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/25/364

There are walking tours, and then there are walking tours with Marty McAuley. On a warm July afternoon in 2025, Belfast Whiskey Week welcomed back one of the city's most beloved guides for a bespoke ramble through Belfast's whiskey heritage — a rolling feast of history, uisce beatha, and artisan food that set out from the lobby of Room2 Hotel on Queen Street and wound its way into the heart of the city's story.

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

Marty McAuley is many things: the sharp intelligence behind Irish Whiskey Review, a familiar face behind the bar at the Friend at Hand, and — as anyone who joined him on this tour quickly discovered — a natural seanchaí. Standing in the welcoming surrounds of Room2 Hotel at three o'clock each day, he had the gift of making a group of strangers feel like old friends before they'd even stepped outside onto Queen Street. His wealth of whiskey knowledge sat comfortably alongside a genuine love of Belfast's built environment and layered history, and that combination gave the tour a quality that no script could manufacture.

The route itself was crafted with care — threading past Belfast landmarks and into some of the city's finest pubs and eateries, pausing to pour four local whiskies that told a story of this place and its relationship with the water of life. Each dram was chosen to reflect a different facet of the island's distilling tradition, and Marty gave each one its proper context: the provenance, the process, the people behind the bottle. He wore his knowledge lightly, which is the mark of a teacher rather than a lecturer. You left knowing more than when you arrived, without ever feeling talked at. This was the duchas of the tour — a sense that whiskey knowledge belongs to everyone willing to receive it.

What elevated the experience beyond the purely liquid was the food. Belfast Whiskey Week's collaborations with local artisans have always been a point of pride, and this tour was no exception. Whiskey-glazed donuts, handcrafted chocolates, proper burgers, chips, and — in a moment of pure Belfast summer — whiskey ice-pops. Each stop brought something new to the table, and the pairings felt considered rather than gimmicky. The city's food scene has never been stronger, and this tour made the case that whiskey and local craft cuisine belong in the same conversation. If you want to explore the broader landscape of where Belfast's whiskey and food worlds intersect, the Belfast Whiskey Map is an excellent place to start planning your next visit.

This was the second iteration of Marty's bespoke tour for Belfast Whiskey Week, and it bore all the hallmarks of something that had found its stride. Those who had joined him for Irish Whiskey Review: Walking With Marty in a previous year would have recognised the warmth and rigour, while first-timers were simply swept along. The walking tour format suits Belfast well — the city rewards those who slow down and look up, who duck into a side street or linger at a bar, who let the tír speak to them. Marty understands this instinctively, and his route felt less like a programme and more like an invitation.

At £30 a head, this was one of the finest-value events in the BWW2025 programme — generous in every sense of the word. It sat comfortably alongside the festival's other celebrated walking experiences, including the Belfast Hidden Tours: Walking, Whiskies & Whispers, each taking a slightly different angle on the city but sharing the same conviction that Belfast is best understood on foot, glass in hand. Sláinte to Marty, to the artisan collaborators, and to every curious soul who laced up their boots and stepped out into the July sunshine with us.