Fàilte gu Acadamaidh Uisge-beatha Ìle

"Sharing the Spirit of Scotland"

The Islay Whisky Academy Residential Diploma for Spring 2024 has wrapped. It doesn’t quite seem real. Those six days spent on the whisky isle felt like a whirlwind. A hurricane of information and experience, of new friendships and new perspectives and of whiskies so good, you could spend a lifetime trying to describe them.

Ode to the Islay Whisky Academy - Neill Murphy

Step into a world where the magic of whisky is celebrated and shared.

Where knowledge awakens our senses to the technicality of craft, and history and culture come alive in Scottish kinship.

It’s about discovery and delight, awareness and learning and feeling a sense of belonging amongst fellow whisky-lovers and distillers.

Our comprehensive theoretical, practical and cultural courses, lectures and tastings are underpinned by captivating technical information, imparted in unique, illuminating and meaningful ways.

Residential Diploma October 2025

Mon 27 - Fri 31 October 2025

BOOK OCTOBER 2025
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What is so special about IWA DIPLOMA week?

WATER – thinking about the Water Table and how much water can be extracted by you – but in good relationship to the requirements of other beings around.

POWER – how much electrical power is required to run your plant, your distillery? How can this be generated? Have you designed your building in such a way that it requires very little power to run it, or is this something you have not even considered.

Have you considered that “resources” are no such a thing – that they are actually Gifts from Nature, and we should be grateful for every drop of water and Robin feather that comes our way.

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Bruichladdich Islay Barley 2014 Tasting Notes

Damp green vegetal barley, like in the malt barns when the floors are first laid down with grain. 
White nougat. Lovely tingle into the nose.   The essence of warm sand dunes. And the sweet fleeting aroma of white candy floss.   Honey and ripe bananas.

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Your Journey of Discovery Starts Here

BUY WHISKY AFFINITY © online course

Courting the Dram online course  from WHISKY  AFFINITY ©

 

Improve your Nosing and Tasting abilities. Find out how the geology of Islay influences the taste and production process of our whisky. 

Learn why Scotch whisky and Pipetunes have so much in common. 

Find out the difference between Orthonasal olfaction and Retro nasal olfaction… 

EXPAND YOUR WHISKY THINKING AND UNDERSTANDING with Courting the Dram online course.

Providing online, residential, day and half-day courses, Islay Whisky Academy opens your whisky mind.

Enjoying fascinating insights you begin to  interpret heritage and history, and the ways that music, literature and language weave into a dram’s unfolding story, 

Become part of the Islay Whisky Academy Kinship and appreciate whisky in an expansive, supportive environment.

A Precious Environment

When you learn more and start connecting on an elemental level with what you’re drinking, you recognise how weather, trees, minerals, animals, people and place are all intrinsically part of whisky, its history and its evolvement.

When we begin to understand the generosity embedded in the environment of whisky, we are filled with a sense of gratitude and care for our planet. This underpins all of the Academy’s values. 

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