Copeland Distillery Day – Belfast Whiskey Week 2024

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

Filed: 24 Jul 2024
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 4 min
Ref: BWW/24/532

Sometimes the best thing a whiskey festival can do is get you out of the city entirely. On a July evening in 2024, Belfast Whiskey Week did exactly that — loading a coach at City Hall and pointing it south-east along the County Down coast toward Donaghadee, home of Copeland Distillery. Thirty-five minutes and a world away, this was one of the festival's most-loved Distillery Day events, and it wasn't hard to see why.

About This Event

A fantastic opportunity to get out of the City and off to Copeland Distillery – only 35 mins away in Donaghadee. Stamp your Whiskey Passport! Distillery Events are key to the success of the Festival and we want you to get the most out of your trip. We meet at City Hall at 17:45 with bus departing at 18:00. Upon arrival at Copeland, you will be greeted by the fabulous team and given a bespoke tour of this rather unique distillery. You’ll get to taste Copeland’s whiskey and you’ll hear about the plans that Gareth has for the future of Copeland Distillery and why it’s integral to the local area. Food is in collaboration with Smoq Catering, who will be firing up the BBQ. To end the event, you’ll be guests of honour in the local bar, the Tivoli, where you’ll have another dram and a Guiness. The Shop will be open between 8pm & 10pm so you can grab some fab merchandise and whiskey souvenirs.

Looking Back

The bus pulled away from City Hall at six on the dot, and there was already a mood of easy anticipation on board — the particular excitement of heading somewhere with purpose, passport in hand, ready to be stamped. Copeland's Distillery Days have earned their reputation over several BWW editions, going all the way back to the early introduction sessions that first brought many attendees into the brand's orbit. Those who'd been along for Session 26: Copeland 1 back in 2021 knew what kind of welcome to expect; those arriving for the first time were in for a revelation.

Donaghadee is not the first place most people think of when they think of Irish whiskey — and that's precisely the point. Named after the islands visible from the County Down shore on a clear day, Copeland Distillery sits with its roots deep in the tír, shaped by the sea air and the landscape that surrounds it. Gareth and his team met the group at the door with the kind of warmth that doesn't feel performed — this is a place that genuinely wants you to understand what it's doing and why. The bespoke distillery tour that followed was generous with both knowledge and drams, tracing the full story of the spirit from grain to glass, with Gareth himself speaking candidly about the road ahead and what Copeland means to the local community. That seanchas — the storytelling rooted in place — is something the best distillery visits have in abundance, and Copeland delivered it without a single slide deck in sight.

Outside, Smoq Catering had the BBQ well underway. The smell hit you before you saw it, and the food was exactly right for the occasion — unpretentious, generous, and well-suited to standing in the evening air with a glass of uisce beatha in hand, the Copeland Islands somewhere out beyond the harbour. It's the kind of meal that doesn't try to compete with the whiskey; it simply makes everything taste better. Sláinte to that.

The evening wound down in the best possible way: as guests of honour in the Tivoli, the local bar just down the road, where another dram was poured and a Guinness followed. There's something quietly right about ending a distillery visit in the local — it anchors the whole experience in the community that made it possible. The distillery shop was open until ten for those who wanted to bring a little of Copeland home, and from what was observed, very few people left empty-handed. If you're curious about where Northern Ireland whiskey is being made and by whom, the Belfast Whiskey Map is a good place to start — and Copeland's pin on that map is one worth visiting in person.

Copeland is one of Belfast Whiskey Week's most consistent and beloved partners, and events like this are the reason why. A Distillery Day isn't just a tour with a ticket price — at its best, it's an act of hospitality, a sharing of place and purpose. This one was exactly that.