At Hot Rum Cow we are ever on the lookout for any opportunity to spread the gospel of great drinks. And we hold a special place in our hearts and our glasses for whisky – as any good Scot should.

So, it is with excitement and delight that we today announce that Hot Rum Cow has joined forces with World Whisky Day and plans to take the worldwide celebration of whisky to the next stage of its rapid growth.

“We are thrilled by this opportunity,” says Fraser Allen, Publisher of Hot Rum Cow. “I first met World Whisky Day founder, Blair Bowman a couple of years ago when I interviewed him for the magazine. I was full of admiration for his thinking and the enterprise he had shown in getting the event up and running.

“To be able to take the event on and develop it in fresh directions whilst staying true to Blair’s founding principles is very exciting. Hot Rum Cow is all about celebrating and enjoying great drinks without pretension, which is very much the ethos behind World Whisky Day. Together we can take on the world and promote the wonders of good whisky and the stories behind an extraordinary drink.”

Blair launched World Whisky Day (www.worldwhiskyday.com) in 2012 when he was still a student at the University of Aberdeen. Whilst studying abroad in Barcelona, he noticed on Twitter that people were celebrating World Gin Day. After searching online, he was surprised to see that there wasn’t an established annual World Whisky Day – so he bought the domain name and kickstarted the event by spreading the word via social media.

By last year, World Whisky Day was annually attracting around 250,000 attendees to whisky-themed events in over 40 countries, with 12,000 followers on Twitter, and 16,000 likes on Facebook.

While Hot Rum Cow will now be responsible for all aspects of the project, Blair will continue to lend his support as a consultant while exploring other career opportunities. Furthermore, his name will remain firmly in place as the founding spirit of the event.

Blair says: “I am delighted that the team at Hot Rum Cow are going to grow and develop World Whisky Day. I have no doubt that they will keep the flame alive and the legacy shall continue long into the future. Having created World Whisky Day from scratch on my own and built it up over three years this is the perfect next chapter. I am very excited about what the future holds.”

The event has been warmly supported by the Scottish Government since its launch and received extensive media coverage and participation from the whisky industry.

Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Food and Drink, Richard Lochhead, says: “World Whisky Day is a great way to celebrate Scotland’s iconic national drink and I am delighted it will continue in 2015, our Year of Food and Drink. It is sure to be one of the highlights of Whisky Month in May when we will celebrate and promote the best of Scottish culture, music and our finest malts and blends to Scots and ‘Scots at heart’ at home and abroad.”

The next World Whisky Day takes place on 16 May 2015. Visit the website or email for more details about how you can get involved and follow us on twitter @worldwhiskyday.

Note to editors: Photographs can be accessed via the Hot Rum Cow flickr page.

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