McConnell's Distillery Tour – Belfast Whiskey Week 2024

On the 19th of July 2024, Belfast Whiskey Week took a landmark step into living history when guests gathered for the McConnell's Signature Distillery Tour — a rare chance to walk the floors of one of Belfast's most storied new distilleries just months after it opened its doors. Set in a building that carries the weight of the city's industrial duchas, the tour offered something genuinely rare: the feeling of being among the very first in the world to witness a working distillery find its feet.

About This Event

Book in for a Signature Tour with McConnell's and spend some time in one of Belfast's most historic buildings. Having only opened its doors a few months ago, you will be one of the first in the World to experience this truly spectacular Distillery and Visitor Attraction. It is only a few minutes walk from the City Centre and will last an hour.

Looking Back

There are events during Belfast Whiskey Week that entertain, and then there are events that matter. The McConnell's Signature Distillery Tour belonged firmly in the second category. The distillery, situated only a few minutes' walk from Belfast city centre, had opened just months before the festival, and the paint was — metaphorically at least — barely dry. For those fortunate enough to secure a place on the 19th of July, the experience carried a particular charge: the knowledge that they were among the first members of the public anywhere in the world to pass through these doors as paying guests.

The McConnell's name itself carries serious seanchas. The original McConnell's Irish Whisky was first produced in Belfast in 1776, making it one of the oldest Irish whiskey brands still in existence. The revival of distilling under that name in the heart of the city isn't marketing — it's a genuine act of tir-rooted reclamation, returning the uisce beatha to the streets that made it famous. The building chosen to house this renaissance is no ordinary space either; it breathes the character of old Belfast, and standing inside it, you feel the weight of what's been restored.

Guests on the tour spent a full hour in the company of knowledgeable guides who walked them through the distilling process, the history of the brand, and the extraordinary story of how McConnell's found its way back to Belfast. The atmosphere was intimate and unhurried — the kind of guided experience where questions are welcomed rather than managed. For whiskey newcomers it was revelatory; for seasoned drinkers, it offered the particular pleasure of seeing a process you know described with obvious pride and care by people who genuinely believe in what they're making.

The tour sat at £25 a head — a fair price for an hour of genuine immersion, and one that reflected the quality of the experience rather than the novelty of it. For those who couldn't make the 19th, McConnell's also featured across further sessions during the week, including the MT20A and MT20B Saturday tours on the 20th, which gave even more visitors the chance to raise a glass inside those historic walls. If distillery tours are your thing, the week's programme also featured the excellent Titanic Distillers Signature Tours, offering a compelling pairing of Belfast's two landmark new distilling stories.

Looking back, MT19B stood out as one of those quietly significant moments in a festival that has grown into something the whole city can be proud of. Sláinte to McConnell's for opening with such confidence, and to every visitor who stepped through those doors during Belfast Whiskey Week 2024 — you were, in every sense, early.

More from Belfast Whiskey Week

• TT19A: Titanic Distillers Signature Tour
• TT19B: Titanic Distillers Signature Tour
• MT20A: McConnell's Signature Distillery Tour
• TT20A: Titanic Distillers Signature Tour
• MT20B: McConnell's Signature Distillery Tour
• TT20B: Titanic Distillers Signature Tour

Explore the full programme on the Belfast Whiskey Week Whiskey Map.