June Outturn 2025 Feature Article
For the last eight or nine years, the Society’s take on whisky festivals has been our enormously popular festival bottlings. Like the Scottish whisky festivals themselves, it all started with a special Islay bottling to coincide with the Islay festival, but then grew to take in the other festivals that sprung up around the regions. Here in Australia, the Society’s festival “season” endeavours to showcase our annual cask bottlings at special events we host around the country. Why shine a light only on Islay when you can simultaneously shine a light on Campbeltown, Speyside, the Highlands, and the Lowlands? (As a brief aside — were you aware there are now more than 20 operating distilleries in the Lowlands? When the Society started here in Australia in 2002, that number was just three!)
To that end, whisky festivals are a bit like rock festivals. A seed gets sown — Woodstock, say — and it becomes a template for others to follow, even if it’s many years later down the track. (Glastonbury or Lollapalooza, for example). Other categories and genres operate similarly, such as comedy festivals, book/writers’ festivals, and so on. As the years go by, festivals develop, evolve, and morph to suit the scene and the times. And they also adapt in response to consumer feedback about what worked or didn’t work last time. Whisky festivals have indeed followed such a path.
Although whisky festivals come in many different shapes, sizes, formats, and durations these days, ultimately — if you strip it all back — they are a celebration. They are a chance for like-minded people to come together and celebrate their mutual enjoyment and appreciation of the distillers’ art.
Here in Australia, the first whisky festival was held in Canberra in 2003, aptly named the Australian Malt Whisky Convention. Organised by our friends at the Malt Whisky Society of Australia, it was a Friday-Sunday affair that attracted around 70 delegates and showcased many of the Scotch whisky brands in the country at that time. (Lark and Bakery Hill were the two Australian distilleries to present their wares!) Four industry luminaries came out to present masterclasses — Dr Bill Lumsden (Glenmorangie/Ardbeg), Derek Hancock (Gordon & Macphail), Ronnie Cox (Glenrothes, et al), and acclaimed whisky writer Jim Murray, who was just about to launch the first edition of his Whisky Bible. Indeed, the SMWS was one of the exhibitors at the Expo on the Friday and — to this day — people still mention in reverent tones the Society’s 53.61 that stole a bit of the limelight that afternoon.
The MWSoA would repeat their National Malt Convention in Sydney (2005) and Melbourne (2007). Schemes were underway for a fourth convention in Hobart in 2009, however, the global financial crisis struck during the planning, and effectively put the kibosh on things. The fourth MWSoA national convention was eventually held in Adelaide in 2013, but it was evident by then that the scene and the market had shifted. There was something else in the air: Competition!
Whisky LiveTM came to Australia in 2009, and has been a fixture on the annual calendar ever since. Starting in Sydney, where it was held for the first few years, it slowly expanded to other capital cities. Whisky Show followed a similar path, starting in Sydney in 2012. Whisky Fair (Sydney, first held in 2010) became more than just an expo show; it incorporated a week of tastings, dinners, and events in the lead-up to the weekend of the actual exhibition. Other shows, fairs, and festivals have all come along to put their own take and spin on the category: Whisky & Dreams (Melbourne), Whisky Freedom (Perth), the Queensland Whisky Expo (Brisbane), and Whisky Abbey (Melbourne) being just some of the players. (There are more…space prevents me from listing the lot, but you get the idea!) Across the ditch, Dramfest in Christchurch, NZ, continues to be the flagship event by which all other southern-hemisphere festivals are judged. I mention Dramfest because it’s the vehicle that attracts many of Scotland’s brands and luminaries to this corner of the globe, and they often then loop into Australia to value-add to their trip and host events/tastings in Oz…from which we all benefit.
With so many whisky festivals to attend, there is a lot of competition. But the competition is not, as you might first think, for attendees. There’s no shortage of punters who’ll happily pay for a session and attend any and every whisky show or fair that comes to their city. No, the competition is fighting for the distributors and exhibitors to be present at your festival! It costs a lot of money to exhibit at a whisky festival and, even for the big brands, it’s just not viable to be at all of them. It’s an expensive undertaking: Most of the festivals require you to pay to exhibit or take out a stand. You have to pay your rep(s) to stand behind the table for the sessions. And you have to pay for the stock you’ll pour out for the masses, together with all the accompanying marketing collateral.
If the festival is interstate from your home base, then you’re also up for flights and accommodation. Not surprisingly then, it simply isn’t feasible for the brands and distributors to be present at each and every festival around the country. They will pick and choose depending on their resources available (staff and stock); their marketing budget; and whether or not they perceive they’ll get a return on their spend for the specific event and the city in which it’s held. If you’ve attended any of the festivals and shows mentioned above, you may have noticed the conspicuous absence of some brands. Or the fact that many festivals/shows now also incorporate other dark spirits like rums and brandies into their expos, simply to fill the floor and to make the number of different offerings seem sufficient.
We at the Society are no different in this regard. We exhibited at the very first Australian festival in 2003, and again in 2005. And, we’ve presented at most of the other festivals and franchised events mentioned above — for some, once or twice; for others, it’s an annual affair we look forward to each year. In truth, such events aren’t always our best avenue to spread the gospel; it can often be a hard sell. Everyone else in the room is selling whisky; we are selling membership then whisky. You can probably appreciate the conversations we have: “You really liked this whisky? That much? Wow, thank you! Well, if you’d like a bottle of it, first of all, you have to pay to become a member.” Try having that conversation three hours into the third session of a festival when your voice is strained, your back and feet are screaming at you, you’re exhausted, the punters are three sheets to the wind, and it’s — quite literally — the 1,500th time you’ve had that conversation that weekend!
Don’t get me wrong — I LOVE whisky festivals, from both sides of the stand. And I love that the Society now makes it such a big part of our annual bottling program in Scotland and that we, in Australia, make it a big part of our events calendar. (That is worth celebrating in its own right — many of the Society’s international branches have little to zero in the way of events and tastings, relying wholly on online activity to look after their members. SMWS Australia has been a trailblazer in that regard since our founding in 2002). Such has been the success and members’ interest in our festival bottlings, we had to take the step a few years back of vatting multiple casks together so that the outturn (yield) could satisfy demand around the globe! If you’ve never been to one of our Festival Events, make sure you get along this year and join in the fun.
I return to what I said a few paragraphs back: Whisky festivals are celebrations. We celebrate the whisky, the people who make it, the people who sell it, and the people who drink it. Cheers, indeed!
This article is featured in the June 2025 issue of Outturn Magazine — bottles will be available to purchase from Friday the 6th of June at midday AEST exclusively to members of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Not a member? Click here to learn more about the world’s most colourful whisky club.
