Well “officially” the winter is over. But today we are still getting flakes of snow coming down! No one here can remember the last time Islay got so much snow over the winter season. I have read that it has been the coldest Scottish winter since official records began in 1910.It has certainly felt like it.

So now is a good time to look forward to warmer days! We are now preparing for this year’s Feis Ile in May. In fact your special Feis Ile “Cairdeas” expression is being bottled today. It’s a cracking expression which I am certain you will love, but I will tell you more about it closer to the time.

What I would like to do is give you all the details about the Feis Ile as we are doing a very special event this year.

“The Gathering”-  In addition to our traditional “open day” we have organised a special evening exclusively for you, the friends of Laphroaig .It is to be our first ever official “Gathering of our clan” and will be held on Sunday May the 23rd at 6.30 PM.

We are inviting all “Friends” who are on the island that day to meet at the distillery. However as will become clear we will need prior notice of those of you who can come and join us.

The famous “Wellies”

As most of you will know the original way to find your plot was by measuring it out with a pair of Wellington boots (tie with string at the top to exclude any inquisitive stoats as I recall!). To commemorate this we are having some special wellies made especially for the event. These boots (in Laphroaig green of course) will also have “The Gathering” printed on the side surrounded by a border of Johnston tartan. They look terrific. These are good quality wellington boots which I am sure you will want to use later so we are asking everyone who wants to come to enter their foot size on this web page http://www.laphroaig.com/friends/gathering/. We will then get your own boots especially ordered.

Once everyone has donned their wellies we will proceed to “The Plots” where we will take you to your exact plot location.

The “Friends” Toast

Well actually you will not be going straight to your plot. Firstly we will be arming you with your “rent”, but since it’s such a special occasion (and you may have lots of people to toast!) we will be giving you 3 different Laphroaig miniatures to toast with. Then we thought that swigging it out of a bottle would not be right for such an occasion, so you will also receive one of our special Laphroaig engraved “dram  glasses “ to make your toast with.  And of course a personal certificate to certify your presence at “The Gathering”.

Then we will go to the plots for our toasts! We aim to raise our glasses at exactly 7.30PM (Islay time). We of course invite all of you who around the World who cannot come, to raise a glass at the same time and please do send in pictures of your toast to the friends website. We will of course be filming the actual event itself which we will put up on the site later.

The Barn dance

No “Gathering” would be complete without a Ceilidh (party) so after” the plot toasts” we will all return to the distillery where the barn dance will commence with music from David Adams and his musical friends – Oh, but before we do, we will have one more group toast (why not!). This will be from my friends 2010 Cairdeas bottling – just to get the party going!

Tickets

The  special ‘wellies’ are good quality and are a “one off” for “The Gathering” so we will need to charge £25 for “The Gathering”, which includes everything I have mentioned above which I hope is ok. If you can come please go to the special page on your website http://www.laphroaig.com/friends/gathering/ and enter your personal wellie size, Vicky will contact you to take payment. We must close the invitations by the 12th March 2010 to give the manufacturer time to make all the boots to your sizes.

Our Laphroaig “Open Day” is two days later, Tuesday May 25th .There will be a huge range of “special” tastings conducted by Simon Brooking, David Adams, our master blender Robert Hicks and yours truly, including 5 tastings on our local island of Texa! (Not for those who suffer sea sickness!), a sensory challenge plus tastings at our peat beds water source and malting floors during the week. We are also proud to welcome “Graham and Sheila” authors of the best selling book” The Whisky Kitchen” who will be demonstrating their culinary expertise with Laphroaig. The evening will round off with live music from singer, songwriter Bridgid Kaelin who we met whilst we were filming Distillery Live last year in Kentucky. To find out all the details just go to http://www.laphroaig.com/feisile/index.asp

I wish you could all be here for these special events. For those who cannot attend, we will be filming as much of it as possible and I will post it up on your website a week later.  That’s all for now. By the way a huge thank you to all of you who sent me and my team Christmas cards, they are much appreciated!

Slainte Mathe

John Campbell