W.D. O'Connell x Rattlebag Cocktail Takeover | 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 events that tick along nicely, and then there are events that feel like they were made for a particular afternoon in a particular city. The W.D. O'Connell x Rattlebag Collaboration — event number 100 in the Belfast Whiskey Week 2023 programme — was firmly in the latter camp. On a Friday in late July, Daithí O'Connell brought his collection of independently bottled Irish whiskeys across from County Waterford and handed the keys of a bespoke cocktail menu to the Rattlebag team, and the result was something genuinely worth talking about.

About This Event

Come and join Daithí from W.D. O'Connell Whiskey Merchants and the Rattlebag team for an exclusive tasting event, featuring several whiskeys new and old from the W.D. O’Connell collection and a bespoke cocktail menu available for one night only.

Deep down, Daithí O’Connell is an adventurer. His passion for culture and travel has taken him from Ireland to Australia to Hong Kong to Dubai. With decades of experience in food & beverage across three continents, Daithí’s love of Ireland and whiskey brought him back to County Waterford and his headquarters in Kilmacthomas. From our humble beginnings as an idea for a distillery to our current fast-growing independent bottling business, we share the love of adventure and surprise that set Daithí out on his global trek.

Our business is founded in the traditions of Irish whiskey with an eye toward a large impact on an ever-changing industry. Independent bottlers were a key part of the Irish whiskey origin story. We are excited to bring new life to that heritage, connecting old whiskey fans and newcomers to spirits they cannot get anywhere else.

In the bygone tradition of bottlers and bonders from the earliest days of Irish whiskey, we seek out the finest new-make and mature spirits from the best of Ireland’s distillers.

Date: Friday 28th July

Timeslot: 3pm-6pm

Start Time: 3.30pm

Duration: 2.5hrs

Venue: Rattlebag

Drinks: 4 Drams

Type: Takeover

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

Rattlebag is one of those Belfast venues that earns its reputation quietly — a considered drinks list, a crowd that knows what it's about, and staff who take hospitality seriously without taking themselves too seriously. It made for an apt home for W.D. O'Connell's afternoon takeover, a brand whose entire philosophy rests on that same balance of knowledge and warmth. Daithí O'Connell is, as his own story goes, an adventurer — decades spent across Australia, Hong Kong and Dubai in food and beverage before the pull of Irish whiskey and the fields of Kilmacthomas brought him home to Waterford. That duchas, that sense of returning to your own tír, ran quietly through everything that followed.

The format was a tasting-meets-cocktail-evening hybrid, and it worked better than it had any right to. Guests received four drams drawn from the W.D. O'Connell collection — a range that champions the old craft of independent bottling, sourcing new-make and mature spirits from distilleries across Ireland and presenting them under one roof. Independent bottlers were foundational to the Irish whiskey origin story, and W.D. O'Connell is one of the few modern operators serious about honouring that seanchas while genuinely pushing the category forward. The drams on the afternoon spanned both the newer and more established end of the range, giving attendees a chance to trace the house style across different expressions.

Alongside the poured whiskeys, Rattlebag's bespoke cocktail menu — available for that one night only — gave the event a creative edge that set it apart from a standard masterclass. This wasn't about dressing whiskey up to disguise it; it was about finding how good Irish whiskey moves when given a little room to stretch. The two hours and thirty minutes felt purposeful rather than rushed, and the afternoon crowd — seated, attentive, genuinely curious — seemed to appreciate that pace. If the cocktail side of the 2023 festival caught your interest, it's also worth looking back at the Echlinville Cocktail Takeover and the Dublin Liberties Cocktail Masterclass, both of which showed how varied and inventive Belfast Whiskey Week's cocktail strand had become that year.

What lingered after the event, beyond the whiskey itself, was the sense that Daithí O'Connell is a host with genuine stories to tell. The global miles he's accumulated have given him a perspective on Irish whiskey that's rare — one that respects tradition without being imprisoned by it. W.D. O'Connell occupies a specific and important space in the Irish whiskey landscape: not a distillery in the conventional sense, but a curator and a connector, bringing drinkers to expressions they simply couldn't find elsewhere. Sláinte to that. For those who missed the event, the full Belfast Whiskey Week collection is the best place to explore what the festival has to offer across its many years and collaborations.