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/25/668

There are walking tours, and then there are walking tours. The Irish Whiskey Review Walking Tour at Belfast Whiskey Week 2025 was firmly, gloriously, in the second camp — a living, tasting, storytelling immersion into the city's whiskey soul, led by the irrepressible Marty McAuley across nine days in the height of a Belfast July.

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

It began, as all good Belfast stories do, with a gathering. Each afternoon at 3pm, between Friday 18th and Saturday 26th July, ticket holders assembled inside the Room2 Hotel on Queen Street — BWW's hotel partner and a fitting threshold between the everyday city and the deeper, more spirited Belfast that Marty McAuley was about to conjure. Room2 is the kind of place that understands hospitality as something more than a transaction, and it set exactly the right tone before the group stepped out onto the pavement and into the seanchas.

Marty, the man behind Irish Whiskey Review, brings a rare combination to the streets of Belfast: genuine encyclopaedic whiskey knowledge married to the instincts of a natural guide who knows when to let a building or a back street do the talking. His connection to the city runs deep — he's also known to those who frequent the Friend at Hand, where his passion for the uisce beatha has long been evident to anyone lucky enough to share a counter with him. On this tour, that warmth and expertise were on full display. He didn't just narrate Belfast's whiskey heritage; he inhabited it, pulling threads of history through laneways and pub doors with the ease of someone who has been carrying these stories for years. This was not Marty's first outing for Belfast Whiskey Week — his earlier Walking With Marty event established the template — but BWW2025 felt like the format reaching full maturity.

Four local whiskies anchored the route, each chosen to illuminate something particular about the Irish whiskey landscape — its range, its regional character, its quiet confidence. These weren't afterthoughts or filler drams; they were conversation starters, poured at stops that made geographical and historical sense, so the liquid and the location spoke to each other. Alongside the whiskey, the food collaborations with local artisans were nothing short of inspired: whiskey-glazed doughnuts, fine chocolates, proper burgers, chips, and — in a touch that felt entirely, unapologetically Belfast — ice-pops. Comfort food elevated, indulgence earned by the walk, every bite a small act of duchas.

Belfast Whiskey Week has always believed that the city itself is part of the experience, and this tour was perhaps the purest expression of that philosophy. Landmarks were not merely pointed at but woven into a coherent narrative about industry, identity, and the long relationship between this particular stretch of Ireland and the making of fine whiskey. For those curious about how the wider walking tour tradition feeds into the week's programme, Belfast Walking Tours: Belfast's Public Houses & Art Trail and Belfast Hidden Tours: Walking, Whiskies & Whispers offer complementary perspectives on the city's layered character.

At £30, the Irish Whiskey Review Walking Tour represented one of the better-value propositions of BWW2025 — not cheap, but worth every penny. By the time groups returned from their route, drams sipped and stories absorbed, the consensus was clear: love for whiskey had deepened, love for history had grown, and love for Belfast — unpredictable, generous, endlessly compelling Belfast — had flourished, exactly as promised. Sláinte mhath.