Words on Whiskey Podcast: A preview with Belfast Whiskey Week founder Paul Kane

"Belfast Whiskey Week is back and running from 23rd – 29th July with over 100 LIVE events showcasing the very best of Irish whiskey. Founder Paul Kane will give us an insight into what promises to be a great event."

Words on Whiskey is the weekly Irish whiskey podcast brought to you by Irish Whiskey Magazine, and the Belfast Whiskey Week preview is part of a series of episodes that have covered the festival's development across multiple years. Other episodes in the same series have featured Sarah Kennedy of McConnell's, Kevin O'Gorman of Midleton Distillery, and Mark Reynier of Waterford Distillery — placing the festival firmly within the wider Irish whiskey industry conversation.

What makes the Paul Kane preview episode worth listening to is the context. By 2022, the festival had been through the pandemic-era online editions of 2020 and 2021 — years when Belfast Whiskey Week shipped tasting boxes to 65 countries and reinvented what a whiskey festival could be. The 2022 edition was the moment the festival came back into its physical form, with the lessons of the online years built into the programme.

Irish Whiskey Magazine has been one of Belfast Whiskey Week's longest media partners. Its print and digital coverage reaches the most engaged Irish whiskey audience in the world — the people who buy magazines about whiskey, follow distillery release calendars, and plan trips around specific cask programmes. Coverage in Words on Whiskey reaches that audience in audio form, and the conversation format gives Paul Kane room to talk about the festival in a way press releases never can.

The Words on Whiskey series page lists multiple BWW-related episodes across years — including a follow-up Paul Kane preview for a later edition. For listeners who want to understand the festival's evolution from a single podcast series, the Words on Whiskey archive is one of the most useful sources available.

The 2022 preview episode is particularly important historically — it documents the moment Belfast Whiskey Week came back to physical Belfast, and the thinking behind how the festival had changed as a result of the online years.

Listen to the full episode: Words on Whiskey — Belfast Whiskey Week 2022 preview with Paul Kane