Tasmanian Whiskies Session 1 | Belfast Whiskey Week 2024

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

Filed: 19 Jul 2024
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/24/948

When whiskey makers fly halfway round the world to pour you a dram, you sit up and pay attention. On 19th July 2024, Belfast Whiskey Week welcomed back its friends from Tasmania for the first of two dedicated Tasmanian tasting sessions, held in the Cathedral Quarter's beloved Duke of York. Spring Bay, Belgrove, and Transportation/Killara Blend each brought something singular to the table — and Commercial Court was all the richer for it.

About This Event

We Welcome back our friends from Tasmania! We are delighted that they have flown halfway round the world to get involved in Belfast Whiskey Week - Let's get out and support them this year! In this first session, you get the opportunity to sample whiskey from Spring Bay, Belgrove & Transportation/Killara Blend in the Historic and ever popular bar for whiskey drinkers - The Duke of York!

Looking Back

There is something quietly remarkable about the Tasmanian whiskey story, and Belfast — a city that knows a thing or two about forging identity from difficult ground — seems to understand it instinctively. The Duke of York, tucked into Commercial Court with its lamp-lit lanes and walls thick with the seanchas of the city, has always been a pub that rewards curiosity. It was the right setting for three distilleries that have earned their reputations the hard way: by making genuinely world-class whiskey at the edge of the world.

Spring Bay Distillery brought the rugged maritime character you'd hope for from a producer working the Tasmanian east coast. Their expressions carried that particular tension of sea air and oak that makes you want to linger over the glass rather than rush it. Belgrove, a distillery famous for its farm-to-bottle philosophy and its use of rye grown on the property, offered something altogether more idiosyncratic — earthy, honest, and unlike almost anything else in the room. Both distilleries were warmly received by a crowd that had clearly done its homework.

But it was Transportation Whiskey that carried a particular resonance for this audience. Transportation is a Tasmanian single pot still whiskey, triple distilled and built explicitly on Irish whiskey tradition — Australian in provenance, Irish in method and spirit. For Belfast drinkers, that's not a marketing angle; it's a genuine conversation starter. The name itself nods to the convict transportation era that brought so many Irish men and women to Van Diemen's Land, and that layer of history gave the tasting an unexpected emotional depth. Sipping it in a Belfast bar, among people whose own ancestors may have shared a similar fate on different ships, felt like more than a coincidence.

Transportation Whiskey is one of the anchors of BWW's broader Tasmanian programme, and for good reason. Its presence across multiple sessions, including the Tasmanian Whiskey tasting events, reflects just how seriously Belfast Whiskey Week takes the relationship with this remarkable southern island. If you're keen to explore the brand further, the Transportation Whiskey collection is worth your time. And if tonight's session planted a seed of curiosity about where all these distilleries sit in the global picture, the BWW Whiskey Map is a fine place to follow the thread.

At £15 for a guided straight whiskey tasting in one of Belfast's most characterful pubs, this session offered exceptional value — not just in liquid terms, but in the stories that came with every pour. The Tasmanians flew a very long way to share their uisce beatha with us, and we were glad of every mile. Sláinte mhath.