Belfast Hidden Tours: Walking, Whiskies & Whispers | BWW 2023

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

Filed: 15 Jul 2023
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 4 min
Ref: BWW/23/572

There are few better ways to know a city than to walk its streets with someone who genuinely loves it — and at Belfast Whiskey Week 2023, that's exactly what Belfast Hidden Tours offered. On Saturday 29th October, guides Fionnuala and Conor led a three-hour walking tour through the layers of Belfast's whiskey heritage, weaving together the seanchas of a city that built an industry on grain, water, and sheer stubbornness. Five drams, festival food, and a few well-kept secrets later, participants left knowing Belfast a little better — and feeling it, too.

About This Event

Both Fionnuala and Conor take turns to bring our Festival Goers the chance to walk through Belfast; sampling our local whiskies, Festival Food and visiting great pubs. This Bespoke walk combines Belfast Hidden Tours' love of Whiskey Heritage, Belfast Histories and some great hidden places that need to be explored and not forgotten. Be prepared to listen attentively; don’t miss the stories of those individuals and businesses that have built the Belfast Industry through the last few hundred years. Industrial Whiskey and Heritage is brought to life by well versed guides who have a great sense of humour and pride in their City! This walking tour will also include one of our collaborative Whiskey Donuts from “Oh Donuts” and/or bespoke food from “Tribal”. Timeslot: 3pm-6pm Start Time: 3pm Duration: 3hrs Venue: Multiple Locations Drinks: 5 Drams Type: Walking Tour Disclaimers Please note that individual dietary requirements are not being catered for with any food at this event. Each Brand/Distillery and Collaborative Partner have agreed to our Min/Max Pour Policy. Please Respect this, and enjoy your festival responsibly. Festival Participants who are deemed to be too inebriated, or are not respecting themselves, will not be permitted into events and venues. ALL Hosts/Ushers/Collaborators and Venue Staff have the right to refuse participants without question and recourse. Please Drink Responsibly. All events are only available to those 18 years old and over. Do not purchase tickets if you are under the age of 18. Be prepared to produce ID if required. Venue staff & ushers may ask you to provide ID when showing your valid tickets. You may be refused enter to events if you can’t prove your age. Some venues may change, if they do, you will be notified. All events are subject to changes out of the control of the festival organisers. Any issues, please contact us @belfastwhiskeyweek on socials, or via email on marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com or 07773675179 (8am-8pm) to discuss. NO Refunds will be given. Please only buy tickets if you are prepared to attend the event. Tickets are transferable. If you are going to transfer tickets please email, marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com

Looking Back

The tour departed at 3pm, and from the first step it was clear this was no ordinary pub crawl dressed up in tweed. Fionnuala and Conor brought an easy authority to their storytelling — the kind that comes not from a script rehearsed in a back office, but from a genuine, lived-in pride in their tír. They trade in what might be called Belfast's dúchas: the inherited memory of a place, its industries, its characters, its losses and recoveries. Whiskey, here, was never just a drink — it was a thread running through the city's industrial and social fabric, and they pulled it with care.

Participants moved between locations that don't always make it onto the tourist trail — the kind of spots that sit just around the corner from the familiar, waiting for someone to say look here. Along the way, five measured drams of local whiskey were poured, each one contextualised within the broader story of Belfast's distilling past and its confident present. This wasn't whiskey as spectacle; it was whiskey as evidence. Evidence that this city has always known how to make something worth savouring. Those interested in plotting the wider geography of that story can explore the Belfast Whiskey Week Whiskey Map at their leisure.

The food element added genuine warmth to the afternoon. A collaborative whiskey donut from Oh Donuts — because of course — and bespoke bites from Tribal gave the walk a grounded, celebratory quality. Festival food at its best doesn't compete with the drink; it keeps pace with it, and here it did exactly that. The donut, in particular, became a small talking point among the group — a slightly ridiculous, entirely Belfast thing to be eating on a pavement in October, and all the better for it.

This afternoon session was one of several walking experiences Belfast Whiskey Week 2023 offered across the festival, each approaching the city's whiskey culture from a different angle. Fionnuala and Conor had already led an earlier version of this same tour — Belfast Hidden Tours: Walking, Whiskies & Whispers (Event 5) — and those who caught it earlier in the week will recognise the same generous spirit at work. For those who prefer their whiskey walk with a pub trail woven through it, the Belfast Walking Tours: Belfast's Public Houses & Art Trail offered a complementary route through the city's licensed heritage.

What Belfast Hidden Tours does well — and did well here — is resist the urge to make heritage feel like a museum exhibit. The stories they tell are alive, sometimes funny, occasionally uncomfortable, and always rooted in the people who built things and the places where that building happened. Sláinte to Fionnuala, Conor, and to everyone who walked with them that Saturday afternoon. Belfast gave good value.