Mourne Dew Showcase | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

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

Filed: 24 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 4 min
Ref: BWW/21/316

There are distilleries that feel rooted in their landscape, and Mourne Dew is very much one of them — its spirit carrying something of the granite and heather of the Mourne Mountains in every dram. Session 92 of Belfast Whiskey Week 2021 brought this County Down producer into the homes of whiskey lovers across Ireland and beyond, in a wide-ranging showcase that crossed the categories from gin to poitín to whiskey and back again. Six samples, one Saturday afternoon in July, and a distillery with a great deal to say for itself.

About This Event

This tasting includes 6 x 50ml Samples and will take place on the 24th @ 13:00.

This tasting comprises of:

Kilbroney Gin - 42%
Rostrevor Ruby Gin - 40%
"The Pooka" No.1 Blend Irish Poitin - 43%
Triple Distilled Irish Whiskey - 40%
Single Malt Irish Whiskey - 43%
"The Pooka" Hazelnut Poitin Liqueur - 35%

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

Mourne Dew Distillery sits in the shadow of the mountains at Warrenpoint, in the heart of that corner of Ulster that feels ancient and self-possessed — a place with its own dúchas, its own deep-rooted character. The distillery draws on that sense of place in its range, and the Session 92 showcase gave participants the chance to explore the full breadth of what they produce: not merely whiskey, but a considered family of spirits united by craft and geography. For a festival that had moved online in 2021, it was exactly the kind of expansive, generous session that reminded you why these virtual tastings could do things a single-venue event could not.

The six-sample pack opened with the Kilbroney Gin at 42% — named for the valley that runs up from Rostrevor into the mountains — and then moved into the Rostrevor Ruby Gin at 40%, a warmer, fruit-forward expression that hinted at the hedgerows around the town. The gins served as a kind of welcome, a loosening of the palate before the session turned to the real business of the evening. And the real business was The Pooka — Mourne Dew's Irish Poitín at 43%, a spirit with personality to match its name. The Pooka is a shapeshifting creature of Ulster and Irish folklore, and there was something appropriately mischievous about this unaged spirit: raw, bright, and harder to pin down than you might expect.

From there, participants moved into the whiskey proper. The Triple Distilled Irish Whiskey at 40% showed the lighter, cleaner register that triple distillation tends to produce — approachable, smooth, a good foundation — while the Single Malt Irish Whiskey at 43% offered greater depth and character. For many in attendance, the single malt was the highlight: a glimpse of what Mourne Dew is building toward as its aged stocks mature. The session closed with something genuinely unexpected — The Pooka Hazelnut Poitín Liqueur at 35%, which managed to be both indulgent and grounded, sweet without being cloying, the hazelnut warmth sitting comfortably against the raw spirit base. It was an unusual way to end a whiskey tasting, and all the better for it. Those who enjoyed exploring the breadth of Ulster distilling in 2021 might also want to look back at Session 22's Sexton Deconstruction Showcase, which offered a similarly forensic look at an Irish blended malt, or the celebrated Session 83: Bushmills History MasterClass for a deeper dive into Ulster's oldest distilling tradition.

The logistical note in the session description — that packs might not arrive in time and attendees were invited to collect in Belfast — was a small but telling detail. Belfast Whiskey Week 2021 was a festival navigating the particular challenges of its moment, posting samples across the country, trusting the post, and doing what it could to make sure no one was left holding an empty glass when the host opened the Zoom room. It mostly worked, and for those who came to collect in person, there was something quietly lovely about that — a small act of community in a year that had made community difficult. The uisce beatha found its way, one way or another.

Mourne Dew is a distillery still finding its full voice in the aged whiskey category, but Session 92 showed that it already has plenty worth hearing. The range is ambitious without being scattered, the sense of place is genuine, and The Pooka — in both its expressions — is one of the more interesting things to come out of the poitín revival on this island. If you want to explore what the Ulster distilling landscape looked like in 2021, the Belfast Whiskey Week Whiskey Map is a fine place to start tracing the connections. Sláinte mhaith to everyone who raised a glass with Mourne Dew that July afternoon.