Sexton Single Malt Deconstruction Showcase | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

There are tastings, and then there are deconstructions — and Session 22 of Belfast Whiskey Week 2021 firmly belonged to the latter category. On the afternoon of 30th July, whiskey lovers settled in with six 50ml samples of Sexton Single Malt Irish Whiskey for a showcase session that peeled back the layers of one of the more distinctive bottles on the island. It was the kind of event that reminds you why the word uisce beatha — water of life — carries the weight it does.

Filed: 30 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Format: Online Tasting
Ref: BWW/21/732

About This Event

This tasting includes 6 x 50ml Samples and will take place on the 30th @ 16:00.

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

Sexton Single Malt is a whiskey that wears its character openly. Matured in Oloroso sherry casks and bottled at 40%, it presents a profile that leans rich and fruit-forward — dark berries, dried fruit, a whisper of spice — in a style that sets it apart from many of its Irish single malt peers. The deconstruction format was perfectly suited to a whiskey like this: one that rewards attention and repays curiosity in equal measure. Rather than simply presenting a finished dram and asking you to admire it, the session invited attendees to understand why it tastes the way it does, tracing the influence of cask, distillation, and maturation through each pour.

Six samples across a single session is no small undertaking — this was a thoughtful, structured journey through the building blocks of flavour. Whether the format moved through new make spirit, different cask influences, or a progression of ages and finishes, the ambition was clear: to give participants not just enjoyment but genuine understanding. This is the kind of duchas — inherited knowledge, passed on with care — that a good showcase should embody. By the end, attendees weren't simply familiar with Sexton; they had a working vocabulary for it.

The hybrid nature of BWW 2021 added its own particular texture to the afternoon. Tasting packs were posted out to participants across Ireland and beyond, with those in Belfast given the option to collect in person to ensure everything arrived in time. There was something quietly lovely about that arrangement — a festival rooted in this tir, this place, reaching outward so that the sheugh between in-person and remote felt a little narrower. The same liquid in glasses from Derry to Dublin to wherever the post had carried it, all opened at the same hour.

For those who wanted to go deeper into Irish whiskey that weekend, the programme surrounding Session 22 offered plenty of company. The Bushmills History MasterClass was drawing serious interest from those keen to understand the longer arc of Ulster distilling, while the Bushmills Cask Strength Mini-MasterClass was offering its own form of deconstruction just a few sessions away. And for those curious about newer voices in Irish whiskey, the Boann MasterClass was making a compelling case for the contemporary renaissance happening south of the border.

Sláinte to everyone who raised a glass of Sexton that Friday afternoon, whether from an armchair in Antrim or a kitchen table somewhere much further afield. A deconstruction session done well doesn't just teach you about a whiskey — it changes the way you listen to the glass. Session 22 did exactly that.