Redbreast History MasterClass | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

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

Filed: 28 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Format: Online Tasting
Ref: BWW/21/932

Some drams carry their history in the glass, and on the afternoon of 28th July 2021, Session 56 of Belfast Whiskey Week made that truth tangible. The Redbreast History MasterClass brought together whiskey lovers from Belfast to Brisbane, uncorking not just six exceptional single pot still expressions but the long, layered story of one of Ireland's most beloved uisce beatha traditions. It was, in every sense, a session worth the journey.

About This Event

This tasting includes 6 x 50ml Samples & Glass and will take place on the 28th @ 16:00.

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

There is a reason Redbreast Irish Whiskey is spoken of in hushed, reverential tones in tasting rooms from Derry to Detroit. It is the dram that turned a generation of Scotch drinkers into Irish whiskey people — not through novelty, but through sheer, undeniable character. Single pot still whiskey at its most richly expressive: orchard fruit, toasted wood, spice, and a finish that lingers like a good conversation. For BWW 2021, the Redbreast History MasterClass gave that character a chronology, and the result was one of the festival's most memorable afternoons.

Participants across the island of Ireland, the United States, Australia, Sweden, and continental Europe each received a tasting pack of six 50ml samples alongside a dedicated glass — a detail that mattered more than it might sound. In a year when gathering in person was still a complicated business, the care taken with delivery logistics, including localised depot collection points to ease the cost burden for international attendees, spoke volumes about the ambition of Belfast Whiskey Week to reach beyond the sheugh and across the water without leaving anyone behind. When the session opened at 16:00, glasses were raised in sitting rooms and kitchens from Antrim to Auckland. Sláinte.

The seanchas of Redbreast is a rich one. Originally bonded by the Gilbeys wine and spirits firm in the early twentieth century, with pot still spirit sourced from the old Jameson distillery on Bow Street in Dublin, the brand's name is said to have been coined by a Gilbeys director with a fondness for the robin — that small, bright-breasted bird so native to these islands. That origin story, modest and charming, belies the grandeur of what followed. The MasterClass walked attendees through the key chapters of that narrative, letting the liquid in the glass do much of the speaking. Each sample was a document as much as a dram.

What made this session stand out within the wider BWW 2021 programme was its depth. Where an introductory tasting invites curiosity, a history MasterClass demands it. Attendees were expected to pay attention, to taste critically, and to place what was in their glass within a broader duchas — a sense of belonging and inheritance that defines the best of Irish whiskey culture. For those who also attended the Bushmills History MasterClass, the contrast between Redbreast's southern pot still tradition and Bushmills' northern single malt heritage made for a genuinely illuminating comparative study across the festival weekend.

At £150, Session 56 represented a serious investment — and a serious commitment. But those who took their seats, whether at a kitchen table in Newry or a living room in New South Wales, came away with something lasting: not just a fuller understanding of Redbreast's place in the canon of great Irish whiskeys, but a sharpened appreciation of what single pot still whiskey, at its finest, can truly be. If you're curious about exploring more of what Redbreast brings to the table, the BWW Whiskey Map is a good place to start plotting your next dram.