Boann New Make Tasting | Introduction | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

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

Filed: 23 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 4 min
Format: Online Tasting
Ref: BWW/21/804

There is something quietly radical about tasting whiskey before it becomes whiskey — catching the uisce beatha at its most naked, before oak and time have had their say. That was precisely the invitation extended by Session 73 at Belfast Whiskey Week 2021, when Boann Distillery brought their single pot still new make spirits to the festival table on the evening of 23rd July. Three samples, three distinct characters, and a rare window into the duchas — the native character — of a distillery still finding its voice.

About This Event

This tasting includes 3 x 50ml Samples & Glass and will take place on the 23rd @ 17:00.

This tasting comprises of:

Single Pot Still New Make Light Distillate @ 63%
Single Pot Still New Make Core Distillate @ 63%
Single Pot Still New Make Heavy Distillate @ 63%

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, nestled in the Boyne Valley at Drogheda in County Louth, is a family affair built on a site with deep agricultural roots. The distillery takes its name from the goddess of the River Boyne, and there is something fitting about a new make tasting that asks you to contemplate origins — water, grain, and the still itself. At the time of BWW 2021, Boann was among the younger generation of Irish craft distillers, and this session gave participants an unusually honest look at what sits at the very foundation of their single pot still whiskeys.

The tasting comprised three 50ml samples, each drawn at cask strength 63% ABV: a Light Distillate, a Core Distillate, and a Heavy Distillate. If those terms sound technical, the experience of working through them was anything but dry. New make spirit carries all the raw energy of distillation — the grassy brightness, the creamy cereal notes, the faint suggestion of what a spirit might become — and tasting all three cuts side by side was like reading the opening chapter of a book in three different fonts. The Light Distillate was clean and almost delicate, the Core offered that classic pot still heft with its characteristic spice and weight, while the Heavy Distillate pushed into meatier, more sulphurous territory that will reward years in wood. Together, they told the full story of a single pot still run.

What made this session particularly valuable was its educational honesty. There were no barrels to hide behind, no golden colour to charm the eye. New make is the distiller's handwriting at its clearest, and Boann's showed a confident, considered approach to the pot still tradition that Ireland has been slowly but steadily reclaiming. For anyone curious about how geography, grain bill, and distillation philosophy shape a finished whiskey, this was the kind of session that genuinely changes how you taste. It sat well alongside other exploratory sessions that week — those who wanted to dig deeper into the craft and heritage of Irish distilling would have found kindred spirit in Session 22's Sexton Deconstruction Showcase, which approached a finished single malt with a similarly enquiring lens.

The practical arrangements for Session 73 were thoughtfully handled, with regional collection depots available for participants in the USA, Australia, Sweden, Europe, and across Ireland — a reminder of just how far Belfast Whiskey Week had reached by 2021. Whether you collected your pack from a local depot or had it arrive on your doorstep, the three little bottles carried the same weight of possibility. Paired naturally with the festival's broader celebration of whiskey in all its forms, the session felt at home among the week's other landmark tastings. Fans of Irish distillery deep-dives would have been well served by Session 83's Bushmills History MasterClass, which traced a very different lineage through centuries of Ulster distilling, or by Session 50's Bushmills Causeway Collection MasterClass for a study in maturation at its most considered.

Looking back, Session 73 stands as one of those BWW moments that rewarded genuine curiosity. Slàinte to Boann for having the confidence to open up their process so completely, and to every participant who showed up not for the comfort of a familiar dram, but for the thrill of tasting whiskey at the very start of its journey.