Boann Distillery MasterClass | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

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

Filed: 24 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/21/036

On the evening of 24th July 2021, Belfast Whiskey Week welcomed one of the Boyne Valley's most quietly ambitious distilleries to the festival fold. The Boann Distillery MasterClass was a generous, unhurried session — nine samples, a proper glass, and a story that had plenty worth telling. For those who showed up with curiosity, it delivered in kind.

About This Event

This tasting includes 9 x 50ml Samples & Glass and will take place on the 24th @ 20:00.

This tasting comprises of:

Whistler Imperial Stout Finish Batch #2 (unreleased) @ 43%
Whistler P.X. I Love You Single Malt @ 46%
Whistler New Era Oak Cask 9yo Single Malt (unreleased) @ 46%
Whistler Moscatel 11yo Blend (unreleased) @ 46%
Whistler Palo Cortado 15yo Single Malt (unreleased) @ 46%
Boann Distillery Apple Brandy @ 46%
Whistler Irish Honey @ 43%
Whistler Pot Still Irish Cream Liqueur

For those in the USA, Australia, Sweden, Europe, the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland, you will be able to save on delivery costs by having your package to sent to a localised depot for collection. You will be charged a small fee upon collection, but the cost will be much cheaper than having packs delivered to individual addresses. If you would like to avail of this option, please make a note in the Special Instructions box, and we will contact you at a later date to arrange this and refund your delivery charges.

Looking Back

Boann Distillery sits at Platin, just outside Drogheda on the banks of the River Boyne — a tir steeped in mythology and, more recently, in some of the most adventurous new-make spirit to come out of the Republic of Ireland in years. Under the Cooney family, the distillery has embraced an ethos of experimental cask finishing that puts flavour first and convention a comfortable second. Their Whistler range is the public face of that philosophy, and on this particular Saturday night in 2021, attendees got a rare window into where it was heading.

What made Session 24 genuinely special was the weight of unreleased whiskey on the table. Five of the nine expressions poured that evening had not yet seen retail shelves — among them a New Era Oak Cask 9-year-old single malt, a Moscatel 11-year-old blend, and a Palo Cortado 15-year-old single malt, all bottled at 46%. That's an uncommon act of generosity and trust from a distillery; letting a festival audience become, in effect, the first public verdict on whiskeys still finding their audience. There was a seanchas quality to the evening — the sense of being told something before it becomes common knowledge.

The breadth of the lineup invited real comparison. Attendees moved from the Whistler Imperial Stout Finish Batch #2, with its rich dark-grain character, through the sunshine sweetness of the P.X. I Love You single malt, and across into the more oxidative, saline complexity of the Palo Cortado expression. The Boann Apple Brandy offered a palate-cleansing interlude — something different in both spirit and spirit — while the Pot Still Irish Cream Liqueur and Whistler Irish Honey rounded out the evening on warmer, more indulgent ground. Nine drams across that range of cask influence is not a flight to rush, and to their credit, most attendees took their time. Sláinte was said more than once.

For those who found their way to other sessions across the week, the contrast with some of the more established names on the programme was instructive. While events like the Bushmills History MasterClass drew on decades of institutional memory and the Bushmills Causeway Collection MasterClass showcased single cask precision from Ireland's oldest licensed distillery, the Boann session had a different energy — the productive restlessness of a distillery still writing its own rules. Both modes of whiskey storytelling have their place, and BWW 2021 was richer for hosting both.

If the 2021 festival had a recurring theme, it was that Irish whiskey's revival is neither monolithic nor predictable. Boann's MasterClass was evidence of that in its most pleasurable form — a distillery thinking carefully, bottling boldly, and finding in Belfast Whiskey Week the right audience to meet it halfway. For those who keep an eye on what's emerging from the Boyne Valley, this was an evening that felt, in retrospect, like something of a quiet landmark. You can explore more from that year's programme on our Whiskey Map, or browse the full BWW collection to see what else the festival has brought to the table over the years.