Drams & Chocolate with Killowen | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

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

Filed: 28 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Format: Online Tasting
Ref: BWW/21/724

Some pairings feel inevitable in hindsight. Whiskey and chocolate — uisce beatha meeting cacao — share a common language of roast, sweetness, and depth, and Belfast Whiskey Week 2021's Session 41 brought them together with characteristic generosity. Six 50ml samples, a Wednesday afternoon in late July, and a lineup that ranged from the Mournes to the Midwest of America by way of the Causeway Coast.

About This Event

This tasting includes 6 x 50ml Samples and will take place on the 28th @ 14:30.

This tasting comprises of:

Copeland Irish Whiskey
Method & Madness - Mulberry Cask - Single Pot Still
Timorous Beastie - Small Batch Release - Global Traveller
Bushmills 21 year old Single Malt
1792 Small Batch
Killowen 5 year old Rum & Raisin Single Malt

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

Drams & Chocolate was exactly the kind of Showcase session that BWW does best: unhurried, sensory, and quietly educational without ever feeling like a lecture. Six carefully chosen whiskies arrived in tasting packs — dispatched in advance, or available to collect in Belfast for those who didn't fancy leaving it to the postal service — and attendees settled in on 28th July 2021 at half two with chocolate to hand and a flight's worth of discovery ahead of them. The format encouraged pairing, experimenting, and arguing pleasantly about what worked. Most things worked.

The lineup was a masterclass in contrast. Copeland Irish Whiskey brought a coastal, craft sensibility to proceedings, while Method & Madness's Mulberry Cask Single Pot Still offered that slightly wild, fruit-forward character the range has built its reputation on. Timorous Beastie — the small batch global traveller expression — crossed the sheugh from Scotland with its big, blended malt presence, and the 1792 Small Batch arrived from Bardstown, Kentucky, to remind everyone that the world's whiskey traditions are richer for their differences. Then there was Bushmills 21 Year Old Single Malt, which needs little introduction but always rewards attention — a whiskey with the kind of quiet authority that comes from two decades of patience.

The undeniable talking point of the session, though, was the Killowen Distillery expression: a 5 Year Old Rum & Raisin Single Malt that felt tailor-made for a chocolate pairing. Killowen is up in the Mournes making craft Irish single pot still whiskey that the whole whiskey Ireland community has been quietly tracking, and this particular expression — young, confident, and lush with dried fruit and molasses notes — demonstrated exactly why. Against the right square of dark chocolate, it sang. Against milk chocolate, it practically danced. It was the kind of dram that turns a curious newcomer into a devoted follower, and Killowen have been a festival favourite ever since.

For those whose appetite for Bushmills ran deep — and there was plenty to sustain it across BWW 2021 — the wider programme offered serious depth. Session 83 took a full MasterClass dive into Bushmills history, while Session 50 explored the Causeway Collection in detail. But Session 41 made its case for a different kind of engagement: not the deep vertical, but the broad horizontal, the shared table, the unexpected pairing that reframes a familiar dram.

At £75 for six generous samples and an afternoon of guided exploration, Drams & Chocolate was the kind of session that rewards going back to in memory. The seanchas of Irish whiskey — its stories, its craft, its regional duchas — was present in every glass, and the chocolate was, it must be said, no afterthought. Sláinte mhaith to everyone who joined us that Wednesday in July.