Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival salutes masters of malt

A captain of industry, an award-winning spirits writer and a Speyside community stalwart, were recognised for their outstanding contribution to the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival at the event’s opening dinner last night (Wednesday, April 27).

The top award – recognising a lifetime of achievement to Scotland’s national drink, alongside the promotion of Speyside and its products across the world – went to Richard Forsyth.

He heads up family business Forsyth’s of Rothes, a firm which supplies the copper stills pivotal to the production of whisky to distilleries around the globe.

The third generation to join the family business, Richard started with Forsyth’s when it mainly produced copper pot stills and condensers for the Scotch whisky industry.

A slump in whisky trade saw him reach out to new markets and the company developed experience in carbon and stainless steels for the paper, oil, gas and pharmaceutical industries as well as serving whisky, beer, gin and rum and other spirits businesses on every continent, making the firm’s expertise in distillation recognised across the world.

Under Richard’s leadership, the firm has grown to a turnover of over £46 million and employs more than 350 people in Speyside.

Journalist Dave Broom writes regularly about all spirits, but is best known for his work with whisky.

He is chief engineer for scotchwhisky.com; columnist, taster and features writer of Whisky Advocate and writes for a number of other international titles including Wine Spectator, The Spectator, Prospect, Financial Times, Drink, Mixology, The Week and many more.

He was one of the team which developed and maintain the generic Single Malt Flavour Map for Diageo. Last year he was voted Best Spirits Writer at the Spirited Awards.

Speyside-born Hugh Fraser plays an active part in Speyside community, particularly in Aberlour through its Highland Games, Community Association, Hospital League of Friends and Hall committees.

Hugh has been a driving force for growing the number of community-led events being staged in Aberlour for the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival programme and helped with the Festival’s big concert in Aberlour to mark its tenth anniversary.

He’s helped lift the profile of the area, spearheading celebration events for Aberlour’s Bicentenary and being central in efforts in getting Aberlour Visitor Centre into community hands. This facility opened last year and is run by solely by volunteers, including Hugh.

James Campbell, chairman of the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival said that the combined contribution of all three winners brought immeasurable benefits to Speyside whisky.

“Each award recipient has, for very different reasons, played an important part that has helped put Speyside firmly on the global whisky map.

“Richard Forsyth has been a business innovator and a great ambassador for Speyside over many years. He has been a great benefactor of Speyside communities, particularly his home town of Rothes.

“Whenever possible Dave Broom has attended the Festival, participating in many events and sharing his enthusiasm and knowledge with Festival-goers. To mark the Festival’s 10^th anniversary in 2009, Dave inspired us to install the toposcope on the summit of Ben Rinnes, which shows all the distilleries in Speyside.

“Being a community leader in Aberlour, Hugh has worked tirelessly to encourage all to get behind the Festival and events. He puts a lot of time and effort into doing this and promoting the Festival and Speyside and its distilleries to visitors from across the world who he meets through his many community roles.

“We are delighted to present these awards and recognise three examples of sterling service and continued commitment to the Festival, the Speyside whisky industry and the international whisky business.”

The awards were presented at a gala dinner held at Auchroisk Distillery last night. The 2016 Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival programme runs until Monday, May 2 and full details are available at www.spiritofspeyside.com/ The Festival is active on social media – facebook.com/WhiskyFestival and @spirit_speyside on Twitter and on Instagram.

Picture captions: 

Picture 1: Richard Forsyth received his lifetime achievement award from Dennis Malcolm, the master distiller of Glen Grant

Picture 2: Dave Broom was presented his award by whisky writer Martine Nouet

Notes

The Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival is committed to promoting responsible drinking. Visitors travelling to and from festival events can take advantage of a range of transport options. Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival has received funding from Highlands and Islands Enterprise and is also financially supported by many other private and public partners.

The Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival is part financed by the European Regional Development Fund Programme 2014 to 2020. The Scottish Government is the managing authority for the European Regional Development Fund Programme.

Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design

2016 will shine a spotlight on Scotland’s achievements in innovation, architecture and design through a wide-ranging, variety of new and existing activity.

The Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design will run from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016 and will build on the momentum generated by the 2015 Year of Food and Drink as well as previous years including Homecoming Scotland 2014, the Year of Creative and the Year of Natural.

Through a series of exciting events and activity, the year will showcase Scotland’s position as an “innovation nation”, its outstanding built heritage, and its thriving, internationally acclaimed fashion, textiles and design sector.

The Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design is a Scottish Government initiative being led by VisitScotland, supported by partners including Scottish Government, Creative Scotland, Architecture + Design Scotland, Scottish Tourism Alliance, Scottish Enterprise, The National Trust for Scotland, Historic Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS).

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