Titanic Distillers: Taste of the Shipyard Dinner | 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/23/876

There are evenings at Belfast Whiskey Week that feel like more than just a tasting — evenings that reach back into the duchas of the city and pull something living from it. The Titanic Distillers Taste of the Shipyard dinner, held on Sunday 23rd July 2023 at the storied surrounds of White's Tavern, was exactly that kind of night. Good food, three fine drams, cocktails, and the kind of craic that only comes when stories of hard graft and salt water are folded into the evening alongside the uisce beatha.

About This Event

Taste of the Shipyard with Titanic Distillers, brings together all that is great about Belfast! Good Food, Good Whiskies, Good Stories & Good Craic! Join Titanic Distillers on 23rd July for a flavour of the old Belfast Shipyard; Enjoy our bespoke 3 Course Set Menu, with Titanic Distillers Drink Pairings, Cocktails and Tales of the Docks & stories from those who worked at the old shipyards of Belfast. This is a great opportunity to experience the surroundings of Whites Tavern, while we enjoy Titanic Whiskey and tasting food that has been curated by the team at Whites to reflect the mood of the festival and our story telling session. Timeslot: 6pm-9pm Start Time: 7pm Duration: 2hrs Venue: Whites Drinks: 3 Drams Type: Dinner 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

White's Tavern — one of Belfast's oldest surviving pubs, tucked into Winecellar Entry off High Street — made for a quietly perfect backdrop to this particular gathering. Its low ceilings and centuries of seanchas soaked into the walls gave the evening a warmth that no purpose-built event space could manufacture. The team at White's had curated a bespoke three-course set menu with real care, each dish pitched to reflect both the spirit of the festival and the industrial heritage at the heart of Titanic Distillers' story. Nothing fussy, nothing performative — just honest, well-considered food that knew its place alongside the whiskey.

Titanic Distillers sits at Thompson Dock in the Titanic Quarter, Belfast's first working whiskey distillery in almost ninety years, and the brand carries that weight of history without leaning on it too heavily. The three drams poured across the evening — paired with intention to each course — gave guests a chance to move through the distillery's range in a way that a standalone tasting rarely allows. Food changes whiskey. A bite of something savoury, a spoonful of something rich, and a dram you thought you knew reveals a different side of itself. That was the quiet alchemy at work on Sunday night. Those who had already attended the Titanic Distillers Distillery Evening earlier in the week arrived with a foundation of knowledge that deepened the experience further still.

The storytelling element was what gave this event its particular character. Tales of the old Belfast shipyards — drawn from those who had actually worked the docks, or whose fathers and grandfathers had — wove through the evening like smoke through a warehouse. These were not polished heritage-industry anecdotes but the real thing: graft, humour, loss, and a fierce civic pride in what was built on the banks of the Lagan. Harland and Wolff's cranes, Samson and Goliath, still loom over that same tír today, and there was something quietly powerful about raising a glass of Belfast whiskey inside that history. The cocktails — served alongside the drams — added a lighter register to the proceedings and showed off the distillery's spirits in a different, more playful light.

At £40 a head for a three-course dinner, three drams, cocktails, and two hours of genuine good company, the Taste of the Shipyard represented one of the more complete value propositions of BWW 2023. It belonged comfortably in the company of the festival's other fine dining and supper experiences — the Urban Scullery Supper Club Extra and the Redbreast Fine Dining at Waterman Restaurant both drew similar praise for marrying serious food with serious whiskey — but this one had something all its own: a rootedness in Belfast's working identity that felt earned rather than curated.

Titanic Distillers continues to be one of the flagship presences across the whole festival calendar — from Distillery Days and Signature Tours to cocktail sessions, pub takeovers at Bittles and Maddens, and the Labyrinth Charity Ball — and the Taste of the Shipyard dinner showed exactly why. It distilled, if you'll forgive the word, everything that makes this city worth celebrating: the stories, the craft, the hospitality, and the deep, abiding pleasure of a good dram shared with good people. Sláinte mhaith.