This year All But Drams will be bringing you plenty of new festival reviews, but we’ll be revisiting some old favourites too. Harrow Whisky Festival is the regular opening act of the whisky festival year, a packed calendar that only really stops for Christmas. How does it stack up versus 2024?

Harrow Whisky Festival is a stalwart veteran of the English festival scene, in its eighth year yet completely unchanged in many ways from its first. Compare the photos in Digital Journal’s coverage of the inaugural festival to our own 2024 review and you’ll soon see how little has changed.

There are a lot of historic oddities about the Harrow Whisky Festival that don’t make sense. The website is completely out of date and its security certificate has expired meaning most internet browsers will valiantly try to keep you away. To book tickets you must call the venue, Grim’s Dyke Hotel, directly as if you were making a room reservation. The show does no real advertising and no exhibitor list is published to entice those on the fence, the only way to get the exhibitor list is by calling the hotel directly.

Yet Harrow Whisky Festival gets the most important thing right. It manages to fill out its show every year with quality whiskies that serious enthusiasts want to try.

We generally don’t post exhibitor lists verbatim but as there’s nowhere else online to get it, here is the complete exhibitor list for 2025:

• Claxtons
• Glen Moray
• Wolfburn
• Cadenhead
• Bartels Whisky
• Angels Nectar
• Retribution
• Ahascragh
• Boutique-y Whisky
• English Distillery
• Cooper King
• James Eadie
• Henstone
• Filey Bay
• Uncharted

With a focus on small distilleries from around the British Isles alongside independent bottlers there’s a reliable benchmark of quality and a selection that changes each year even if the attendee list is relatively static as all but two of these attendees are returning from last year. The level of knowledge is high and exhibitors are eager to have those in-depth conversations with consumers that you sometimes miss out on at bigger festivals. Last year we were impressed with the new make on offer by Cooper King and Retribution Distilling, this year they both had single malts to try as well some work-in-progress spirits that were fascinating to test. That’s the big silver lining of this exhibitor repetition – it lets you witness growth.

The festival is split across two of the hotel’s beautiful Victorian rooms. The wood-panelled Drawing Room and the larger Music Room. Both are bright spaces that lend an air of tradition and prestige to the proceedings even if the dress code mentioned on the website isn’t enforced. The two rooms both get crowded, especially around the independent bottlers who are the priorities for dedicated enthusiasts. You won’t have to wait more than a minute or two to get a dram at the busiest period and some of our favourite festivals (hello, Croydon Whisky Festival) are worse than this, but anyone who is sensitive to crowds needs to be aware.

Harrow Whisky Festival has no retail partner, so distillers and bottlers sell direct on their stands or via their own websites. This means they can offer special show discounts or online offers on their own terms. Buying whisky is great, buying it directly from the producer with a discount is even better. If you need to stock up on bottles after Christmas there are some nice deals to be found here versus other shows as well as multibuy offers.

This unchanging festival did have two odd foibles this year that set it down a little from 2024. Upon arriving at the show all attendees were given a wide-rimmed glass that you might drink fruit juice from and not a Glencairn or nosing glass. If you are someone who likes to nose your whisky you’ll need to be shoving half your face into the glass to get a good whiff. As most stands were free-pouring we ended up with many generous servings. As there’s few super-premium or “dream drams” here you’re liable to get a big serve of whisky you don’t fancy in your glass over a generous pour of something rare. At several points during the show the spittoons were missing, meaning there was nothing to do but wait about or drink unwanted whisky.

One area where Harrow consistently edges out the competition is price. Tickets start at £18 for a taster session, full sessions from £27, and you can scale that up to a two-day whisky extravaganza including banquet dinner for £139. Most equivalent size festivals like Croydon Whisky Festival or Summerton Whisky Festival hover around £30-£50 per session even with early bird discounts. With over 100 whiskies on offer there’s plenty to get through but anyone with a Scotch or English Whisky aversion should stay away as they make up a good 90% of what’s on offer.

Harrow Whisky Festival remains a solid recommendation from us at All But Drams due to the low price for such a good selection of regular exhibitors. With the biggest festivals like The Whisky Event and Whisky Exchange Festival many months away it’s the ideal winter experience for anyone in London or Hertfordshire.

The only reliable way you’ll find out about Harrow Whisky Festival is by following Grim’s Dyke on social media. So, if you’re curious about 2026, seek them out on Instagram and Twitter. Ticket sale dates vary but it’s usually at the start of autumn and remember you have to telephone to book.