American Whiskey Masterclass with CASS & Marty | Belfast Whiskey Week 2024

Name: Belfast Whiskey Week 2026
Start: 2026-07-24
End: 2026-08-01
Location: Belfast

Filed: 19 Jul 2024
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/24/396

There are sessions that feel like a lesson, and then there are sessions that feel like a party with homework — and the American Whiskies class with CASS and Marty from Irish Whiskey Review was very much the latter. On a warm July evening in 2024, the Morning Star on Pottinger's Entry threw open its doors to a crowd of curious drinkers ready to explore the full breadth of American whiskey, guided by someone who'd crossed the Atlantic to share a love of their homeland's finest.

About This Event

Want to experience real American Whiskies; Bourbons, Ryes, Corn.....the list goes on? Here we have an American, making the trip to share whiskies from their homeland - oh and Marty from Irish Whiskey Review will be be joining them for the craic. All of this will be taking place in one of our Historic Pubs; the Morning Star, where we will also be dishing out some fantastic USA style food to share! What's not to love - Master Class? might be!!

Looking Back

The Morning Star is one of those Belfast pubs that carries its history lightly — Victorian bones, low light, and the kind of atmosphere that makes strangers feel like they've known each other for years. It was the ideal setting for what turned out to be one of the more entertaining and genuinely educational evenings of Belfast Whiskey Week 2024. CASS, an American presenter making the trip over especially for the festival, arrived with a selection of bourbons, ryes, and corn whiskies that covered the full spectrum of what the United States has to offer in the glass.

What made the evening click was the pairing of perspectives. CASS brought the insider's intimacy — the stories, the regional context, the kind of knowledge that comes from growing up with these drams as part of the cultural furniture. Marty from Irish Whiskey Review, a well-known voice in the Irish whiskey world, brought the outsider's curiosity and a sharp palate honed on uisce beatha from this island. The two voices complemented each other well, trading notes and gently needling one another in the way that only people who genuinely love whiskey tend to do.

The whiskies themselves covered real ground. Attendees worked their way through expressions that illustrated why American whiskey deserves its own serious conversation — the sweetness of a well-aged bourbon, the spice and complexity of a straight rye, the raw, unadorned character of a corn whiskey. For many in the room, it was a first proper reckoning with styles they'd perhaps dismissed or never thought to explore. The format was relaxed but substantive — a masterclass in spirit, if not always in strict classroom form, which suited the Morning Star down to the ground.

American-style food was dished out as the evening moved along, and it was a smart touch. The kind of salty, generous sharing food that slows the pace, keeps the conversation flowing, and gives the palate something to reset against between pours. It also reinforced CASS's broader point: that American whiskey is bound up in food culture, in place, in the duchas of the regions that produce it — not so different, in that respect, from the traditions closer to home. If you've enjoyed past Belfast Whiskey Week sessions exploring the heritage side of Irish distilling — like the Bushmills History Masterclass or the Bushmills Causeway Collection session — this event offered a satisfying counterpoint, a reminder that the world of whiskey extends far beyond our own tír.

By the end of the night, with the last of the bourbon poured and the conversation still running warm, it was clear this had been one of those BWW sessions that attendees would be talking about for a while — not because it was flashy, but because it was honest, generous, and a little bit unexpected. Sláinte to CASS for making the journey, and to Marty for keeping things lively on home turf.