Choc & Cheese at McConnell's Distillery | 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: 3 min
Ref: BWW/25/572

On a warm July evening in 2025, McConnell's Distillery on Custom House Street threw open its doors for one of Belfast Whiskey Week's most unapologetically indulgent events: Choc & Cheese, a food and whiskey pairing that asked a simple question — what happens when the softer pleasures of the table sit down with the uisce beatha? The answer, as it turned out, was something well worth the £35 ticket.

Looking Back

There is something fitting about exploring whiskey and food in a building that carries the weight of Belfast's own distilling duchas. McConnell's Distillery occupies a storied place in the city's drinking history — the McConnell's name stretches back to 1776, and the modern distillery on Custom House Street is quietly and confidently making the case that Irish whiskey belongs back in Belfast, where it always did. That backdrop gave the evening a sense of occasion that no neutral venue could have conjured.

Guests arrived at six o'clock to find the distillery dressed for the occasion — boards of artisan cheese, carefully sourced chocolate, and a line-up of McConnell's expressions waiting to be put through their paces. The format was unhurried and conversational, the kind of tasting that lets flavour talk without lecturing. Each pairing was considered rather than showy: a creamy, yielding cheese drawing out the grain sweetness in the whiskey, a dark chocolate heavy with roasted cocoa meeting the oak and vanilla head-on. The classic Irish style that McConnell's champions — smooth, approachable, yet with genuine character — turned out to be an excellent companion at the table.

What made the evening land was the specificity of it. Whiskey and food pairing can slide into vagueness, a general appreciation of nice things together. This didn't. The hosts guided guests through the logic of each combination — why fat and salt in cheese act as a palate reset, why bitter chocolate amplifies certain cask notes — without making it feel like a lecture. People left understanding their drams a little better, and probably thinking differently about what they'd reach for the next time they put a cheeseboard out. For those who wanted to go deeper into Belfast's whiskey culture across the week, Belfast Whiskey Story: An Immersive Experience offered another dimension entirely, and the contrast between the two events showed just how broad BWW2025's ambitions were.

The food and whiskey pairing strand was one of the quiet strengths of BWW2025, with events like The Focacceria's Session 1 — Wine Finished Whiskies and Bourbon & Cream each approaching the same question from a different angle. Choc & Cheese held its own comfortably in that company, with McConnell's distillery lending the event both credibility and a genuine sense of tír — of place, of belonging. You were not in a pop-up or a borrowed room. You were in the home of the whiskey itself.

Sláinte to everyone who made it through the doors on Custom House Street that Tuesday evening. If you missed it, keep an eye on the Belfast Whiskey Map for everything the city's whiskey scene has to offer year-round — McConnell's is very much worth a visit whenever the doors are open.