Ulster Tatler: Belfast Whiskey Week Awards 2025

The 2025 awards capped a festival that ran from 18 to 26 July — nine days of programming featuring more than 100 events and the involvement of over 40 brands and distilleries. The closing night drew the Irish whiskey industry together to recognise the producers, blenders, bartenders and venues that have shaped the year.

Ulster Tatler's coverage carries the kind of society photography the magazine is known for — guests photographed at the awards dinner, including Brian Haslett, Martin Booth, Wendi Kane, Ollie Booth and Mark Irvine among others. For a festival that has grown its profile through partnership and the goodwill of the wider industry, the social documentation matters: it captures who was in the room and signals that this is where the industry shows up.

The Irish Whiskey Industry Awards have become one of the two most important nights in the Irish whiskey calendar. Their position at the end of Belfast Whiskey Week is no accident — it gives the awards a festival platform, and gives the festival a clear ceremonial close that anchors the whole programme.

Ulster Tatler indicated the magazine's August 2025 issue would carry further coverage of the festival. The publication's nearly 60-year history covering Northern Ireland's social and lifestyle scene gives the festival a kind of institutional validation that's harder to build from a single newspaper feature — coverage that signals the festival belongs in the city's cultural establishment.

See the coverage: Ulster Tatler — Belfast Whiskey Week Awards