Spirit of Scotland caters for whiskey buffs and and novices

The Spirit of Scotland, Italy's premier whisky event offers a programme of 11 masterclasses presented by distillery brand ambassadors, including the Koval Distillery from the US which presents a bourbon for the first time.

Also new this year is Salvatore Mannino from the Maison du Whisky in Paris which, along with brand ambassadors from the Nikka distillery in Japan, will present a series of labels.

The Pernod Ricard Masterclass features a number of quality cask-strength bottlings from some of the company's distilleries. This is a unique opportunity as these labels are distillery exclusives and unavailable for sale, so can only be tasted here.

Meanwhile the Taiwanese Kavalan stand will be presented by expert Dr Jim Swan, a much-respected figure within the world of whisky.

However the festival is not aimed solely at connoisseurs: the Whisky ABC offers novices an introduction to Scottish single malts, arming them with a better idea about which of the event's 2,000 whiskies will best suit their palettes.

The popular festival reurns to Rome for the third consecutive year, following the success of last year’s two-day event which attracted almost 3,000 visitors.

This year the expanded event takes place over three days, in two different venues: the Aranciera di S. Sisto near the Circus Maximus from 15-16 March, and the Teatro Ambra in Garbatella which hosts Spirit of Scotland Plus on 17 March.

For full details see website or Facebook event page.