Shortcross Showcase | Belfast Whiskey Week 2021

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

Filed: 25 Jul 2021
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Format: Online Tasting
Ref: BWW/21/180

There are distilleries that make whiskey, and then there are distilleries that seem to carry the very character of their land in every bottle. Shortcross, nestled on the Rademon Estate in the County Down countryside, belongs firmly in the second camp. Session 52 of Belfast Whiskey Week 2021 gave attendees a dedicated showcase of what this craft producer has been quietly — and not so quietly — building in the fields south of Belfast.

About This Event

This tasting includes 6 x 50ml Samples and will take place on the 25th @ 14:00.

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

Taking place on the afternoon of 25th July 2021 at 14:00, Session 52 was billed as a Showcase — and that word carried real weight here. Six 50ml samples landed through the post ahead of the session, carefully packaged and ready to pour when the time came. That format, born of necessity during a period when gathering in person remained complicated, had by this point in BWW2021 taken on its own quiet charm. There was something fitting about sitting with a glass of County Down whiskey wherever you happened to be in the world, drawn together by the broadcast and by the liquid itself.

Shortcross has been earning its stripes in Irish craft spirits for a number of years now, with a gin that first put Rademon Estate on the map before the whiskey followed. The distillery carries a real sense of dúchas — that Irish understanding of belonging to a place, of a craft rooted in soil and season. That spirit was evident throughout the session. Rather than simply walking through tasting notes in the abstract, the presentation leaned into the story of the estate itself, of the choices made in the still house and the maturation warehouse, and of what it means to make whiskey at this scale and with this level of intention.

For attendees, the six-dram format allowed a proper journey through the Shortcross range — enough to appreciate how the distillery's voice shifts and develops across different expressions, but focused enough that nothing felt hurried. Whether you came in as a seasoned whiskey drinker or as someone still finding your footing with Irish single malt, the Showcase format rewarded attention. These weren't pours to rush past. They were invitations to slow down, nose properly, and listen — the seanchas of a distillery telling its own story in the only language that really counts.

It's worth noting that Shortcross has brought considerable energy to Belfast Whiskey Week across multiple years and formats — from Distillery Days and cocktail-making sessions to Neighbourhood Café Takeovers and the rather beloved donut pairings that became a minor legend among festival regulars. If Session 52 caught your attention and you're curious about the wider craft Irish whiskey landscape that Shortcross inhabits, our Whiskey Map is a good place to start charting the territory. And for those who wanted to explore beyond County Down during BWW2021, sessions like the Bushmills Causeway Collection MasterClass offered a compelling counterpoint from the north coast — two very different expressions of what Northern Ireland whiskey can be.

Session 52 was, in the end, exactly what a good Showcase should be: a generous, honest account of a distillery confident enough in its work to let the whiskey do the talking. Sláinte mhaith to everyone who raised a glass of Rademon's finest that Sunday afternoon in July.