Those past few weeks proved quite busy in terms of malted celebrations and discoveries. After attending a couple of whisky events, I feel like I need to debrief (exactly like when you meet up with your friends at McDonalds the day after a crazy night-out) with you.

As a keen social observer [I do have a lot of “let’s sit on a bench and stare at people” practice – maybe a French habit  ;)], I always find it interesting and highly educative (and kinda funny as well… ) to watch the diversity of human flows whisky festival can attract. I’m then more than happy to share my findings with you guys through this whisky festival attendees comprehensive classification tool!

Here we go…

You don’t know how, but they managed to sneak in before the doors open to the public, armed with their famous pen & notebook, all ready for a rich day of whisky geekery! You can’t miss them, they’re undoubtedly passionate, yet discrete, listening to every single detail of brand representatives’ speeches (for whom they even prepared a hundred of technical questions). They’re the ones leaving the event with a huge smile on their face, the same way you’d go back home after a 3-hour long Metallica concert!

Brand ambassadors must be familiar with this particular spieces. Self-proclaimed whisky experts who always need to prove the whole world (implying speaking way-too-loudly with theatrical gestures) that THEY know (at least better than you do), THEY’re right, you don’t have a clue! Thinking they’re the ultimate reference when it comes to whisky, even arguing with distillery staff… They’re the grown-up version of high-school bullies.

They accidentally came accross a sponsored post on Facebook (or were just passing by on their sunday after-lunch walk) and found themselves buying a one-day ticket. Whisky curious often happen to be the most open-minded of all attendees, coming without preconceived ideas and eager to learn – sometimes making them first-class marketing victims for brands – think about those new flavoured whiskies’ target consumers 😉

You can’t really blame them for attending whisky events (or for wearing those way-too-large glasses and freshly-barbered bairds…), they actually participated in turning whisky into a trendy beverage – also resulting in the incredible surge of innovative craft distilleries around the globe. They’re mainly here to show off try new releases, something “out of the box”, sourcing new tipples for their prohibition-ruin-underground-cocktail-venue…

Look for the growing number of live tweeting, Periscope-addicted and Instagram nuts covering their spirited adventures from dawn to dusk, posting hundreds of pics an hour – flooding their social media feeds under seas of (un-chill) filtered branded glencairn glasses.

Also known as “I-Need-To-Make-The-Most-Out-Of-My-25688$-VIP-Ticket” kind of guys. You must have already met them many times, running all over the place at whisky events from booth to booth – always carrying those empty miniature bottles – they’re always in the rush and don’t have enough time for dramlaxing session – Hey, whisky Festivals are serious business! You’ll definitely don’t find them chilling at the cocktail bar…