Dublin Liberties Cocktail Masterclass | 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: 3 min
Ref: BWW/24/932

There are tastings, and then there are evenings where you roll up your sleeves and get properly involved. Session 58 at Belfast Whiskey Week 2024 was firmly the latter — a hands-on cocktail making masterclass hosted at Angel & 2 Bibles, built around the characterful whiskies of Dublin Liberties Distillery. For anyone who wanted to understand uisce beatha not just through the glass but through the making, this was the session to be at.

About This Event

The fantastic mixologists at Angel & 2 Bibles are here to deliver a hands-on Cocktail Making MasterClass where you will get to make and drink 3 Whiskey Cocktails using whiskies from the Dublin Liberties Distillery. Test yourself, bring some friends, show off and have some fun while learning a wee bit about Cocktail construction and Whiskey production.

Looking Back

Angel & 2 Bibles is one of those Belfast bars that wears its duchas lightly — a place with genuine warmth and serious craft behind the counter. It was the right venue entirely for an evening like this. The mixologists there brought both expertise and an easy, generous manner to the room, the kind of hosts who make you feel like you're learning something without ever making you feel like a student. The atmosphere was convivial from the off, a gathering of friends, strangers, and whiskey curious souls who'd come to have some craic and leave knowing a little more than when they arrived.

Dublin Liberties Distillery sits in the heart of one of Dublin's oldest and most storied neighbourhoods — a tír steeped in seanchas, where distilling has deep roots going back centuries. The distillery draws on that heritage with intention, producing whiskies that are bold and layered, with the kind of character that holds its own whether sipped neat or used as the backbone of a well-constructed cocktail. Their range proved an excellent canvas for the evening's work.

Attendees worked through three whiskey cocktails across the session, guided through each stage of construction — from understanding the role of spirits and modifiers to the balance of sweet, bitter, and acid. It wasn't a lecture; it was a conversation. Questions were welcomed, shortcuts were gently discouraged, and the results were tasted with honest enthusiasm. The cocktails themselves were the reward, of course, but the real gain was in understanding why they worked — what the whiskey brought to the glass, and how the other ingredients either amplified or softened that character.

For those who prefer their whiskey education in a more traditional format, Belfast Whiskey Week 2024 offered plenty of routes in. Sessions exploring single malt provenance, cask influence, and distillery history ran throughout the week — including a deep dive into Bushmills' centuries of history and an exploration of the Bushmills Causeway Collection for those drawn to the craft of single malt. But Session 58 occupied its own particular corner of the festival — louder, livelier, and with considerably more ice involved.

If you came to this masterclass a little uncertain about cocktails or Irish whiskey's place in them, you almost certainly left a convert. Dublin Liberties makes whiskies with genuine personality — the kind that don't disappear when mixed, but contribute something real. And Angel & 2 Bibles gave those whiskies the setting and the skilled hands they deserved. Sláinte to everyone who shook, stirred, and sipped their way through one of BWW2024's most entertaining evenings. See the full event details here.