Welcome to Colonsay’s
Annual Food & Drink Festival
With gin and whisky tastings, foraging walks and lunch, cooking classes and demos, chocolate making and baking sessions, Colonsay's annual Food and Drink Festival programme has something for adults and children – including guided walks and other activities to help visitors discover Colonsay's wildlife and natural beauty.As we build our programme through the year, please keep checking What’s on for a taste of what the festival will bring!
Explore Colonsay
For more information on how to get here,
where to stay and other things to do...
What’s on
The 2026 programme of events includes many of the same experts we have each year – plus some new ones!
Please click on any event listing for more information and for any event updates, as event details may change.Bookings are recommended although not essential. To book any of the events please email us.Please remember to bring cash to pay for all events.
Click here to download a printable A4 programme.
Meet our experts
We are currently adding to this page so please come back soon...
Amy Rankine
With an MSc in Gastronomy and a lifelong passion for nature, Amy is an expert Member of the Foraging Society and delivers foraging courses and events all across Scotland and beyond. She also consults extensively on the creation of craft beers and spirits with wild edible elements...
Alison Henderson
Alison has been leading foraging and cookery workshops as part of the Colonsay’s Food and Drink Festival since 2018. Her experience of the island’s ecosystems has also inspired her own learning and been the basis of her academic writing – most recently in her dissertation on temperate rainforests.
She is passionate about reconnecting with and protecting nature through the daily choices we make – nurturing ourselves and the land around us to create a simpler but stronger sense of well-being.
Alison comes from a cooking and teaching background having trained and worked at Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland. On relocating to Scotland she developed her interest in wild foods, with an expertise in hedgerow and coastal foraging. Working alongside a range of community groups in East Lothian, Alison has continued her mission to inspire others to take their nourishment from nature.
She has just completed her Diploma in Herbology from RBGE, which focuses on the medicinal use of herbs. Alison currently works at Seilich Wildflower Meadow, where she manages their botanical skincare workshop, blends wild herbal teas and delivers foraging and skincare courses.
Gillian Rodger
Gillian Rodger moved to Argyll in 2019 to forge a slower life whilst starting her motherhood journey. As one of her many hats she grows and cooks for local retreats and charities as 'Slow Life Argyll', offering nourishing vegetarian meals and baking focused on seasonality with as much veg grown herself as possible in her no dig tunnel.
Having previously worked in a community garden and volunteered with Slow Food for many years, she now runs a local seed library and is a cook that has kept her activistic edge and is most passionate about supporting others to eat more seasonally and grow their own food with whatever resources they have available.
