Lowlands Showcase | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021 Review

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

Filed: 27 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Format: Online Tasting
Ref: BWW/21/404

On the evening of 27th July 2021, Belfast Whiskey Week turned its gaze southward across the water to Scotland's Lowlands region for Session 48 — a Showcase tasting that gathered six distinct 50ml drams and sent them out into the homes of whisky lovers across the globe. It was one of those sessions that reminded you just how broad the uisce beatha tradition runs, even when the festival itself is proudly rooted in Ulster soil. Six samples, one evening, and a whole landscape waiting to be explored.

About This Event

This tasting includes 6 x 50ml Samples and will take place on the 27th @ 21:00.

For those in the USA, Australia, Sweden, Europe, the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland, you will be able to save on delivery costs by having your package to sent to a localised depot for collection. You will be charged a small fee upon collection, but the cost will be much cheaper than having packs delivered to individual addresses. If you would like to avail of this option, please make a note in the Special Instructions box, and we will contact you at a later date to arrange this and refund your delivery charges.

Looking Back

The Lowlands have long been the understated corner of Scottish whisky — a tír defined not by peat smoke and Atlantic drama, but by a softer, more approachable character. Light florals, gentle grain sweetness, a certain civility that rewards patience rather than provocation. Session 48 leaned into that identity without apology, and for many attendees it served as a genuine revelation. If your duchas is rooted in the big, bold expressions of Islay or the Highlands, a well-curated Lowlands showcase has a way of quietly rearranging your assumptions.

Six 50ml samples made up the tasting pack — a generous spread that allowed the session to move through a range of distillery voices rather than lingering too long on any single one. The format suited the Lowlands well. This is a region where comparison earns its keep, where the nuances between one still house and another are measured in whispers rather than shouts. Participants who joined on the night reported a sense of genuine discovery, the kind that comes when a category you thought you understood reveals new depth. At £120 for the full pack, the session represented serious whisky drinking without the usual barriers of geography or cellar access.

What made BWW2021 particularly special as a wider festival was how it held space for voices beyond Ireland's borders without ever losing its sense of place. Sessions like this Lowlands Showcase sat comfortably alongside proudly Ulster-focused evenings — you could move, in the space of a week, from the core malts of Bushmills to the gentle river valleys of the Scottish south, and both felt like they belonged in the same conversation. That breadth is part of the festival's seanchas now, part of what it has become.

The logistics of BWW2021 were themselves worth noting. With participants joining from the USA, Australia, Sweden, across Europe and both sides of the Irish border, the festival operated a localised depot collection system to keep delivery costs manageable — a practical act of welcome that reflected the inclusive spirit running through the whole week. The sheugh between Ulster and the rest of the world felt a good deal narrower when a pack of Lowlands drams could find its way to a doorstep on several continents on the same evening. For those curious about the full scope of what BWW2021 offered, the Whiskey Map gives a sense of just how far the festival's reach extended that year.

Session 48 stands in the memory as one of those quietly important evenings — not the loudest on the programme, but one that did what good whisky education always does: it changed a few minds and deepened a few friendships with the glass. If you're still curious about the fuller programme from that year, or want to explore what else Belfast Whiskey Week has produced, our full event collection is well worth a browse. Sláinte mhaith to everyone who raised a Lowlands dram that July night.