Bowman in ‘record-breaking’ distillery dash

World Whisky Day founder Blair Bowman is to embark on a “record-breaking dash” around 60 Scotch whisky distilleries in a single day to collect bottlings that will be auctioned for charity.

Bowman’s ‘record-breaking’ tour will start at Balblair Distillery

Taking place on Monday 15 May, the Great Whisky Distillery Challenge will see Bowman and his support team set off from Balblair Distillery in Ross-shire and finish around 17 hours later at Aberfeldy Distillery in Perthshire.

All whiskies collected will be offered as a main raffle prize, tickets for which cost £1. All proceeds will be donated to World Whisky Day’s charity partner, the international water development organisation Just a Drop.

“It’s going to be a fantastic event,” said Bowman. “As far as we are aware, no-one has attempted to set a record like this before and, despite meticulous planning, there is always a risk that we might not get to all 60 of the distilleries on the day.

“We can’t afford for a single thing to go wrong. It just needs a few tractors or caravans to hold us up and we will be under pressure.

“All the money raised will go to Just a Drop, which supports water projects in some of the poorest communities in the world. The word ‘whisky’, in Gaelic means ‘water of life’, so this seemed like an appropriate challenge and hopefully it will help raise a lot of money for such a deserving cause.”

Bowman hopes to secure around 50 bottles of whisky over the course of the day, since not all 60 distilleries he is visiting bottle their own brand.

Edinburgh-based tour company Scottish Routes has also donated two four-day whisky tours to Speyside as additional prizes, while 10 more raffle winners will receive copies of Bowman’s new book, The Pocket Guide to Whisky.

Tickets can be purchased at www.raffleplayer.com/justadrop.