advent guides

Ten ways to make your Whisky Advent brilliant

So, you’ve bought an Advent calendar full of whisky. Congratulations. You’re already most of the way there to confirming that this is, indeed, the most wonderful time of the year.

We all love Advent because it’s a simple concept that works well. Every day you get a new surprise treat just for waking up in the morning. It’s a brilliant system.

But we understand that some of you are whisky Advent Calender veterans or carpe diem kinda folks who want ideas to make this year unique and special beyond the tried and trusted open-a-window-and-marvel-at what’s-inside-method.

Contributed by

Adam O'Connell

1. Make an Advent infinity bottle

One of the most fun things you can do with samples of whiskies at home is combine them and make your own blend. You can create a series of blends or an ever-evolving infinity bottle, a decanter or bottle that contains a blend that is constantly being added to (and consumed), creating a spirit that is unique to you and one you can mould to your tastes. Just think about how cool it would be to create a personal Advent blend every year. You could even keep some for next Advent, either to compare to the new blend you make, or to keep the evolution going by adding drams from 2024!

2. Create a ranking

A bit of healthy competition always has a way of livening things up. When you’re tasting your drams this year, why not give them a score out of 10 or 100, so that by Christmas Eve you have a definitive advent league table. This gives each new dram stakes to live up to and you’ll probably end up learning something about your own tastes. At the end of it all you’ll have confirmed a new favourite. You could even do a little ceremony for the winning dram. Have fun with it.

3. Revisit your favourites

Speaking of which, one of the best things about getting a whisky Advent Calendar is how it exposes you to new drams. You never know when you’re going to find a new favourite whisky. So, why not treat yourself to the full bottle once Advent is over? It’s the perfect personal Christmas present and a chance to relive and rediscover the joy you felt when you tried that new favourite for the first time.

4. Host a whisky tasting

Spreading the love is something we’re going to come back to again and again in this list, because it’s Christmas, after all, and one of the best ways to do that is to host a whisky tasting. Picture it: you stick on some music, create a spread of food you think would pair well with whisky (can’t go wrong with cheese and chocolate), and then gather your friends and/or family who love a dram or who you want to introduce to the wonderful world of whisky and pour them out the contents of your advent calendar. There’s very few things as rewarding as talking about why you love a whisky and then having someone validate (or respectfully challenge) that opinion with similar enthusiasm. For the best results, make sure your guests have their own calendars, either the same as you to allow for the best comparisons and contrasts, or a different calendar so you can taste as much as possible.

5. Take pictures - bonus points if you include pets

If you’re a social sort then you’ll absolutely get a kick out of sharing your advent journey online. A daily digest of what you’re drinking on a platform like Instagram always goes down well, but the sky’s the limit when it comes to how creative you want to be. Show the world how good a whisky advent is through your eyes. And bonus points for anyone who includes their pets. We want to see drams balanced on a dogs nose, please and thank you.

6. Make cocktails

An obvious thing to do with whisky is to add other ingredients to it and make some delicious cocktails. You might not think there’s enough whisky in the drams for that but they are 30ml each and a single measure in the UK is 25ml, so get mixing! We have a host of great whisky cocktail recipes in our Whisky Guides (which you’ll love if a bit of whisky geekery is a bit of you), but be sure to experiment and have fun. You all know what flavours people associate with Christmas. How about a Candy Cane Mint Julep? A Cinnamon Old Fashioned? An Edinburgh Eggnog (I just made that up but you get the idea, Scotch + creamy, luscious goodness).

7. Write reviews

A whisky Advent Calendar provides you with the perfect platform to do some whisky writing of your own. There’s 24 individual drams, all of which you can review. This could be videos that go online or your own Advent blog, or even just thoughts you send to the group chat. It’s your story to write, one you can look back on at the end of Advent.

8. Spread the Christmas cheer and re-gift some

Sharing is caring and with 24 drams in each calendar, you’ve got enough whisky to do a little regifting. This is frankly a good way to move on any drams that you know aren’t to your taste in a way that seems magnanimous (and isn’t that what regifting is all about?) or to share something you love with friends and family.

9. Get yo masterchef on

Whisky isn’t just the world’s greatest drink. It’s also an ingredient. You could make some whisky chocolate truffles at home, for example. You could whip up a Cranachan that would make Sam Heughan smile. Or glaze a salmon with soy sauce and brown sugar and whisky. There’s also the potential to pair the whisky with food and bonus points if you make it festive. The thought of a whisky cheeseboard is making me ravenous, to be honest.

10. Recycle, reuse, repurpose.

You might be looking at your advent calender and wondering what you could do with it when its empty. Can the drams become tiny candles or fairy lights? Sure, but there’s an element you might not have considered that is brilliantly recyclable. The tray that the drams come in can be repurposed for all kinds of things, from a place to mix your paints and store brushes to seed trays to grow cress, chillies, cornflowers, and more. You could even use the tray it as an ice tray.