I went into Brighton Whisky Weekend with the highest of expectations. This is a festival that’s been organized by the people behind Croydon Whisky Festival, Cut Your Wolf Loose and PR Agency N94. Croydon was our favourite festival of 2024 and Cut Your Wolf Loose remains among the UK’s best whisky bars in our opinion. The location buffs up expectations too. Brighton is an iconic city for nightlife and having a festival here makes sense. If you want a decent whisky cocktail in Brighton you have plenty of choices, if you want a dram then the aforementioned Cut Your Wolf Loose, is here and there’s more than enough people overall to justify a festival.

However, London looms large only an hour away by train. Indeed, it’s only 40 miles as the crow flies between this show and its cousin in Croydon. This proximity is something that we’ll be coming back to at the end.

We’ll start with a related caveat: Brighton Whisky Weekend was close enough to justify me coming down from North of London for the day for the Expo, but I didn’t have the time or the budget to dive into the whole weekend of masterclasses, cocktail pairings and more. This review is of their main expo and I paid £30 for a ticket to one session. I also received a free ticket from the organizers to the second session so I could take photos, capture video and write this review.

Brighton Whisky Weekend’s main expo continues one of my favourite whisky festival trends: being set in an old and interesting building. The Old Market has the iconic Regency stylings of many other Brighton buildings. It’s been around for 200 years but spent less than a tenth of that time as a market. It’s been a riding school, wholesale grocers and most recently an arts venue. I arrived just a couple of minutes before opening, had my ticket checked in the queue and was inside on time.

Unfortunately, in the humid depths of Britain’s hottest ever June, this storied venue wasn’t ideal for temperature. However, it reached that tipping point where everyone is so hot you just become collectively blind to everyone’s sweat and the good vibes prevail. To help battle this there was a free cloakroom downstairs so no one was weighed down by bags. Next to the expo area was a bar with lots of space and glorious air conditioning.

The event wasn’t overcrowded or too loud either so it really was just the heat we had to contend with.  On our way in the organizers reminded us all that we were scientifically guaranteed to get pissed faster today due to heat and needed to stay hydrated. There was water everywhere inside on each table and at several dedicated stations. This sounds like such a simple thing to get right but you’d be surprised how many shows don’t bother with having easy access to water, not just for hydration but also for adding to drams. 

Perhaps the only controllable downside to the whole event was the lighting, which in some areas was an intense nightclub purple meaning taking pictures was a challenge and so was seeing the colour of your whisky. If you’re in the “colour doesn’t matter” camp it’s a non-issue, but if looking at your pour in the glass is important to you then you had to be in the bar or other specific spots.

What really makes or breaks any festival is the exhibitors that chose to attend. For Brighton Whisky Weekend the exhibitor list was impressive with a balanced mix of brands and independent bottlers and regions on show:

• Artful Dodger 
• Cut Your Wolf Loose
• Berry Bros & Rudd
• Arbikie
• Henstone Distillery
• Retribution Distilling Co.
• The Malt Library
• Tri Carragh
• Kingsbarns
• Wemyss Malts
• Highland Laird
• Claxton’s
• Coachbuilt
• Heaven Hill
• Spirit of Birmingham
• GlenAllachie
• WVA Whisky Auctions
• Nikka
• Starward
• Elixir Distillers
• Paul John
• East London Liquor Company
• Godawan
• Cooper King
• Highland Park
• Fettercairn
• Feddie 
• Lindores
• Mythical Beasts (Not at show)

If you are a Brighton local or new to festivals then let me tell you this is a solid lineup for regional show, and more than you can try in the two festival sessions. However, the actual bottles brought to the festival were a mixed bag. Some brands brought a cross section like Berry Bros with their core range and a couple of higher end bottlings. Meanwhile others had focused on super premium with prices starting at £60 and going to £300+. Hello 26 year old Springbank and Port Dundas. Hello 29 year old Caperdonich!

Creativity was also on show with The Malt Library having an old & rare whisky lucky dip and Spirit of Birmingham doing a miniature “fill your own cask” experience too. This interactivity is what experiential marketing is all about in the spirits space and I adore it!

On the flipside some brands brought along just their core range, and in a couple of cases only the lowest end of their core range. What brands choose to bring is up to them, but they’re generally given a steer of what to expect from the organizers in terms of attendees, their level of knowledge, and their spending power.

This isn’t a dig at core ranges. Those exist for a reason and can make for a great festival. Welcome to Whisky in London is an amazing show dedicated to entry-level bottlings. We could chalk this up to it being a fledgling show that didn’t know its audience, but All But Drams has covered plenty of maiden festival voyages and we haven’t encountered this before. If you’ve tried the core ranges of most distilleries and are just after the latest releases then there was still enough here to justify a single session at £30 for an early bird ticket. Two sessions would be too much time unless you wanted to be very leisurely. 

Was Brighton Whisky Weekend worth it for me? Yes. I had a great time catching up with many whisky friends and seeing a lot of new releases from my favourite distillers and bottlers. The event also allowed exhibitors to sell directly from their stands which was a bonus. This means brands can offer discounts and I took advantage of a nice £10 off a 10 year old Ardmore in PX from Claxton’s. I’ve had a few disappointing peat and PX drams recently but this one hit all the right notes and will absolutely get cracked open once the weather turns cooler.

Will I come back for Brighton Whisky Weekend next year? Probably not, and that’s okay.

If you’re a London-based enthusiast or even further north then there isn’t enough to justify the trip unless you missed out on all the March to May action in the capital somehow. By contrast the bigger, yet more further afield shows, can attract brands that don’t want to make the trip down south. They can also attract brands who are cognizant of the fact that the Brighton and London whisky community really overlaps and they might get all the same punters. To quote Taylor: “It’s me. Hi.  I’m the problem, it’s me.” 

Nonetheless, Brighton Whisky Weekend met the high standard we expected, and if you’re nearer Brighton than London you should keep an eye out for it in 2027. That recommendation gets even stronger for beginners, this is a well organized, affordable and welcoming show by the sea. I hope it finds enough local love to grow even bigger next year.