Eat Sleep Dram Repeat — Our 2025 Campbeltown Whisky Adventure

For 2025 our club ran its biggest trip yet — Eat Sleep Dram Repeat. We took the train from Brussels 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's how it unfolded.

The pilgrimage opened the only way a whisky trip should: by rail. First dram on Scottish soil came at the Clydeside Distillery, followed by dinner at the Bon Accord, Glasgow's temple of whisky. From there the Highlands beckoned — Auchentoshan's triple-distilled smoothness, a Malt Master blending experience at Glengoyne (which famously straddles the Highland Line, stills in the Highlands and warehouses in the Lowlands), a walk through Glencoe, and a Ben Nevis tour with lunch in seaside Oban.

Then came Campbeltown, the beating heart of the trip. From the Still Guesthouse we did the Access All Areas tour at Springbank, warehouse tastings at Cadenhead's, Kilkerran and Glen Scotia, and — the highlight — the Springbank blending session, where you marry several casks into a blend of your own and bottle a full 70cl (everywhere else hands you 20cl). 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.

Island life followed: a crossing to Arran for a cask visit at Lagg — one of our members holds an original inauguration cask there — and the northern gem of Lochranza, before the big finale at the Glasgow Whisky Festival in Hampden Park. It works nothing like home: one fixed fee, drams free within reason, and if you chat up the ambassadors you might just be offered an under-the-table dram, the special bottles kept out of sight. Homeward bound with suitcases full of bottles and heads full of drams — because every ending deserves a final dram.

Inspired to start your own whisky journey? Explore our tastings and taster sets — from the Whisky Introduction Tasting to the Bourbon Exploration Session — and discover what makes this spirit worth travelling for.