Dunvilles x Daisies Whiskey Tasting | Belfast Whiskey Week 2025

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

Filed: 15 Jul 2025
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/25/012

Some events at Belfast Whiskey Week earn their reputation through grand gestures — masterclasses, rare single casks, headline names. Event 3 at Daisies took a quieter, sweeter approach, and landed just as hard. On a Friday afternoon in July 2025, a small gathering settled into one of Belfast city centre's most singular little spaces for three festival drams, a round of hot chocolate, and an assortment of pastries that had no business being that good alongside whiskey — and yet somehow made perfect sense.

About This Event

A very exclusive opportunity to taste some of our very own Belfast Whiskey Week drams, supplied this year by:

Hinch, Killowen, Shortcross, Two Stacks, Dunvilles and a Tasmanian collaboration: “Belgrove X Transportation“

Daisies is beyond doubt, Belfast’s only artisan Chocolatier, that can stand by their sustainability credentials, their support to local farmers from Madagascar, and who have so much passion for providing real chocolate to locals and tourists.

The pastries, scones, fresh marshmallows, cannolis and the most amazing hot chocolate in the world, coupled with a fantastic staff team; ensures repeat customers and a demand like no other for their products.

3 Drams, Hot Chocolate, Donuts and Chocolates…

Looking Back

The lineup for this Straight Whiskey Tasting read like a roll call of everything Belfast Whiskey Week stands for: Hinch, Killowen, Shortcross, Two Stacks, Dunvilles, and — the wildcard that had people talking — the Belgrove X Transportation Tasmanian collaboration. Six distillers, three drams, and a room that smelled of warm chocolate and roasted cacao. If that sounds indulgent, it was meant to be. These were the official festival drams for BWW 2025, assembled specifically for this occasion, and tasting them here felt like being let in on a secret.

Dunvilles brought weight and history to the table, as they always do. The distillery traces its roots back to 1808 in Belfast — this is a name that belongs to the city's streets and its story, and there's real seanchas in every bottle they produce. Having Dunvilles as part of this particular lineup wasn't just a curatorial choice; it was an anchor. Their presence reminded attendees that the uisce beatha on the table had local duchas running through it, even when the conversation turned to a distillery on the other side of the world. If you want to explore their range further, the Dunvilles collection is a fine place to start.

And that Tasmanian thread was genuinely fascinating. The Belgrove X Transportation collaboration drew curious noses and raised eyebrows in the best possible way — a dram that spoke a different dialect but sat comfortably in the same conversation as its Irish neighbours. It was a reminder that whiskey culture, at its best, is generous and curious. Those who wanted to follow that thread further had the option of Tasmanian Whiskies: Session 1 later in the week, and a second sitting in Tasmanian Whiskies: Session 2 for those who couldn't get enough.

But the venue itself deserves its own paragraph, because Daisies is not merely a backdrop. Belfast's only genuinely artisan chocolatier — sustainability-led, farmer-connected from Madagascar to the Ards Peninsula, and staffed by people who clearly care about what they're doing — brought a sensory dimension to the tasting that few venues could match. The fresh marshmallows, the cannolis, the scones, the donuts, and that hot chocolate — described by more than one attendee as the finest they'd ever had — worked alongside the whiskey rather than against it. Chocolate and cacao notes in the drams found company in what was on the plate. It wasn't a gimmick. It worked.

At £15 for three drams, hot chocolate, donuts, and chocolates in one of Belfast's most characterful small venues, Event 3 set a tone for the festival week that was hard to argue with: inclusive, joyful, and rooted in the city. For those exploring the full festival picture, the Belfast Whiskey Map shows just how many corners of this city were brought into the fold across BWW 2025. Sláinte mhaith to everyone who made the afternoon what it was.