Tasmanian Tasting Session 3 – Belfast Whiskey Week 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/23/076

Eleven thousand miles. That's how far four Tasmanian distilleries travelled to pour their whiskies for a room full of believers in the Deer's Head Music Hall on a Tuesday night in Belfast. Session three of the Tasmanian Tasting series — featuring Hobart Whisky, Launceston Distillery, Belgrove, and McHenry Distillery — was one of those evenings that quietly earns its place in festival folklore. Six drams, good company, and the kind of honest conversation about whiskey that you only get when the people who made it are standing right in front of you.

About This Event

Time for a Taste of Tasmania. They have travelled a total of 11,000 Miles to get here to let you sip their whiskies! We just need to get out of bed, jump on the Glider and pop into one of our great bars in Belfast to support them on their quest to showcase Tasmanian Whiskey with our Festival Goers. 8 brands have made the trip around the World to join us at Belfast Whiskey Week. We have 4 Showcase Sessions this week with our Tasmanian Whiskies, a Co-Event with Killowen and a Fine Dinning Experience at one of Belfast’s most sought after restaurant. Please note the four distilleries involved in this session: Tasmanian Tasting: (3/4) Hobart, Launceston, Belgrove & McHenry These Sessions are not to be missed and are a highlight of the Festival. Grab some snacks and relax as we meet our new found friends. Timeslot: 9pm-12am Start Time: 9pm Duration: 2.5hrs Venue: Deer’s Head Music Hall Drinks: 6 Drams Type: Showcase 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

The Deer's Head Music Hall is a venue that carries weight. Its bones are old Belfast, its atmosphere is earned rather than manufactured, and on the night of this third Tasmanian showcase it wore the occasion well. Guests arrived from nine, settling in with snacks and anticipation, and by the time the first dram was poured the room had that particular hum that seasoned festival-goers will recognise — people quietly delighted to be exactly where they are. These sessions ran until midnight, and the two-and-a-half hours passed the way good whiskey time always does: faster than you'd like.

What made this series so remarkable was the sheer logistical audacity of it. Eight Tasmanian brands made the journey to Belfast Whiskey Week 2023, spread across four showcase sessions across the week. Tasmania has emerged over the past decade as one of the most exciting whiskey-producing regions on the planet — its cool maritime climate, pristine water, and genuinely experimental distilling culture producing spirits that hold their own against the old world with quiet confidence. Hobart and Launceston brought the island's two urban poles into the room, while Belgrove — a single-farmer distillery using estate-grown rye — offered something almost radical in its simplicity and integrity. McHenry, from the wild southern tip of the island near Port Arthur, rounded out a lineup that gave a real sense of Tasmanian whiskey's breadth. If you caught the first session in the series — Killara, Belgrove, McHenry and Spring Bay — you'll know the standard these producers set from the opening night.

The evening also carried a collaborative thread back to Ireland, with Killowen Distillery named as a co-event partner across the Tasmanian series. Killowen sits up in the Mourne Mountains making craft Irish single pot still whiskey that the whole Irish whiskey community has been quietly tracking with well-deserved admiration — a distillery that understands the duchas of its place the way the best Tasmanian producers understand theirs. That connection between two island traditions working at the small-batch, artisan end of the craft felt entirely natural, and it gave the week's programming a coherence that was more than just scheduling. For those who wanted to dig deeper into what Killowen brings to the table, the Killowen collection is worth exploring at length.

Six drams across the session gave attendees room to move through each distillery's character without rushing. There was space for notes, for questions, for the kind of seanchas that emerges when you're sitting with a whiskey that has genuinely surprised you. The Tasmanian producers were generous with their time and their knowledge — these were not simply brand representatives running a script, but people who had flown the length of the world because they believed in what they were pouring. That belief was legible in every glass. Belfast responded in kind: the room was full, engaged, and respectful of the Min/Max Pour Policy in the spirit it was intended — festival drinking done right, done responsibly, done with curiosity rather than excess.

If the 2023 programme had a quietly radical heart, it was this series. Bringing Tasmania to Belfast wasn't a marketing exercise — it was a genuine act of cultural exchange between two island whiskey traditions separated by geography but united by a shared commitment to craft and place. Sláinte to Hobart, Launceston, Belgrove, and McHenry for making the journey. For those who want to trace the full shape of BWW 2023, the Whiskey Map gives a sense of just how far this festival's reach extended — from the Glens of Antrim to the southern tip of Tasmania, all finding common ground in the uisce beatha.