A STRING of top names have joined the line-up of a major Scottish spirits festival spanning ten days.
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Harris Gin, Arran Whisky and Douglas Laing are the latest names to join Stirling SpiritFEST.
The SMWS will host the opening night whisky tasting at Stirling Distillery - located just below Stirling Castle – on Friday October 28 as well as attending the Whisky Festival on the October 29.
Douglas Laing, “a proudly independent, family owned Scotch Whisky business in its third generation” will host one of the whisky masterclasses during the festival. Isle of Harris Distillery will be at the Gin Festival on Saturday 5 November 5 with its sugar kelp infused Harris gin.
Stirling SpiritFEST is the annual celebration of Scottish spirits and beyond, running from the 28th October through to the 6th November and will include both gin and whisky festivals on back to back weekends.
The festival will offer more opportunities for spirit workshops and masterclasses and will include a range of drinks-based events at venues across Stirling mid-week including a rum masterclass from Matugga Rum Distillery on November 3.
The Stirling Whisky festival was launched in 2012 and now in its 11th year, will be biggest yet.
There will be a competition for the best dressed stall at both gin and whisky festivals so keep your eyes peeled and vote for your favourite. Lindores Abbey distillery won best stall at the 2021 Stirling Whisky Festival with a beautiful rustic display of their whisky and botanicals.
Finlay Geekie, owner of Wild Thyme Spirits who brought Colonsay gin to last year’s gin festival said: “We had an absolute blast at the event - great venue - well attended - the gin drinkers of Stirling were very generous in their praise for our products and purchased accordingly.
“We sold out of three of the gins we brought along despite thinking we’d over stocked! We would highly recommend this event to both gin consumers and gin producers alike.”
Both events are being held at the beautiful Golden Lion hotel in Stirling City Centre with the rum masterclass and gin tasting and ghost walk held at Stirling Distillery. The Gin and Whisky festivals bring in around £400,000 to Stirling annually with this year expected to be even more as the SpiritFEST spans ten days with events across that time.
The line-up so far includes:
Indi Brands
JG Thompson
Ardnamurichan
Downpour
Fassfern
Ginti
Clydeside
Deanston
Kinrara
Lin Gin
Lussa
Ogilvy
Pentlands Hill
Cockrail
Purist
JG Thompson
Pixel
Kilchoman
Lady of The Glen
Wolfburn
Tomintoul
Valentia
Wild Thyme Spirits
Glencadam
Nc'nean
Tullibardine
Plans for more than 900 houses on former Scottish hospital site take step forward
PLANS to build more than 900 homes on the site of a former psychiatric hospital with many listed buildings have taken another step forward with agreement between developer Ambassador Group and West Lothian Council of community benefits as part of the conditions of the site’s approved planning permission in principle.
These include the restoration of listed buildings within the 215-acre Bangour Village Estate along with the construction of more than 900 energy-efficient homes within newly created “linear parkways” using well-established woodland within the site.
Two Scottish accountancy firms unveil merger
Banff-based accountancy firm Anderson & Co, set up by Arlene Anderson, has merged with its founder’s former employer, Ritsons, which has offices across the north of Scotland.
Ritsons partner Deborah Newton first hired Ms Anderson in 2001. Ms Newton supported Ms Anderson, who is joining Ritsons as a partner, through her chartered accountancy training, the firms noted.
Sign up: You can now get the briefing sent direct to your email inbox twice-daily, and Business Week for the seven-day round-up on Sunday 👇
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here