Dunville's x Smash Bros Burger Pairing | 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: 4 min
Ref: BWW/23/284

Some of the finest moments at Belfast Whiskey Week don't happen in hushed tasting rooms — they happen over a stacked burger and a cold back of whiskey, with the afternoon light still coming through the windows. That was the spirit of Event 79: Smash Bros x Dunville's, a Thursday afternoon food pairing held at Common Market that brought together two beloved Belfast names for something gloriously unfussy and genuinely delicious.

About This Event

Experience a Classic Collaboration between Dunville's Irish Whiskey and the famous Smash Bros Burgers in Common Market. This is a casual food pairing experience lasting between 3pm and 9pm. Please note that this session is not facilitated, and will consist of the following: Bespoke Dunville's Burger, Bespoke Cocktail & a Dunville's PickleBacks Timeslot: 3pm-6pm Start Time: 3pm Duration: 3hrs Venue: Common Market Drinks: 3 Drinks Type: Food Pairing 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

Dunville's Irish Whiskey carries a name that resonates deep in the duchas of Belfast. Founded in the city in 1808, the brand disappeared for nearly a century before being revived with real conviction — and today it stands as one of the proudest expressions of Ulster whiskey culture. Pairing it with Smash Bros, whose burgers have earned a devoted following across the city, felt less like a marketing exercise and more like a natural meeting of two things Belfast does well: making great things, and doing so with a certain no-nonsense pride.

The format was refreshingly open. Running from 3pm to 9pm with a ticketed timeslot of three hours, this wasn't a seated lecture or a structured masterclass — it was a drop-in, settle-in, sláinte kind of afternoon. Guests arrived at Common Market, a contemporary restaurant in the city centre that holds its own when it comes to pairing innovative food with serious drinks, and were met with a package that felt well thought through without feeling overthought: a bespoke Dunville's burger, a bespoke cocktail built around the whiskey, and a Dunville's pickleback — that sharp, briny chaser that cuts through richness and resets the palate with a kind of gleeful efficiency.

The pickleback, in particular, deserves its moment. It's a ritual that suits whiskey far better than it has any right to, and the choice to anchor it to Dunville's — with its characteristic balance of fruit and grain — showed a real understanding of how flavour works across a meal rather than in isolation. The bespoke cocktail added a more considered dimension, a chance to see how Dunville's moves when mixed, and the burger itself was built to complement the whiskey's character rather than overwhelm it. This kind of thoughtfulness is what separates a good pairing from a great one. If you're curious about how Belfast's whiskey scene maps onto its food culture more broadly, our Whiskey Map gives a useful sense of the landscape.

BWW 2023 featured several of these burger-and-whiskey collaborations, and together they made a compelling case that the smash patty is, quietly, one of the best canvases for whiskey pairing in the city. Events like Tribal Burger's session with Jameson and Tribal Burger's collaboration with Limavady explored similar territory from different angles, and across all of them the lesson was the same: fat, salt, and a char-edged crust are remarkable friends to Irish whiskey. The Dunville's version, with its Ulster roots and its Common Market setting, had a particular local warmth to it — the kind of afternoon that felt like it belonged to Belfast in a way that was easy to take for granted and worth holding onto.

At £15 for three drinks and a bespoke burger, this was one of the festival's most accessible entry points — a session that asked nothing of you except that you show up, eat well, and let Dunville's do the rest. The uisce beatha was in good hands, and so were the guests.