Blind Tasting: Irish, Scottish & English Single Malt | Belfast Whiskey Week 2025

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

Filed: 15 Jul 2025
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 2 min
Ref: BWW/25/076

There are few things more humbling — or more thrilling — than a blind tasting. At 3:15pm on 26th July 2025, a room full of whiskey enthusiasts gathered at the Duke of York for one of Belfast Whiskey Week's most quietly provocative sessions: a chance to put aside received wisdom and let the glass do the talking. Three countries, three traditions, one question — could you tell them apart?

Looking Back

The premise was deceptively simple. Three drams, three origins — Irish, Scottish, English — stripped of their labels and their stories, presented in identical glasses to a room that ranged from seasoned collectors to curious first-timers. The uisce beatha, in whatever form it took, would have to speak entirely for itself. No distillery romance, no regional reputation, no bottle design to guide the hand reaching for a pen. Just whisky and your honest instincts.

What made this session so well-suited to the Duke of York — that storied, narrow-fronted institution on Commercial Court that has been a heartbeat of Belfast pub culture for generations — was the intimacy of the setting. The low ceilings and the warm light, the faint seanchas of the place itself, all conspired to focus attention inward, on the liquid, on the conversation at the table. Attendees leaned in close, comparing notes in the way you only do when nobody has the answer yet. Was that a coastal salinity? A dessert sweetness that felt more Midlands than Munster? The uncertainty was half the pleasure.

Opinions divided along unexpected lines. Several participants who arrived confident they'd recognise an Irish single malt — perhaps drawn to the festival through events like the Glens of Antrim: Lir Whiskey Tasting earlier in the week — found themselves second-guessing by the third dram. The English whisky, still a relatively young tradition but one producing work of genuine distinction, reportedly wrong-footed more than a few. It served as a reminder that the map of whiskey is being redrawn, and that our Whiskey Map only keeps growing.

The reveal, when it came, generated the kind of good-natured groaning and laughter that only a well-run tasting can produce. A few triumphant nods from those who'd trusted their nose; rather more sheepish smiles from those who'd been utterly turned around. But that was never quite the point. The point was the conversation those three glasses opened up — about terroir and tradition, about what we expect from whiskey made on this island versus what we expect from the glen or the English countryside, and how much of our perception is heritage rather than palate. Duchas, in other words: the sense of belonging that flavour carries, and how easily it can deceive us when the label is removed.

At £15 a head, this was one of the festival's most accessible and thought-provoking sessions — proof that a great tasting doesn't need rarity or expense to leave an impression. If events like this have whetted your curiosity for whiskeys beyond the familiar, it's worth exploring the World Whiskies sessions that ran alongside the week's programme, or keeping an eye on what Belfast Whiskey Week brings to the table next time around. Sláinte.