Launceston Distillery Tasting | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

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

Filed: 27 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 4 min
Format: Online Tasting
Ref: BWW/21/652

In July 2021, Belfast Whiskey Week cast its net well beyond these islands and into the southern hemisphere, welcoming Tasmania's Launceston Distillery to the fold for what turned out to be one of the festival's most quietly revelatory sessions of the year. Three 50ml drams, one glass, and a distillery story that had no right to be as compelling as it was — this Introduction session gave attendees a genuine taste of what the new world of single malt has to offer.

About This Event

This tasting from the Launceston distillery in Tasmania includes 3 x 50ml Samples & Glass and will take place on the 27th @ 12:00.

This tasting comprises of:

Tasting packs will be posted out to you, but may not arrive in time for the tastings. If you wish to collect the pack in Belfast to ensure you have it in time, please contact grace@belfastwhiskeyweek.com after you order.

Looking Back

There is a particular pleasure in being surprised by a whiskey you had no strong expectations of. Launceston Distillery, nestled in the Tamar Valley of northern Tasmania, is not a name that rolls off the tongue at most Irish whiskey bars — and that unfamiliarity was precisely what made Session 20 so worthwhile. This was the uisce beatha of a different latitude, shaped by cool Tasmanian air and a philosophy of unhurried craft that will feel immediately familiar to anyone who values the slower traditions of the trade.

The tasting comprised three expressions: a Peated Single Malt, a Tawny Port Cask Matured Single Malt, and a Bourbon Cask Matured Single Malt. Together they formed a thoughtful arc — a proper introduction in the truest sense, guiding participants from the earthy and smoky through the lush and wine-soaked to the cleaner, more classical grain character of the bourbon cask release. For many attendees, the Tawny Port expression was the revelation of the afternoon: rich, warming, and carrying that particular sweetness that good fortified wine contact brings without ever tipping into confection. The peated expression, meanwhile, reminded the room that peat is not a uniquely Scottish or Irish inheritance — Tasmania has its own terroir, its own dúchas, and Launceston wears it with quiet confidence.

BWW 2021 was, of course, a festival navigating the particular challenges of the time, and tasting packs were posted out to participants across Ireland and beyond — a logistical feat that became something of a hallmark of that year's programme. The festival team worked hard to ensure samples arrived in time, with the option to collect in Belfast for those who wanted certainty over convenience. It was a small detail, but one that spoke to the care that goes into every session at this festival. If you're curious about how the wider BWW 2021 programme was structured, the Bushmills New Cask Finish Range Introduction offers a useful point of comparison — home-grown Irish craft set alongside a distillery working from the other side of the world.

What Launceston Distillery represents, and why this session mattered, is the ongoing globalisation of single malt ambition without the dilution of local identity. The distillery uses Tasmanian-grown barley where possible, takes its water from the island's clean highland sources, and matures its spirit in conditions that differ significantly from the Scottish or Irish norm — cooler summers and sharper winters than most would expect from the southern hemisphere. The result is a whiskey that ages differently, breathes differently, and tastes like somewhere specific. That sense of place — of tír expressed through spirit — is something Belfast Whiskey Week has always championed, and Launceston delivered it in spades. Fans of the festival's broader exploration of Irish cask innovation might also enjoy revisiting the Bushmills Cask Strength Mini-MasterClass, which tackled similar questions of wood influence and maturation character closer to home.

Session 20 was never going to be the loudest event on the BWW 2021 bill — no famous name, no centuries of seanchas to draw on. But it had something rarer: the quiet authority of a distillery that knows exactly what it is doing and needs no borrowed legacy to prove it. For those who joined from their living rooms, tasting glasses in hand, it was a reminder of why this festival exists — to send curious drinkers somewhere they hadn't been before. Sláinte to Launceston, and to the sessions like this one that make Belfast Whiskey Week worth coming back to year after year. Explore more from the 2021 programme, including the acclaimed Bushmills Causeway Collection MasterClass, if this has whetted your appetite.