Killowen & Tasmania: Island Whiskies Talk | Belfast Whiskey Week 2023

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

Filed: 15 Jul 2023
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 5 min
Ref: BWW/23/700

Some afternoons at Belfast Whiskey Week leave a mark that lingers long after the last dram is done. Event 56 — Island Whiskies: History, Heritage, Legacy and Future Collaborations — was one of those. On a Tuesday in October 2023, White's Oyster Rooms welcomed a room full of curious whiskey lovers for a conversation that stretched across hemispheres, tracing the unlikely but deeply felt connections between the island of Ireland and the island of Tasmania.

About This Event

An incredibly rare opportunity to hear tales of Tasmania; whiskey distillation, collaborations between Countries and Irish descendants and generations. Time to get acquainted with our guests from Tasmania, as well as our very own Brendan Carty from Killowen. We owe a lot to the inspiration that Brendan gathered while touring on Tasmania. Thank God for Belgrove and Peter. I can’t imagine Irish Whiskey without Killowen – and indeed Brendan! Let’s settle down, grab some food and sip some drams from the Two Islands as we listen to some great stories. Timeslot: 3pm-6pm Start Time: 3pm Duration: 2.5hrs Venue: Whites Oyster Rooms Drinks: 4 Drams Type: Talk Disclaimers Please note that individual dietary requirements are not being catered for with any food at this event. Each Brand/Distillery and Collaborative Partner have agreed to our Min/Max Pour Policy. Please Respect this, and enjoy your festival responsibly. Festival Participants who are deemed to be too inebriated, or are not respecting themselves, will not be permitted into events and venues. ALL Hosts/Ushers/Collaborators and Venue Staff have the right to refuse participants without question and recourse. Please Drink Responsibly. All events are only available to those 18 years old and over. Do not purchase tickets if you are under the age of 18. Be prepared to produce ID if required. Venue staff & ushers may ask you to provide ID when showing your valid tickets. You may be refused enter to events if you can’t prove your age. Some venues may change, if they do, you will be notified. All events are subject to changes out of the control of the festival organisers. Any issues, please contact us @belfastwhiskeyweek on socials, or via email on marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com or 07773675179 (8am-8pm) to discuss. NO Refunds will be given. Please only buy tickets if you are prepared to attend the event. Tickets are transferable. If you are going to transfer tickets please email, marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com

Looking Back

There are events built around spectacle, and then there are events built around truth. This was firmly the latter. From three o'clock on Tuesday the 25th, the warm interior of White's Oyster Rooms became something of a seanchas session — a gathering of stories — as Brendan Carty of Killowen Distillery took his seat alongside guests who had made the journey from Tasmania specifically for this occasion. Peter from Belgrove was there, a distiller whose quiet conviction and commitment to his land has made Belgrove one of the most quietly revered small distilleries in the Southern Hemisphere. That he was here, in Belfast, sipping and speaking, felt like something that needed to be marked.

Brendan Carty is not a man who distils in the abstract. Killowen sits up in the Mournes — that tír of granite and gorse and sea wind — and makes craft Irish single pot still whiskey that carries the character of its place in every drop. But the story of Killowen cannot be told without acknowledging what Brendan found when he travelled to Tasmania. It was there, among distillers like Peter, that he gathered the inspiration and the practical wisdom that helped shape what Killowen has become. To hear Brendan speak about that journey, in the same room as the people who lit some of those fires, was a rare kind of duchas — a homecoming of ideas, even across fifteen thousand miles of ocean.

Four drams accompanied the afternoon, and they were chosen with care and intention. The whiskies did what good uisce beatha always does in the right company: they gave the conversation something to anchor itself to. Attendees weren't just listening — they were tasting through the themes being discussed, moving between the peated earthiness of Belgrove's Tasmanian barley expressions and the singular, considered character of Killowen's pot still work. Food arrived too, keeping the pace easy and the mood convivial, the kind of afternoon that stretched pleasantly past its scheduled end. If this kind of cross-hemispheric dialogue interests you, it's worth exploring what Around the World in Eight Drams offered that same festival week — another event that understood whiskey as a map of human movement and exchange.

What made this event feel genuinely special was its honesty about influence and lineage. The whiskey world is full of origin stories told with a certain selective pride, but Brendan Carty has never been that kind of distiller. He speaks plainly about what shaped him, and there was something quietly radical about a room in Belfast hearing an Irish distiller say, without qualification, that a Tasmanian farmer-distiller changed the way he thought about his craft. That generosity of acknowledgement — and the warmth with which Peter and the Tasmanian delegation received it — gave the session a texture that no tasting note could fully capture. It echoed, in its way, the spirit of other BWW conversations built around honesty and connection, like The Regency session with Paul Kane and Annie Bethell on the culture of whiskey clubs.

For those who were there, this was three hours that felt like an education and a privilege in equal measure. For those who missed it: Killowen is still up in the Mournes, still making whiskey that the community tracks with quiet devotion, and still carrying the lessons of Tasmania in every still run. The collaboration may yet deepen. The stories are far from finished.