Clyde May's Whiskey Intro Tasting | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

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

Filed: 27 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/21/132

On the evening of 27th July 2021, Belfast Whiskey Week opened a transatlantic door with Session 14: an introductory tasting dedicated to Clyde May's, the Alabama distillery whose name carries the weight of Southern American whiskey heritage. Three carefully chosen 50ml samples — Alabama Style Whiskey, Straight Rye, and Straight Bourbon — gave attendees their first proper encounter with a brand whose story is as rich as its mash bill. It was the kind of session that reminded us why the uisce beatha conversation is never just a local one.

About This Event

This tasting includes 3 x 50ml Samples & Glass and will take place on the 27th @ 19:00.

Alabama Style Whiskey
Straight Rye Whiskey
Straight Bourbon

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

Belfast Whiskey Week 2021 was, in many ways, a festival defined by its ambition to look beyond the familiar — and Session 14 embodied that spirit with real conviction. Clyde May's is named after an Alabama farmer and moonshiner who became something of a folk legend in the hills of Conecuh County, a man whose craft passed down through generations before finding its way into a legitimate distilling operation. Bringing that legacy into an Ulster living room — or, for those who collected in person, into the Belfast city centre — felt quietly significant. The festival's reach, even in hybrid form, was something to behold.

The three expressions on offer gave attendees a genuine arc to follow. The Alabama Style Whiskey — Clyde May's signature bottling, finished with dried apple slices in a nod to the founder's original recipe — arrived first, its honeyed warmth and soft baked-fruit character doing the work of a confident handshake. The Straight Rye brought spice and a drier, more assertive structure, while the Straight Bourbon rounded things out with that unmistakable Southern sweetness undercut by oak and vanilla. Taken together, the trio told a coherent story about what Clyde May's stands for: craftsmanship with a distinctly regional soul, not unlike the duchas you find in the distilling traditions of our own island.

As an introductory-format session, the evening was designed to be accessible rather than exhaustive — a welcome mat rather than a deep dive. That pitched it perfectly for attendees who were coming to American whiskey fresh, but there was enough nuance in the pours to reward those already acquainted with the category. The conversation that tends to follow these sessions — about production method, regional character, what makes a straight whiskey straight — is where the real seanchas lives, and by all accounts it flowed freely.

It's worth noting that this session sat within a wider programme that ranged from the deeply familiar to the genuinely adventurous. Those who followed the week's Irish whiskey thread had no shortage of options, from the Bushmills New Cask Finish Range introduction to the forensic pleasure of the Bushmills Causeway Collection MasterClass. Clyde May's, sitting alongside all of that, was a reminder that the festival's tír is generous — it has room for Alabama as readily as Antrim.

For those who had their tasting packs posted out, there was an added intimacy to the whole affair — the slight uncertainty of the postie's timing, the ritual of setting out the glasses before the screen flickered to life. It was one of the small human textures of a festival year that asked a great deal of its organisers and its audience alike. Sláinte to everyone who raised a glass of something a little different that evening. If Clyde May's was new to you, it was a fine introduction. If you'd like to explore more of what the 2021 programme had to offer, the Whiskey Map is a good place to start wandering.