Irish Whiskey Review Walking Tour | 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: 4 min
Ref: BWW/25/684

There are walking tours, and then there are experiences that rewrite your relationship with a city. On a summer's afternoon in July 2025, Event 17 of Belfast Whiskey Week — the Irish Whiskey Review Walking Tour — fell firmly into the second category. Led by Marty McAuley of Irish Whiskey Review, this bespoke ramble through Belfast's whiskey heritage and living history was one of the festival's most beloved recurring fixtures, drawing together curious newcomers and seasoned dram-chasers alike for an afternoon unlike anything else on the programme.

About This Event

We are lucky to have Marty McAuley from Irish Whiskey Review taking our seconded bespoke walking tour of Belfast’s Whiskey Heritage and Whiskey Industry as well as an in depth historical review of Belfast of the years. Marty has wealth of whiskey knowledge and is also one of the best walking tour guides in the city. This combination, and his cameo role at the Friend at Hand has him well placed to deliver a walking tour like no other in the city.

Be prepared for a good walk, great whiskies and delightful snacks, as you visit Belfast Landmarks, pubs and eateries. Your love for whiskey will be enhanced, your love for history will grow, and your love for Belfast will flourish.

Sip on 4 local whiskies and devour our food collaborations with local artisans, including; Whiskey Donuts, Chocolates, Burgers, Chips and Ice-Pops.

Meeting Point to Start: Inside Our Hotel Partner; Room2 Hotel, Queen Street, Belfast BT1 6EE at 3pm each day Friday 18th to Saturday 26th July

Looking Back

The gathering point was Room2 Hotel on Queen Street — a fitting start, anchored in the heart of a city that has never been shy about its relationship with uisce beatha. At 3pm each day, from Friday 18th to Saturday 26th July, a fresh group assembled inside the lobby, introductions were made, and Marty McAuley set the tone with the easy authority of someone who genuinely loves what he does. If you've followed Irish Whiskey Review you'll already know that Marty brings a rare blend of deep whiskey knowledge and real storytelling warmth to everything he touches — and in person, on the streets of his own city, that quality shone all the brighter.

The route itself was a lesson in Belfast's layered duchas — its inherited sense of place, its seanchas of streets and shopfronts and the lives lived between them. Attendees moved through landmarks both famous and overlooked, each stop unlocking another chapter of the city's whiskey story: the old distilling traditions, the Victorian boom years, the long quiet decades, and the remarkable renaissance that has brought Belfast back to the map as a destination for serious whiskey lovers. Marty wore his knowledge lightly, weaving historical context into the walk without ever letting it slow the pace or dampen the craic.

Four local whiskies were poured across the afternoon — each one chosen to illustrate something of the Belfast and Ulster story — and the food collaborations with local artisans gave the tour a genuine sense of tír, of rootedness in the local landscape. Whiskey-glazed donuts, handcrafted chocolates, burgers, chips and whiskey ice-pops: none of it felt like an afterthought. These were proper, considered pairings that rewarded attention and sparked conversation at every stop. This kind of collaboration is exactly what Belfast Whiskey Week does best, and it was on full display here. If you're curious how the walking tour tradition fits into the wider festival picture, it's worth exploring Belfast Hidden Tours: Walking, Whiskies & Whispers and Irish Whiskey Review: Walking With Marty from previous years — each one a slightly different lens on the same enduring idea.

What Marty's cameo role at the Friend at Hand adds — that particular insider knowledge of Belfast's pub culture, its rhythms and its regulars — was quietly present throughout. There's a difference between a guide who has studied a city and one who has drunk in it, argued in it, laughed in it for years. You felt that difference on this tour. By the final stop, with the last dram raised and a collective sláinte ringing out somewhere along the route, it was hard to say whether attendees had fallen harder for the whiskey or for Belfast itself. On reflection, that was always the point.

At £30 a head, the Irish Whiskey Review Walking Tour represented some of the finest value on the entire BWW2025 programme. It was the kind of afternoon that earns its place in the festival's memory not through spectacle but through substance — through the honest pleasure of good whiskey, good food, good company, and a city generous enough to share its stories. You can explore the full range of Belfast Whiskey Week events and experiences, and if the city's whiskey landscape has piqued your curiosity, our Whiskey Map is the perfect place to keep exploring.