Campbeltown, Scotland · 2025

For 2025 our club ran its biggest trip yet — Eat Sleep Dram Repeat. We took the train to Glasgow, drove the Highlands (Auchentoshan, Glengoyne, Ben Nevis, Oban), spent the heart of the week making whisky by hand at Springbank in Campbeltown — Kilkerran, Glen Scotia and a blending session included — crossed to the Isle of Arran, and finished at the Glasgow Whisky Festival before the long ride home. Here it is, day by day.

Day 1 — The pilgrimage begins

The trip opened the only way a whisky pilgrimage should: by train. We gathered at Brussel-Zuid at dawn, took the Eurostar to London, then the long run north to Glasgow Central and the Yolo Hotel. First dram on Scottish soil came at the Clydeside Distillery on the river, before dinner at the Bon Accord — Glasgow's temple of whisky.

Day 2 — The journey, not the destination

We picked up the hire car and turned the day into a Highland distillery crawl: Auchentoshan's triple-distilled smoothness to start, then a Malt Master Experience at Glengoyne where we each blended our own. Glengoyne's quirk: it straddles the Highland Line — the stills sit in the Highlands, the warehouses barely fifty metres away in the Lowlands. A stop by Loch Lomond and a walk in Glencoe rounded it off, before the night's obligatory whisky quiz.

Day 3 — Birthday toons

A birthday on the road. We started at the foot of the mighty Ben with a Ben Nevis tour, took lunch in seaside Oban, then an exclusive Oban tour and tasting. The evening ran candles-in-the-dram: a birthday dinner and tasting — because moderation is for Monday.

Day 4 — Campbeltown & casks

Into Campbeltown and the heart of the trip. From the Still Guesthouse we did the Access All Areas tour at Springbank, a New & Forthcoming tasting at the Washback Bar, a Cadenhead's warehouse tasting, and a historic walking tour of the wee toon — capped with a whisky-pairing dinner.

Day 5 — Eat Sleep Dram Repeat, part II

More Campbeltown gold: an Access All Areas tour at Kilkerran (Glengyle), warehouse tastings across Springbank and Kilkerran, and a Glen Scotia warehouse tasting. Then the highlight — the Springbank blending session. You marry several casks into a blend of your own, and Springbank is the only one where you fill a full 70 cl bottle (everywhere else hands you 20 cl). The whole room was lined with cask samples, poured freely by our guide. Hard to top — so we didn't try, and finished with make-your-own cocktails.

Day 6 — The end for friends

A bittersweet day. We waved Pieter and Tom off with one last dram (or three) as the formal Eat Sleep Dram Repeat drew to a close. The rest of us slowed the pace — Loch Fyne for oysters, where the whisky meets the sea — before checking in at the Burlington Guesthouse.

Day 7 — Island life

Drams by the sea. We crossed to the Isle of Arran for a cask visit and tasting at Lagg — and the reason was personal: one of our members holds one of Lagg's original inauguration casks, so we went to see it in the flesh. Then up to the Lochranza distillery, Arran's northern gem, before the ferry to Ardrossan and back to Glasgow.

Day 8 — The festival

The big one: the Glasgow Whisky Festival at Hampden Park. It works nothing like home — in Belgium you pay in and then pay per dram; in Glasgow it's one fixed fee and the drams are free, within reason. And if you chat up the ambassadors and the folk doing the pouring, you might get offered the "under-the-table dram" — the special bottles kept out of sight, the 25-year-olds and up.

Day 9 — The real end

Homeward bound but still buzzing: the train from Glasgow to London, the Eurostar back to Brussels, and home to Belgium late that night — suitcases full of bottles and heads full of drams. Every ending deserves a final dram.