Titanic Distillers Evening | 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/23/676

There are festival nights, and then there are nights that become part of the seanchas — the living memory of a place and its people. The Titanic Distillers Evening at Belfast Whiskey Week 2023 was emphatically the latter. Gathering at the banks of the Lagan before casting off aboard the Lady of the Lagan, ticketholders were carried, cocktail in hand, through the heart of the city and out towards one of Belfast's most compelling new homes of uisce beatha.

About This Event

Time to Visit Belfast’s Only Distillery. Please Arrive at the Big Blue Fish on the Banks of the Lagan, from 5:30pm – We have a Sharp Departure time of 6pm. We set sail on the Lady of the Lagan, with our 1st Signature Cocktail, and gently make our way up Belfast Lough to our Distillery. We have collaborated with Monto Chocolates and Mike's Fancy Cheese for this session. The Extensive Tour of the Distillery will be conducted by our Head Tour Guide and you’ll also get to meet Damien; our Head Distiller. From there, we will embark on our Spirits tasting and food pairing MasterClass, tasting sweet and savoury local produce. A truly memorable and bespoke visit designed with the Festival in mind. Start Time: 5:30pm Duration: 4.5hrs Venue: Titanic Distillery Drinks: 6 Drams Type: Distillery Day Travel: Please Note that this Session will include Transport from Belfast City Centre (Big Blue Fish) On the Lagan river, close to the Foot Bridge. There will be an Usher wearing a Belfast Whiskey Week Tee-Shirt, with a Sign looking to support you for the event. The Boat (Lady of the Lagan) will Leave at the Start of your Session Time and will not be your method of travel home. You will make your own way home from the Distillery. Please contact us if you need to discuss your accessibility needs for this trip. 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 adventure began at the Big Blue Fish, that familiar landmark where the Lagan breathes a little wider and the city feels like it's leaning in to have a look at itself. From 5:30pm, an usher in a Belfast Whiskey Week tee guided arrivals to the waiting boat, and at six sharp the Lady of the Lagan slipped her moorings. The first signature cocktail was already in hand as Belfast's skyline drew back and the Titanic Quarter rose ahead — a fitting approach to a distillery whose very address speaks to the industrial daring this city has always carried in its bones.

Titanic Distillers sits on Queens Road, in the shadow of the slipways where the great liners were built, and it wears that heritage with confidence rather than nostalgia. The distillery is producing premium Irish whiskey with a sense of place that is genuinely felt rather than merely marketed. On the evening in question, Head Tour Guide led guests through an extensive tour of the production floor — the stills, the casks, the careful architecture of patience that whiskey-making demands — before the group was introduced to Damien, Head Distiller, whose evident pride in the work gave the whole proceedings the warmth of a tir that knows what it has.

What elevated this event beyond a straightforward distillery tour was the collaboration at its heart. Monto Chocolates and Mike's Fancy Cheese brought their craftsmanship to the tasting table, and the pairing masterclass that followed the tour was a genuine exercise in sensory discovery. Six drams moved across sweet and savoury terrain, each pour finding its complement in a piece of chocolate or a wedge of something properly funky and local. There was a generosity of spirit — in every sense — to the curation here, a recognition that whiskey drunk alongside exceptional food is whiskey understood more fully.

It's worth noting that this kind of immersive distillery experience sat alongside other outstanding evenings in the 2023 programme. Those with an appetite for getting behind the bonded warehouse doors could equally have found their way to Echlinville Distillery's Warehouse Day out in the Ards Peninsula, or crossed the city to Two Stacks' Welcome to the Bond, another event that stripped back the glossy surface to reveal the craft underneath. For those more drawn to exploring Ireland's wider distilling geography, the Lough Ree Distillery Showcase offered a window into the midlands — a family-owned operation on the River Shannon that carries its own deep duchas of Irish whiskey tradition.

The journey home was left to each guest's own choosing, which felt apt. After four and a half hours of boat travel, guided exploration, masterclass tasting and the particular quiet contentment that follows six considered drams in good company, finding your own way back through Belfast seemed less like a logistics note and more like an invitation to carry the evening with you a little longer. Sláinte to everyone who made it aboard.