Whisky Day Cracow , VII Edition – UPDATED

I can’t think of a better way to spend World Whisky Day than to enjoy a few drams at the 7th edition of ‘Whisky Day Cracow‘, on Saturday 17th May, from 1:00 pm-10:00 pm at Fort Kleparz.

Scotch whisky, in a former Austro-Hungarian Fort in the heart of Kraków!  

Slàinte mhath – Good Health  (phonetic:: Slawn-chuh va)

UPDATED 15/5/24 More detailed Information from organisers

Whisky Day Cracow VII Edition is just two days away, the organisers have shared a comprehensive update with essential information to help you get the most from the event.

LOCATION
The festival takes place in the historic Forty Kleparz in Kraków. A former Austro-Hungarian fort, once part of ‘Fortress Kraków’. (image below is pre/mid restoration)


Exhibitors will be  indoor, i.e. the so-called ‘Cat’s Ears’ („Kocich Uszach”), as well as outdoor part under a canopy. In addition, there is a ‘chillout’ section and an open-air cigar section. So far, we have always been lucky with the weather, but this is something we have no control over so we advise you to secure yourself with warm clothes and an umbrella just in case.
Important – you can bring small bottles to the festival itself if you want to take something away.  Entry only for people of legal drinking age.

We are pet friendly, so if you want to bring your pets along, by all means feel free to do so, but please keep in mind the safety of both your pets and the other participants in the event.

ADMISSION
Admission to the festival area is possible from 13:00 to 22:00, however, from 12:00 onwards at the entrance you can exchange your tickets in advance, for entry wristbands and pick up a glass, as well as vouchers for paid items and a cocktail.

Scan or click for tickets;

Ticket includes

• • • • • Festival Glass
        • Voucher worth 20zł for use at festival stands
        • Coupon for a free cocktail
        • mineral water
        • festival guide

Additional festival vouchers will be available for purchase on the festival grounds at the location marked on the map

FESTIVAL MAP (click to enlarge).

You can enter and leave the festival grounds multiple times with a valid ticket and festival wristband, which you will receive at the box office after scanning your ticket.

At the box office, you will also receive: a glass, festival coupons, while water, which is essential for this type of event, will be available in designated areas as well as at exhibitor stands – don’t forget to stay hydrated!

FOOD OPTIONS
Outside the festival space there is the Forty Restobar restaurant where you can enjoy a delicious meal.

For a quick snack, however, we recommend the Grill dishes, which you will find right in front of the festival entrance, and the new stand where pizza is baked.

You are in the centre of Kraków, so there are various catering establishments right near the forts (e.g. Długa Street, Nowy Kleparz Market Square), and just after leaving the fort there are places where you can eat zapeikanka, fries, burgers or kebabs.

WHAT TO TRY?
What to visit if you’re a budding whisky lover?

The festival will feature both big brands and quite small ones, as well as whisky enthusiasts presenting their products.

In the outdoor area, you will find most of the big whisky brands. You will recognise them by their large stands, but don’t let this fool you: in addition to the basic whiskies (and other spirits) in their range, they very often present gems and rarities, so it is worth listening carefully to the Brand Ambassadors on site and finding out what to taste.

Inside the fort (in the inner zone), you will find a lot of small stands occupied by ‘smaller’ players. Here you are sure to find unique and often niche drinks. It is also an opportunity to try less common offerings..

What is our advice? Certainly, at first, a reconnoitre at all the festival stalls, where almost every exhibitor serves something for the price of the ticket (information about free items and stall numbers can be found on a leaflet added at the entrance).

Only after you have tasted the things that were available, we advise you to purchase additional coupons ( they cannot be returned) for the paid editions that have caught your eye.

Additionally, in the area marked Coupons, you can purchase limited edition festival glasses.

COCKTAILS
There are also stands on the festival grounds that serve whisky-based cocktails and more. It is highly recommended that you take a look at their offer, especially if you fancy something ‘lighter’, especially as we opened a new space for you last year.

Remember also that your ticket includes a voucher for a free cocktail, which you can choose from one of the 4 stands marked on the festival leaflet you receive at the entrance.

CIGARS
Distributors of the biggest cigar companies of both the new and old world will also have their stands set up at the festival. If you are passionate about cigars, you are sure to find something here for yourself.

TASTING SESSIONS
Additional Tasting Sessions are located on the premises of Forty Kleparz but outside the main festival area (see map). Purchase is only possible via the website and participation in the Master Class is only possible with a valid ticket for the seventh edition of Whisky Day Cracow.

IMPORTANT – those who have purchased the tasting sessions should report to the venue 10 minutes before the start of the session in order to present their festival wristband as well as the document confirming the purchase of the chosen session.

AFTER PARTY
After the festival, we invite you to our partner William Rabbit & Co. – Magic Spot for the official After Party. Have a great time!

Tickets for Cracow Whisky Day can be found at the link below:

DRINK RESPONSIBLY
Remember that the event is intended to educate and promote conscious whisky consumption; aggressive or excessive drinkers may be removed from the festival area by security.

Look after yourselves as well as the other participants in the event. If you have any health or well-being issues, approach security or our hostesses and ask to consult with a medic present.

See you there!

Information from organisers
On 17th May, 2025, the historic buildings of the Kleparz Forts in Kraków will once again host Whisky Day Cracow, the largest World Whisky Day celebration in Poland.

The previous edition gathered guests from Poland and abroad in one place and turned out to be a huge success, showing at the same time that a group of whisky lovers can create an event here in Kraków to equal whisky day events across the globe.

So come along on 17th May to Forty Kleparz in Krakow, where from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. you will have the opportunity to taste whisky from all over the world.

To mark World Whisky Day, the organisers of Whisky Day Cracow, share the same ethos as its creator – Blair Bowman – who believed that the only thing you need on this day is a bottle of whisky that you can share with friends.

In this way, people who are just starting their whisky adventure will be able to get to know new flavours and aromas and gain knowledge from the experts present on site.

Acquaintances, friends, music and – whisky of course! All this in an interesting historic venue, Forty Kleparz Kraków.

Is there anything more you need to plan a May weekend in Krakow? Probably not, so bring your friends with you and spend this day together with a glass in your hand.

Cracow Whisky Day 2025
   Saturday 17th May
   1.00pm – 10.00pm
   Klub Forty Kleparz
   Whisky Day Tickets – 189 zł

Tickets for Cracow Whisky Day can be found at the link below:

Ticket includes

• Festival Glass
• Voucher worth 20zł for use at festival stands
• Coupon for a free cocktail
• mineral water
• festival guide

A few places are left for whisky ‘masterclasses’.

You can find out more at:
   www.whiskydaycracow.pl
  Whisky Day Cracow Instagram
   Whisky Day Cracow – FB event
   Whisky Day Cracow Facebook

Whisky Day Cracow 2024
Not sure what to expect?  Watch a video from last years event.

Whisky – whats in a name?
Uisge beatha (phoentic – Ooshkih beh-ha) is the Scottish Gaelic term for ‘water of life’ with uisge simply meaning water and beatha meaning life. It is a straightforward translation of the Latin ‘aqua vitae’.

Over time and through common use in Scotland, uisge beatha was shortened and ‘uisge’ became known as ‘whisky’.

Whisky Facts
For the earliest known mention of whisky, we need to go back to 1494, towards the end of the Middle Ages, when distilling was first mentioned in Scottish tax records.

• Devils & Angels – ‘The Angel’s Share’ is the small amount of whisky which evaporates during the aging process., but what about Devil’s Cut!?

  Devil’s Cut is the spirit that goes so deep into the wood of the cask that it never comes out. The amount of liquid disappearing into the cask ‘staves’ varies depending on the length of the maturation and the condition of the oak.

• A Quaich is a traditional Scottish drinking cup – a symbol of trust.

  Quaich comes from the Gaelic word cuach, simply meaning a cup. It was commonly used for the enjoyment of whisky and brandy. The story goes that Highlanders used to drink their drams from a scallop shell, which may have inspired the current shape.
  

  The handles on the quaich have since become a symbol of trust. The clan chief would hand it over to another clansman as a sign of friendship and trust. They’d have to hold the cup with both hands, making it impossible to handle their weapons while drinking. It is said that the clansmen began using glass-bottomed quaichs out of fear of being chibbed.

  The glass would allow them to see their rivals while drinking. The heads of the clan would drink from it first before it was shared with the rest of the clan.

  The quaich is now referred to as the ‘cup of friendship’, making the whole drinking ceremony a popular part of weddings, christenings and other celebrations. The cup gets passed on between the bride’s and groom’s immediate family members and, in some cases, between the whole wedding party.

• A wee dram – a small (or not so small!) glass of whisky.
• There are actually FIVE different styles of Scotch whisky (Blended/ Blended Malt / Single Malt / Single Grain and Blended Grain). Currently, Blended whisky still dominates the landscape, accounting for 85% of global sales with Single Malt making up the majority of the rest.
• How many brands of whisky are there? A lot, the ‘romantic’ slightly exaggerated answer – “more than there are stars in the sky”
• The oldest bottles of whisky were discovered at Blair Castle, and were distilled in 1833 – more than 200 years old. The 24 bottles sold at auction for 385,630 in 2023.
  
  • Some 22 million casks lie maturing in warehouses in Scotland waiting to be discovered – that is around 12bn 70cl bottles.
  • The Diageo Blackgrange Bond in Cambus, near Alloa, Scotland, is the largest bonded warehouse complex in Europe, with over 40 bonded warehouses – around 80,000m2.  It holds approximately 10 million casks of Scotch whisky. Planning consent has just been given to a further five 2,000 sq m warehouses, each larger than a Tesco superstore

Editors Note:-  I used to live next to the Cambus Distillery and Blackgrange bonded warehouses. I  would walk my dog around the perimeter, and look through the fence, where thousands of empty whisky barrels stacked outside the warehouses.. The full ones were inside!

In my previous career, my beat covered the distillery and bonded warehouses.  I’d occasionally be called upon to attend incidents within the warehouses – where literally millions of barrels were stacked floor to ceiling, an amazing sight. – the smell was glorious with a potent smell of the whisky ‘sleeping’ in the barrels.

• To be called Scotch Whisky, the spirit must mature in oak casks in Scotland for at least 3 years
• There are currently 151 operating Scotch Whisky distilleries across Scotland (May 2024)
• At least 35 new malt and grain distilleries have opened since 2000
• With a value of £4.91 billion, Scotch whisky exports accounted for over 20 per cent of all UK food and drink exports in 2019.
• Scotland has almost four casks of whisky per citizen.
• Some 42 bottles of whisky are exported from Scotland every second.
• A 30-year-old cask of Macallan set a new world record in 2019 for the most expensive whisky cask ever sold at auction. It fetched a whopping £430,275.
• The co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson, demanded whisky on his deathbed but was refused it.
• John ‘Johnnie’ Walker was a grocer in Kilmarnock, Scotland in the mid-1800s who specialised in blending tea before he decided to start blending whisky.
• Charles Joughin, the baker on-board the doomed Titanic, trod water for three hours before being rescued. He claimed he hadn’t succumbed to the cold due to the amount of whisky he had drunk prior to the accident, while the ship was sinking.
• Jameson’s Irish Whiskey was founded by a Scot from Alloa, a small town close to my Scottish home, where I worked for over 20 years..We (Jameson’s Irish Whisky) were founded by that man, John Jameson. Born in Alloa in Scotland in 1740, he came to Dublin in the late 1770s. Four of his sons followed him into distilling in Ireland, setting up a family dynasty that was to last for generations.  Read More -Wee County founder of Jamesons whiskey (Alloa Advertiser)
• Kennetpans Distillery (just along the road from Alloa, now a farm shop where I used to buy my fruit & veg) was the world’s first commercial distillery, and in it”s time, the largest in Scotland.
  

  “Kennetpans is not a lost distillery, it is a lost legend – ‘The Ground Zero of the whisky industry’.”

What is Scotch Whisky?
Scotch Whisky is a distilled spirit made in Scotland from cereals, water and yeast.

Which spelling is correct – whisky or whiskey?
Production and maturations of whisk(e)y is governed by law, not the word. Scotch Whisky and Irish Whiskey are often distinguished in spelling.  American whisky is usually spelt with an ‘e’, while English, Welsh, Japanese and most other world whiskies are not.

Is there a “correct” way to drink Scotch Whisky?  (YES! – Not with Cola 😉 ) 
First, Scotch Whisky should always be consumed responsibly.

There is no “right” way to drink Scotch Whisky – you can enjoy it in whatever way you want. In Scotland and across the United Kingdom, people often choose to enjoy Scotch Whisky with just a little water. But Scotch is a global drink and there are many examples of new and exciting ways to enjoy Scotch Whisky. In Spain they mix it with cola. In Japan Scotch is enjoyed with lots of water and ice, and in China with cold green tea.  Visit our tasting toolkit to learn more.

What is the alcoholic strength of Scotch Whisky?
When distilled it is usually reduced for filling into casks at a strength of 63.5% of alcohol by volume. By law the minimum bottling strength is 40% alcohol by volume.

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Cracow Whisky Day