Redbreast Rare Drams Tasting | Belfast Whiskey Week 2025

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

Filed: 15 Jul 2025
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/25/316

With the 153rd Open Championship roaring into Royal Portrush just down the road, Belfast Whiskey Week found the perfect excuse to tee up something genuinely special. Par 4: A Little Birdie brought together four rare, off-menu Redbreast expressions at the intimate surrounds of Rita's on Franklin Street — a tasting that felt less like a festival event and more like being let into a very good secret.

About This Event

With the 153rd Open at Royal Port Rush taking place this weekend, we thought we’d have a little bit of fun with some of our Whiskey Tastings. Keep an eye out for these very special tastings that bring you championship style whiskey experiences.

Par 4: A Little Birdie is a fantastic opportunity for you to tase one of Ireland’s most renowned whiskies.

At the classy, intimate surrounds of Rita’s on Franklin Street, you’ll be treated to the lesser know, highly sought after and very exclusive Redbreast whiskies, as we breakaway from the core range.

4 Little Birdies (I mean drams)

Looking Back

There's a pleasing symmetry to pairing the world's greatest links tournament with Ireland's most celebrated single pot still whiskey. Redbreast is the dram that turned a generation of Scotch drinkers into Irish whiskey people — and on the afternoon of 18th July 2025, with the Open well underway on that famous Causeway Coast stretch of ground, a small and fortunate group settled into Rita's on Franklin Street for something well beyond a standard pour. Four drams. Four birdies. Each one drawn from the lesser-known, more elusive reaches of the Redbreast family.

The event leaned deliberately away from the core range — no 12-Year making up the numbers here. These were the bottles that whiskey hunters seek out at specialist retailers and airport duty-free counters with a quiet, knowing urgency. Attendees were guided through each expression with the kind of unhurried, informed commentary that lets the liquid do most of the talking. The tasting wasn't about impressing anyone with complexity for its own sake; it was about understanding why Redbreast holds the duchas — the inherited character — of Irish pot still whiskey better than almost anyone else doing it today.

Rita's proved itself an inspired choice of venue. Compact and considered, with the kind of atmosphere that belongs more to a well-curated bar in a city that knows its own mind than to any polished hotel suite. It set exactly the right tone: no fuss, no performance, just good whiskey and good company. The golf theme gave the afternoon a lightness of touch — a birdie per dram, a championship framing that never tipped into gimmick — and the £25 price point for four exclusive expressions represented the sort of value that makes you check you've read it correctly. If you missed this one and want to explore the full Redbreast range for yourself, the Redbreast collection is well worth your time.

Par 4: A Little Birdie sat within a broader cluster of Open-themed experiences that ran across Belfast Whiskey Week 2025 — the golf motif threading a playful seam through the programme. Those who stayed late found their way to The 19th Hole: Late Night BBQ & Exclusive Drams, where the day's sporting energy gave way to open flames and long pours. For those whose tastes ran to more combative territory, WHISK(E)Y WARS: Tragedy. Treachery. The Perfect Single Malt. offered a different kind of championship entirely.

Sláinte to everyone who found their way to Franklin Street that Friday afternoon. Four little birdies under par, and not a drop wasted.