Copeland Distillery Introduction | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

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

Filed: 31 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/21/644

There's something quietly radical about pouring a dram and looking out toward the Copeland Islands from the County Down shoreline — and that same spirit of quiet confidence carried through Session 26 of Belfast Whiskey Week 2021. This introductory tasting brought Copeland Distillery to a global audience for the first time under the BWW banner, welcoming whiskey lovers from Belfast to Brisbane and beyond. Three 50ml samples, one glass, and a brand with plenty to say.

About This Event

This tasting includes 3 x 50ml Samples & Glass and will take place on the 31st @ 12:00.

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

Donaghadee isn't a name that rolls off the tongue in international whiskey circles — not yet, anyway. But that, as anyone who's spent time with Copeland Distillery will tell you, is rather the point. Named after the scatter of islands visible from the County Down coast on a clear day, Copeland is a distillery with its roots deep in the tír — the land, the place, the particular character of this corner of Ulster. Session 26 was an invitation to understand all of that through the glass.

As an introductory session, this was designed for the curious and the uninitiated as much as the seasoned nosers. Three 50ml samples arrived as part of a carefully assembled tasting pack, giving participants the chance to move through the whiskey at their own pace while being guided through what made each expression worth their attention. It was a format that suited the brand well — approachable, unhurried, generous in the way that good Ulster hospitality tends to be. Sláinte doesn't need a formal setting to feel sincere.

What made this session particularly notable in the 2021 programme was its reach. BWW 2021 was a hybrid and postal festival born of necessity, and Session 26 leaned into that fully. Attendees in the USA, Australia, Sweden, across Europe, and throughout the island of Ireland were all able to receive their tasting packs — with localised depot collection options helping to keep costs manageable for those further afield. The seanchas of a County Down distillery travelled a long way that July afternoon.

Copeland is a familiar and much-loved presence across Belfast Whiskey Week — from their own Distillery Days to Neighbourhood Café Takeovers, cocktail takeovers as far afield as Nashville, and appearances at the Belfast Whiskey Expo. Seeing them anchor an introductory session here felt right: a brand confident enough in its own dúchas to let the whiskey do the talking. If Session 26 was your first encounter with Copeland, it was unlikely to be your last. And if you were looking to explore the wider festival programme that year, sessions like the Sexton Deconstruction Showcase or the Bushmills History MasterClass offered equally rich territory to wander through.

At £15 for three samples and a glass, Session 26 sat comfortably among the best-value entry points of the 2021 festival. More than that, it was an honest introduction to a distillery that deserves to be known far beyond the shores of Strangford Lough. The uisce beatha of County Down has a story worth hearing — and this session told it well.