Belgrove Distillery Tasting – Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

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

Filed: 26 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Format: Online Tasting
Ref: BWW/21/116

When Belfast Whiskey Week 2021 turned its gaze towards the southern hemisphere on 26th July, it did so with characteristic ambition — inviting Belgrove Distillery, a one-farm operation from the hills of Tasmania, into the living rooms and dram-corners of whiskey lovers across Ireland and beyond. Session 18 was billed as an introduction, but it felt like something closer to a revelation: a first handshake with one of the world's most genuinely independent distilleries, conducted over three generous 50ml samples and, if the postal gods were willing, a proper glass to pour them into.

About This Event

This tasting includes 3 x 50ml Samples & Glass and will take place on the 26th @ 12:00.

Tasting packs will be posted out to you, but may not arrive in time for the tastings. If you wish to collect the pack in Belfast to ensure you have it in time, please contact grace@belfastwhiskeyweek.com after you order.

Looking Back

Tasmania is not exactly on the road to Belfast. It sits at the far southern edge of the world, windswept and fertile, closer to Antarctica than to most of the places whiskey drinkers think about. And yet Belgrove Distillery — run by farmer-distiller Peter Bignell on his property in Kempton — has a duchas about it that resonates deeply with anyone who understands what it means to have a rooted relationship with the land beneath your feet. Belgrove grows its own rye, malts it on site, distils it, and ages it, all without the grain leaving the farm. It is, in the truest sense, field-to-glass whiskey.

For Session 18, attendees received a tasting pack containing three 50ml samples — a small parcel of that Tasmanian tír arriving through the letterbox. The format was an introduction in the most genuine sense: no assumed knowledge, no insider jargon, just an honest guided encounter with rye whiskey made by a man who also drove the tractor that harvested the grain. Those who collected their packs in Belfast ahead of the session (as the event organisers wisely encouraged, given the vagaries of the post) were rewarded with a more relaxed lead-up, glass ready and samples lined up well before noon on the 26th.

What made this session sit apart from many of BWW 2021's other tastings was the sheer geographical and philosophical distance it covered. While other sessions that year explored the deep seanchas of Irish whiskey — from the centuries-long story of Bushmills to the nuances of its core malt range — Session 18 asked participants to recalibrate entirely, to meet a whiskey tradition that is only a few decades old but rooted in soil as serious and singular as any in the world. The contrast was bracing and instructive in equal measure.

Rye whiskey from Tasmania carries an earthiness and a spice that the grain seems to insist upon regardless of where it is grown, but at Belgrove that character is amplified by the intimacy of the production. There are no shortcuts, no outsourced steps, no distance between the farmer and the final dram. Attendees encountering Belgrove for the first time found themselves tasting not just a style of whiskey but a philosophy — and that is a rare thing to encounter at £25 a session. BWW has long taken pride in bringing distilleries from beyond the Irish and Scotch mainstream into its programme, and Belgrove represented that instinct at its most adventurous.

If Session 18 left you wanting to explore further — either deeper into Belgrove's remarkable range or outward across the wider world of whiskey that BWW 2021 mapped out — you can browse everything we carry from Belgrove Distillery or take a broader look at the global spread of distilleries on our Whiskey Map. Sláinte mhaith to everyone who joined us that Monday morning with a glass and an open mind.