Dingle Showcase & Cocktails | Belfast Whiskey Week 2023

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

Filed: 15 Jul 2023
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 5 min
Ref: BWW/23/676

Some evenings at Belfast Whiskey Week feel less like a ticketed event and more like a genuine gathering — the kind where the duchas of a place and its people comes through in every pour. The Dingle Showcase & Cocktails on Wednesday 26th October 2023 was exactly that kind of night. Held in the atmospheric surrounds of Angel & Two Bibles on the Ormeau Road, it brought together one of Ireland's most quietly revolutionary distilleries and the assured hand of bartender Neil McDonald for an evening that ran from nine until midnight and left nobody wanting for conversation, craft, or uisce beatha.

About This Event

Bespoke Cocktails with Neil McDonald in collaboration with Dingle Irish Whiskey. A great opportunity to taste the progressive Dingle Distillery who are driving the ‘New Age’ Irish Whiskies across the World. Their Single Malts and Single Pot Stills are turning heads, with their unique taste and their humbling approach to producing Irish Whiskey. We are very blessed to have Dingle supporting Belfast Whiskey since its conception. It’s a wonderful relationship and one that we hope will keep growing. We have been intrigued by the methods being adopted at the distillery, particularly the extensive cask programme and community led connections down in the Dingle peninsula. Some nibbles, cocktails and drams from Dingle in collaboration with Angel and 2 Bibles Cocktail Lounge. Timeslot: 9pm-12am Start Time: 9pm Duration: 2.5hrs Venue: Angel & Two Bibles Drinks: 6 Drams Type: Showcase Disclaimers Please note that individual dietary requirements are not being catered for with any food at this event. Each Brand/Distillery and Collaborative Partner have agreed to our Min/Max Pour Policy. Please Respect this, and enjoy your festival responsibly. Festival Participants who are deemed to be too inebriated, or are not respecting themselves, will not be permitted into events and venues. ALL Hosts/Ushers/Collaborators and Venue Staff have the right to refuse participants without question and recourse. Please Drink Responsibly. All events are only available to those 18 years old and over. Do not purchase tickets if you are under the age of 18. Be prepared to produce ID if required. Venue staff & ushers may ask you to provide ID when showing your valid tickets. You may be refused enter to events if you can’t prove your age. Some venues may change, if they do, you will be notified. All events are subject to changes out of the control of the festival organisers. Any issues, please contact us @belfastwhiskeyweek on socials, or via email on marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com or 07773675179 (8am-8pm) to discuss. NO Refunds will be given. Please only buy tickets if you are prepared to attend the event. Tickets are transferable. If you are going to transfer tickets please email, marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com

Looking Back

Dingle Distillery occupies a particular place in the story of modern Irish whiskey — and in the story of Belfast Whiskey Week too. Tucked away on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, the distillery has been turning heads since its earliest releases, not through noise or volume, but through the kind of patient, considered craft that the peninsula itself seems to demand. Their Single Malts and Single Pot Stills carry a character that speaks of place — of salt air and Atlantic light, of a community that takes its relationship with the land and the sea seriously. Dingle has supported Belfast Whiskey Week since its very first edition, and that loyalty, that consistency of partnership, is something the festival holds in genuine regard. It's a relationship built on shared values as much as shared interest in good whiskey.

On the night, six drams made their way around the room, giving attendees a real opportunity to trace the arc of what Dingle does best. The cask programme at the distillery is one of its most intriguing features — a quietly ambitious approach to wood that sees the team experimenting with finishes and cooperage choices that reward careful attention. Tasting through the range in sequence, there was a clear throughline: restraint, balance, and a refusal to overpower. These are whiskies that invite you in rather than demand your attention, and the room responded in kind — conversations grew slower, more considered, more generous.

Neil McDonald's cocktail work wove through the evening with real intelligence. Rather than using the Dingle spirit as a base note to be buried beneath citrus or sweetener, the cocktails he crafted treated the whiskey as a conversation partner — present, expressive, and enhanced rather than obscured. The nibbles on offer kept things grounded and sociable, and the Angel & Two Bibles space, with its rich textures and warm lighting, felt like a natural home for the whole affair. It is a venue that understands how to hold an evening.

For those who came to BWW 2023 with an appetite for Irish whiskey's newer chapter, this showcase sat alongside some of the festival's most compelling sessions. Fans of distillery-led storytelling may also have found themselves drawn to the Glens of Antrim Distillery Showcase, which explored Ulster's own emerging voice in the category, or to McConnell's Irish Whisky: Back in Belfast, a homecoming story with its own deep roots in the city's seanchas. And for those curious about where Irish and world whiskey traditions intersect in unexpected ways, the Blaiseadh Uisce Bheatha — the all-Irish language tasting offered something truly singular.

What the Dingle evening ultimately demonstrated is that the best whiskey events are not about spectacle. They are about sincerity — a brand that knows what it is, a bartender who knows what he's doing, and a room full of people willing to slow down and pay attention. Sláinte to Dingle, to Neil McDonald, and to Angel & Two Bibles for an evening that felt, from first pour to last, entirely itself.