On the Couch with Micky Plummer: 25yr Old Whiskies | BWW 2023

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

Filed: 15 Jul 2023
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 5 min
Ref: BWW/23/964

Some events at Belfast Whiskey Week are educational. Some are sociable. And some — rare ones — feel closer to a privilege than a ticket purchase. The sixth and final session in the On the Couch series, held late on Saturday 22nd October 2023 at The Regency on Upper Crescent, fell firmly into that last category. With Micky Plummer in the host's chair and a lineup of whiskies aged 25 years and beyond on the table, this was a masterclass in the truest sense: intimate, indulgent, and genuinely unrepeatable.

About This Event

With the Striking Recency on Upper Crescent, we have designed an Elegant Series of Bespoke Collaborations with Belfast’s most Desirable of Residences. We want you to Savour Expensive Whiskies, Meet New Faces and Experience the Attention to Detail and Opulence as well as the Excellent Customer Care that the team at the Regency has to offer. In This Session (6 of 6), On the Sofa with…”Micky Plummer” (25yr Old Whiskies), we open up expensive, and not so expensive, rare, and not so rare, whiskies that need to be tasted – why? Because they are that good, they need not stay in a bottle, and live on a shelf! Because if you are going to ponder the age old question about Age Statement Whiskies and that they taste better than new expressions, then this is your chance. Because you don’t want to pay hundreds of pounds each time you want to try something new. Because we love opening up bottles of whiskey and giving the collectors a headache! Expect to have great craic with Micky while he feels like a God getting to crack open whiskies that he dreams about on a daily basis. Let this intimate tasting of whiskies, most of which will cost you a few bob in the speciality whiskey bars, transcend you to a place where you feel happy, relaxed and indulgent. We have some exceptional drams and bespoke cocktails for you to sip, accompanied with local produce; while you get comfy and discover the taste of big whiskies with big birthdays and big price tags. Timeslot: 9pm-12am Start Time: 9pm Duration: 2.5hrs Venue: The Regency Drinks: 6 Drams Type: Masterclass Disclaimers Please note that individual dietary requirements are not being catered for with any food at this event. Each Brand/Distillery and Collaborative Partner have agreed to our Min/Max Pour Policy. Please Respect this, and enjoy your festival responsibly. Festival Participants who are deemed to be too inebriated, or are not respecting themselves, will not be permitted into events and venues. ALL Hosts/Ushers/Collaborators and Venue Staff have the right to refuse participants without question and recourse. Please Drink Responsibly. All events are only available to those 18 years old and over. Do not purchase tickets if you are under the age of 18. Be prepared to produce ID if required. Venue staff & ushers may ask you to provide ID when showing your valid tickets. You may be refused enter to events if you can’t prove your age. Some venues may change, if they do, you will be notified. All events are subject to changes out of the control of the festival organisers. Any issues, please contact us @belfastwhiskeyweek on socials, or via email on marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com or 07773675179 (8am-8pm) to discuss. NO Refunds will be given. Please only buy tickets if you are prepared to attend the event. Tickets are transferable. If you are going to transfer tickets please email, marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com

Looking Back

By the time 9pm arrived and guests settled into The Regency's surroundings, there was already a particular electricity in the room. The Regency is a residence that understands attention to detail — the kind of place where the décor doesn't try too hard, but earns its elegance. It was a fitting stage for Micky Plummer, a man who approaches a rare bottle of whiskey the way a surgeon approaches a delicate procedure: with reverence, precision, and barely concealed excitement. If you've had the pleasure of encountering Micky at any BWW event, you'll know he possesses that rarest of gifts — genuine, infectious passion that never tips into performance.

The premise of the evening was gloriously simple and quietly radical: stop staring at expensive whiskey and start drinking it. Bottles that collectors guard with a mixture of pride and anxiety were opened, poured, and passed around among people who were there precisely because they understood the gesture. Six drams across the 2.5-hour session gave the evening its rhythm — long enough between pours to talk properly, short enough that the anticipation never fully left the room. These were whiskies with decades behind them, each one carrying what the Irish call seanchas — a living memory, a story held in the liquid itself.

What Micky does particularly well is democratise without diminishing. Yes, these were expressions that would cost serious money in any speciality bar worth its salt — and yes, some attendees spent a good portion of the evening mentally calculating what was being poured into their glass. But the atmosphere was never one of hushed reverence or stuffy connoisseurship. There was great craic, honest conversation about what they were tasting, and the easy warmth that comes when a room full of people realise they're all there for the same reason. Bespoke cocktails and locally sourced produce kept the evening grounded, a reminder that uisce beatha — the water of life — has always been best enjoyed in good company.

This was the sixth session in the On the Couch series, and it showed all the hallmarks of a format that had found its feet across the week. If you missed it — or missed the earlier instalment, Session 15: On the Couch with Micky Plummer (Whiskies over 25yrs Old), which ran earlier in the festival — the regret is understandable. For something quite different in tone but equally rooted in the older traditions of Irish whiskey, Leo Phelan's session on Pre-1980s Whiskies made for a fascinating companion piece across the week. And if the age statement debate sparked by Micky's evening has you curious about where to explore further, our Belfast Whiskey Map is a useful starting point for finding the drams worth seeking out.

There's a question that hovers over every bottle opened at an event like this: does the whiskey live up to its age? After a night with Micky Plummer, the honest answer is that the best ones don't just live up to it — they make the years feel earned. Sláinte mhaith to everyone who was in that room. You were there for something worth remembering.