Privacy Policy
We collect as little as we can. Browsing this site requires no account and collects nothing that identifies you.
Last updated: 21 September 2026
Who we are
DramStory is a whisky travel planning site for Islay and Jura, run by Mark Hodgkinson, trading as DramStory.
- Operator: Mark Hodgkinson, trading as DramStory, a sole trader in England and Wales
- Business address: c/o GTA Accounting, Johnsons Barns, Waterworks Rd, Petersfield GU32 2BY
- Contact: privacy@dramstory.com
We are the data controllerfor the personal data described here. That means we decide why it is collected and what happens to it, and we are accountable for it — including where other companies process it on our behalf.
The short version
Browsing DramStory requires no account and collects no personal data. The trip you build is stored in your own browser, not on our servers. We set no cookies, and our analytics cannot identify you.
What we collect, and why
If you just use the site
Nothing that identifies you. No account, no cookies, no tracking pixels.
Your trip — the days, stops and notes you build — is saved in your browser’s own storage. We cannot read it. It does not leave your device. Clearing your browser data deletes it, and we cannot recover it for you.
If you sign in
Signing in is optional, and everything above stays true until you do it.
We ask for one thing: your email address.No password — we email you a link instead, so there is nothing to remember and nothing for us to store. No name, no address, no date of birth.
From that point your trip is copied to our database so it reaches whatever device you sign in on. That is a real change from the paragraph above: a saved trip is no longer only on your machine, and we can technically read it. We do not go looking, but you should know it is possible rather than take our word for a promise the architecture no longer makes.
Lawful basis: contract— you asked for an account that remembers your trip, and an address is the minimum needed to give you one.
You can take all of it away or delete the lot from your account page, yourself, without asking us.
If you sign up to the Journal
The newsletter is separate from an account, and you can have either without the other. We store your email address, when you asked, when you confirmed, and which page you were on when you did.
Nothing is sent until you confirm.Signing up triggers one email asking you to click a link. If you never click it, we never send you anything else — which also means nobody can sign you up by typing your address into our footer.
Lawful basis: consent— that click is the consent, and the date of it is what we keep as proof. Every issue carries a one-click unsubscribe with no sign-in and no questions, and withdrawing is as easy as giving it.
Server logs
Our hosting provider, Vercel, records standard request information including IP addresses, for security and to keep the site running. We do not use these logs to build any profile of you.
Measuring how the site is used
We count visits using Plausible, a privacy-focused analytics service hosted in the EU, and we count how often links out to hotels and booking sites are clicked. No cookies, no identifier that would let us recognise you, and aggregate figures only.
Lawful basis: legitimate interests— understanding whether a site works is a reasonable thing for its operator to do, and this is close to the lowest-impact way of doing it. You can object; contact us. See our Cookie Policy for detail.
Who else receives your data
We use a small number of other companies. They act on our instructions and cannot use your data for their own purposes.
| Who | What for | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| Vercel | Hosting | Request logs including IP address |
| Plausible (EU-hosted) | Counting visits and outbound clicks | Page requested, referrer, country. No identifier, no cookie. |
| Supabase | Accounts and saved trips | Your email address, and any trip you save while signed in. Nothing if you never sign in. |
| Resend | Sending your sign-in link and the Journal | Your email address, and the message itself |
| Airtable | Our own content — distilleries, tours, features — and the Journal subscriber list | For content, nothing about you: images pass through our own server, so your browser never contacts Airtable directly. If you subscribe to the Journal, your email address and the dates you asked and confirmed. |
| OpenStreetMap | Map tiles | Your IP address, when a map loads |
| Live details on food and drink venues | Your IP address and device information, only when you open one of those cards |
We do not sell your data. We do not share it with advertisers. Nobody pays us to put their product in front of you.
Affiliate links to Hotels.com and Discover Cars pass a tracking code that tells them the booking came from us. That code identifies us, not you. What those companies do with your data on their own sites is governed by their privacy policies. See our Affiliate Disclosure.
How long we keep it
- A trip you have not signed in to save: until you clear it. It stays on your device and we never see it.
- Your account and the trips in it: until you delete them. Deleting your account removes the trips in the same moment, and we cannot get them back afterwards.
- Journal subscription:until you unsubscribe. We keep the record that you unsubscribed rather than erasing the row outright — that is what stops you being added again by accident. Ask and we will remove it entirely.
- Server logs: as retained by our hosting provider.
- Analytics: aggregate counts only, with nothing that could be traced to a person.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask us to:
- Give you a copy of the personal data we hold about you
- Correct anything that is wrong
- Delete it
- Restrict or object to how we use it
- Port it — receive it in a machine-readable format
Two of those you can do yourself, right now. If you have an account, your account page has a button that downloads everything we hold about you as a file, and a button that deletes the lot. Neither asks us for permission and neither waits on us being at a desk. For the Journal, the unsubscribe link in any issue works the same way.
For anything else, email privacy@dramstory.com. We will respond within one month.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would rather you told us first, but you do not have to.
Children
DramStory is about whisky and is intended for adults. It is not directed at anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child has given us their data, contact us and we will delete it.
Security
Data is encrypted in transit. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your rights we will tell the ICO within 72 hours, and you without undue delay.
Changes
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top. If the change is significant — new categories of data, a new purpose, a new processor — we will say so clearly.