Every single one of our ten events sold out.

• We had waitlists.

• Flavour Is a Lie was shortlisted for Best New Event.

• And A Clash of the Drams: The Ultimate Whisky Ambassador Showdown sold out in around an hour.

This felt like a proper moment for what we are trying to do: create whisky experiences that are knowledgeable, generous, rooted in Speyside and, crucially, not boring.

Taking whisky out into Speyside

A big part of our festival programme was the Speyside Whisky Safari, which ran across several days with different distillery features, including Speyburn, GlenAllachie and The Macallan.

The idea behind the safari is simple: Speyside itself is the tasting room. Rather than keeping guests in one place, we took small groups out into the landscape, stopping at riverbanks, distillery landmarks, hidden viewpoints and iconic whisky locations. Each safari included four premium single malts, a CopperCairn Glencairn glass to take home, and a goodie bag featuring a signed copy of Not Another F@cking Whisky Book. Naturally, because subtlety is overrated, every line-up also included a dram of Turas Mòr.

Mitch Bechard out in the wild hosting the whisky safari under the Craigellachie Bridge

The safaris were not production tours in disguise. They were moving tastings through Speyside, connecting the whisky in the glass to the river, bridges, distilleries, smugglers, lost stories and landscapes that shaped it.

We started by the Spey, moved through classic whisky locations, and finished with a dram near Craigellachie Bridge. There is something about standing in that landscape, glass in hand, that makes whisky make sense in a way no PowerPoint slide ever will.

Flavour Is a Lie

One of the real highlights of the festival was Flavour Is a Lie, our sensory whisky experience at The Dowans Hotel in Aberlour. Hosted by me alongside sensory specialist Kami Newton and sound healer Joanne Bechard (aka my wife), the session explored how sound, sight, touch, smell and expectation shape the way we perceive flavour.

The point was simple: flavour does not just live in the glass. It lives in your brain. Which is inconvenient, because the brain is an absolute drama queen! Guests tasted six whiskies under changing sensory conditions, with live crystal singing bowls, visual cues, aromas, texture experiments and perception-shifting elements layered into the experience. The idea was not to race through drams or drown everyone in tasting-note jargon, but to slow things down and show how dramatically flavour can change, even when the whisky itself stays exactly the same (sorry for those of you we tricked with by colouring the whisky)

We were absolutely delighted that Flavour Is a Lie was shortlisted for Best New Event in the festival. That one meant a lot. It was not a traditional tasting. It was not a brand showcase. It was a slightly strange, immersive, brain-bending whisky experiment. In other words, very us.

Live podcast chaos

Of course, it would not be Spirit of Speyside without Not Another Whisky Podcast getting involved.

At The Dowans, we hosted Three Whisky Blenders Walk into a Bar, featuring Brian Kinsman, Malt Master at Glenfiddich; Oliver Chilton, Head Blender at Elixir Distillers; and Sarah Burgess, Master of Whisky Creation at International Beverage.

Three brilliant whisky makers, three personally selected drams, and a live audience getting the chance to hear how world-class whisky is built, balanced, protected and occasionally rescued from near disaster. The event was part tasting, part chat show, and exactly the kind of conversation you do not get from the back label of a bottle.

Then came A Clash of the Stills: The Return of the Distillers’ Showdown at The Craigellachie Hotel, with Polly Logan (Tormore), Euan Christie (The Cabrach) and Kristy Lark-Booth (Killara) going dram-to-dram in front of a live audience. It was a tasting, a competition, a podcast recording and a friendly battle of distilling brains all rolled into one. Which sounds perfectly sensible until you put microphones, whisky and competitive distillers in the same room.

And then Saturday night went properly wild.

A Clash of the Drams: The Ultimate Whisky Ambassador Showdown returned for its third year and sold out in around an hour.

The format is simple: some of Scotland’s best whisky ambassadors bring secret weapon drams from their own stash, the audience tastes and votes, and everyone pretends this is a highly controlled scientific process rather than beautifully organised chaos.

This year’s contenders included Charlie Metcalfe, Gordon Dundas, Stuart Buchanan and Struan Grant Ralph, with the event recorded live for Not Another Whisky Podcast. It was loud, funny, fiercely fought and exactly the kind of whisky night we love: great drams, big personalities and just enough danger to keep everyone honest. (LISTEN HERE)

Sold out, waitlisted and very grateful

The biggest takeaway from the whole festival was this: every event we ran sold out, and we had waitlists.

That is not something we take lightly.

Spirit of Speyside is packed with incredible events. Distilleries, brands, bars, hotels, writers, makers and whisky legends are all competing for people’s time. So for guests to choose our events, fill the rooms, join the waitlists and properly throw themselves into the madness means a huge amount.

CopperCairn is still a small business, and Not Another Whisky Podcast is still, at heart, two whisky idiots with microphones trying to ask better questions than “what’s your favourite dram?”

So to see these events land the way they did was genuinely special. It showed us that there is an appetite for whisky experiences that are expert-led but relaxed, polished but playful, full of proper knowledge but not afraid to be a bit daft. Which is fortunate, because “proper knowledge but a bit daft” is probably going on my gravestone.

Thank you

A huge thank you to everyone who came to one of our events, joined a waitlist, bought a ticket, asked a question, laughed along, voted loudly, shared a dram or helped make the rooms feel as good as they did.

Thank you to the venues, guests, distilleries, ambassadors, blenders, distillers, sensory specialists, sound healers and behind-the-scenes legends who helped make the programme possible.

And thank you to Spirit of Speyside for continuing to give whisky lovers from around the world a reason to come here and experience this region properly.

Now we just need to work out what on earth we do next year.

No pressure.

Mitch

Plan your own Speyside whisky adventure

If this sounds like your kind of whisky experience, we’d love to welcome you on the road.

CopperCairn creates private whisky adventures across Speyside and beyond, built around great drams, proper stories, beautiful places and the kind of local access you don’t usually get from a standard distillery visit.

Whether you’re looking for a relaxed half-day tasting, a full-day Speyside whisky adventure, or a completely bespoke multi-day trip through Scotland, we can help shape something memorable around you.

No crowded buses. No copy-and-paste itineraries. No standing in a visitor centre wondering if this is the third or fourth mash tun you’ve been shown that day.

Just great whisky, local knowledge, and experiences designed around the people in the van.

Get in touch to start planning your own CopperCairn whisky adventure.