Glens of Antrim & Mamo Patisserie Pairing | Belfast Whiskey Week 2024

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

Filed: 23 Jul 2024
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/24/100

Some sessions at Belfast Whiskey Week are about depth of knowledge; others are about pure, unadulterated pleasure. The Taste the Festival: Mamo Patisserie Collaboration in July 2024 belonged firmly in the second camp — a lunchtime pairing that brought together two of Ulster's most characterful Irish whiskey producers and the freshly launched artisan patisserie from one of the city's most beloved creative spirits. It was, in the very best sense, a feast for the senses.

About This Event

After last year’s successful collaboration with Gemma Austin; proprietor of Peculiar tea, we thought it only fitting that we collaborate again, this time with Gemma's new venture: Mamo Patisserie. Two of our local Irish Whiskey Brands: Glens of Antrim Distillery and Echlinville Distillery will have a bespoke patisserie each for the duration of the festival. During this tasting you’ll get the opportunity to taste these special Mamo patisseries as well as the whiskies used in production. You’ll also get the chance to taste one of our unique Festival Only Whiskies. Nice way to spend your lunch time.

Looking Back

The story behind this collaboration is worth telling properly. The year before, Belfast Whiskey Week had teamed up with Gemma Austin and her venture Peculiar Tea for a pairing that left attendees genuinely charmed by the creative possibilities of matching whiskey with something beyond the expected. When Gemma launched Mamo Patisserie, it felt entirely natural — inevitable, even — that the festival would follow her into this new chapter. What emerged was something genuinely bespoke: two local distilleries, Glens of Antrim Distillery and Echlinville Distillery, each with their own dedicated Mamo creation designed in direct conversation with their whiskies. This wasn't garnish. This was craft speaking to craft.

Glens of Antrim Distillery brings something singular to any tasting room they enter. Their home landscape — those steep, green glens running straight to the sea along the North Antrim coast — has a way of making itself felt in the glass, and that North Coast character was every bit as present here. Their bespoke Mamo patisserie wasn't simply a sweet accompaniment; it was a dialogue, each bite and sip reframing the other. Attendees who had perhaps encountered the distillery before through their Lir Whiskey range found new angles on flavours they thought they knew. That's the quiet magic of a well-conceived pairing: it doesn't overwhelm, it reveals.

Echlinville Distillery, operating on the Ards Peninsula in County Down as a genuinely farm-to-glass operation, brought its own distinct personality to the table. Field-to-bottle Irish whiskey carries a transparency of provenance that rewards attention, and paired with Gemma's patisserie — itself rooted in considered, quality-first making — the match felt honest and grounded. Between the two distilleries, the session offered a portrait of modern Ulster whiskey-making that was quietly ambitious and entirely approachable.

And then there was the Festival Only Whiskey. A small but significant gesture that runs through the best of Belfast Whiskey Week's programming — the sense that you are tasting something that exists only here, only now. These drams have become something of a duchas of the festival itself, a living tradition that rewards those who show up. For anyone curious about where else that spirit of discovery leads, sessions like the Bushmills History MasterClass or the Bushmills Causeway Collection MasterClass offer different but equally rewarding avenues into Ulster whiskey's seanchas.

At £25 and held over a lunchtime slot at the Duke of York, this session wore its value lightly. It wasn't trying to be the most serious room at the festival — and that, paradoxically, made it one of the most memorable. Sláinte to Gemma Austin, to Glens of Antrim, to Echlinville, and to everyone who spent their lunch hour this particular way. Some hours are well spent indeed.