Irish Whiskey Industry Awards 2023 | Belfast Whiskey Week Dinner

Some evenings at Belfast Whiskey Week carry a weight beyond the dram — a sense that something is being built, recognised, and celebrated for the long haul. The 2nd Annual Irish Whiskey Industry Awards, held on Saturday 29th October 2023 at the Clayton Hotel Belfast, was exactly that kind of evening. Dressed for the occasion and charged with anticipation, guests gathered not just to drink well but to honour the people and organisations shaping the future of Irish whiskey.

About This Event

Looking Back

The Irish Whiskey Industry Awards — the IWIAs, as they've already become known in shorthand — are a creation of Belfast Whiskey Week itself, born from a conviction that the industry deserves its own moment of formal recognition. Founding an awards ceremony is no small act of ambition, and the fact that this was already the second iteration spoke to how warmly the inaugural event had been received in 2022. The Clayton Hotel Belfast, a polished and well-appointed venue in the heart of the city, gave the evening exactly the gravitas it called for — somewhere between gala dinner and homecoming céilí, if you'll forgive the stretch.

The format was generous by any measure. Guests arrived from 6pm to a welcome of two cocktails before settling in for a dinner paired with whiskies — a proper sit-down affair that ran a full five hours, the kind of evening that earns its price rather than merely charging it. Partners Willis Insurance, Urban Bar, Irish Whiskey Magazine, Serac Ice, and Whiskey Loves Me each brought their own energy and expertise to the room, reflecting the breadth of the ecosystem that now surrounds uisce beatha in Ireland. It was a reminder that whiskey is not made or sustained by distillers alone — it runs through a sheugh of relationships, suppliers, writers, retailers, and advocates.

The awards categories themselves were the heart of the matter, recognising those making the Irish whiskey industry a genuinely good place to work, invest in, and champion. In a category landscape that has expanded dramatically over the past decade, it matters enormously that someone is keeping score of the human side — the people behind the stills and the stories, not just the liquid in the bottle. The seanchas of Irish whiskey is rich and long, and the IWIAs exist to ensure that the contemporary chapter is written with the same care. If you want a sense of the wider festival culture from which this evening sprang, the Titanic Distillers: Taste of the Shipyard event earlier in the week captured that same pride in craft and place.

There was, inevitably, a warmth in the room that transcended the formal programme. This is what happens when an industry gathers not to compete but to commend — the usual posturing gives way to something more like duchas, a shared belonging to the same tradition. Conversations that began at the cocktail reception were still running as the whiskies with dinner were poured, and the table talk moved easily between reverence for what Irish whiskey has achieved and excitement about where it is going. For those who'd spent the week at events like the RedBreast Fine Dining at Waterman Restaurant or the convivial Urban Scullery Supper Club, the IWIAs felt like a fitting and resonant close to a week of celebration.

What Belfast Whiskey Week has created with the IWIAs is still young — two years is barely a tórrán on the timeline of any great institution — but it already feels essential. Sláinte to everyone who attended, to all who were nominated, and to those who won. You deserved a night like this.

More from Belfast Whiskey Week

• 11: Welcome to Belfast: Tasmania Whiskey Takeover
• 26: Urban Scullery: Supper Club Extra
• 36: Titanic Distillers: Taste of the Shipyard
• 57: A Peculiar Tea: It's a Mystery
• 82: RedBreast: Fine Dining @ Waterman Restaurant
• 85: Douglas Laing: Meet the Beasts

Explore the full programme on the Belfast Whiskey Week Whiskey Map.

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