Killowen Weird & Wonderful Tasting | 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: 3 min
Ref: BWW/25/084

Some events announce themselves quietly and let the whiskey do the talking. The Killowen Weird & Wonderful Tasting at Belfast Whiskey Week 2025 was not that kind of event — and nobody in the room was complaining. On a warm July evening in the heart of the Linen Quarter, Killowen Distillery swept into Liquor XXX like a turf fire in a glass, bringing the soul of the Mournes to the city streets and reminding everyone exactly why this small County Down distillery has become one of the most talked-about names in Irish whiskey.

About This Event

Just as it says on the tin. No doubt Weird, undoubtedly Wonderful!

We can’t expect much more from this genius whiskey distillery, flamboyant team and highly articulate and experimental Master Distiller. A combination of quaint, cute, idyllic, artisan and independence, flame-fired with passion and ingenuity, determination and soul; provides Killowen with a multitude of reasons to drink their whiskey!

Let this collaboration, with the brilliant mixologists at Liquor XXX, find Killowen and it’s concoctions in full flow. The Linen Quarter boasts some fantastic venues and vibrant nightlife for the City, Killowen Distillery will add the weird & wonderful to compliment.

Looking Back

Killowen is not a distillery that does things by halves. Nestled up in the Mournes, they have been quietly — and sometimes not so quietly — crafting single pot still Irish whiskey with a restless, experimental energy that sets them apart in a crowded field. Their range spans wine casks, fortified wine casks, and expressions that draw on a duchas — a deep, inherited sense of place — that you can taste in the glass. Bring that spirit into a room with Belfast's most inventive mixologists, and something genuinely special was always going to happen.

And happen it did. The team behind Liquor XXX — a bar that wears its passion for premium spirits on its sleeve — matched Killowen's ambition at every turn. Cocktails sat alongside neat pours, each pairing interrogating what the whiskey could become when placed in different company. The Master Distiller led guests through expressions that ranged from the delicately curious to the bracingly unexpected, never losing the thread of what makes Killowen's uisce beatha so compelling: that it tastes like it was made by people who genuinely couldn't sleep until they got it right. The atmosphere in the room had something of the seanchas to it — stories passing between distiller, bartender, and guest, building a shared understanding of the liquid in the glass.

Complimentary food rounded out the evening in the best possible way, grounding the wilder flavour flights with something to hold onto. It was a generous touch, and one that gave attendees the freedom to explore the more adventurous pours without the floor rushing up to meet them. Sláinte, indeed. The Linen Quarter provided a fittingly vibrant backdrop — the hum of the city outside a pleasing contrast to the focused, convivial world inside Liquor XXX where the only question that mattered was what was in the next glass.

For those who came to Belfast Whiskey Week 2025 with a curiosity about where Irish whiskey is heading, this event was as good an answer as you could hope to find at £35. Killowen has built something of a festival legend here — their presence at BWW extends well beyond a single tasting, taking in the Smuggler sessions and collaborations that push the boundaries of what a whiskey evening can be. The Weird & Wonderful Tasting sat at the heart of that Killowen Kult energy: irreverent, deeply knowledgeable, and quietly — sometimes not so quietly — brilliant.

If you missed this one, the Mournes aren't going anywhere, and neither is Killowen's trajectory. Keep your eye on the Whiskey Map for where they turn up next — because wherever they land, the room tends to be better for it.