Whiskey Clubs Talk at The Regency | 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/23/892

On a Saturday afternoon in late October 2023, the elegant surroundings of The Regency on Upper Crescent became a living room of sorts — a place where the question Why Whiskey Club? could be asked properly, answered honestly, and toasted with something worthy of the conversation. Session 4 of 6 in Belfast Whiskey Week's Regency Collaboration Series, this intimate talk brought together Paul Kane and Annie Bethell to unpack one of the quiet revolutions reshaping how people around the world engage with uisce beatha.

About This Event

With the Striking Recency on Upper Crescent, we have designed an Elegant Series of Bespoke Collaborations with Belfast’s most Desirable of Residences. We want you to Savour Exclusive Whiskies, Meet New Faces and Experience the Attention to Detail and Opulence as well as the Excellent Customer Care that the team at the Regency has to offer. In This Session (4 of 6), On the Sofa with…”Paul Kane and Annie Bethell” (Why Whiskey Club?), we get the chance to discuss the relevance and importance of Whiskey Clubs, both for us as consumers and the Whiskey Industry. There has been a rise in participant numbers joining Whiskey Clubs around the World, with enthusiastic volunteers putting a lot of time and effort and their own money into creating welcoming clubs where likeminded people come and share whiskies together. The vast amount of on-line communities that exist have also given rise to smaller brands gaining global followings and some with their very own community-led fan clubs or Kults. Expect the chat to start off at learner's pace, before it steam rolls the early afternoon, with personal triumphs, challenges and visions for the future. Let this intimate tasting of Whiskey Club Whiskies be an opportunity to for you to get your oar in, a chance to talk about your vision of the future of whiskey clubs in Belfast. We have some exceptional drams and bespoke cocktails for you to sip, accompanied with local produce; while you get comfy and discover the taste of whiskies made for clubs. Timeslot: 3pm-6pm Start Time: 3:30pm Duration: 2hrs Venue: The Regency Drinks: 3 Drinks Type: Talk 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

There is something fitting about hosting a conversation on community in a space as deliberately convivial as The Regency. Sitting on Upper Crescent — one of Belfast's most striking Victorian addresses — The Regency is a residence that understands the art of making people feel genuinely welcome, and on this particular Saturday afternoon it set exactly the right tone. The sofas were comfortable, the light was warm, and three carefully chosen drams sat waiting like an unspoken invitation to settle in and stay a while.

Paul Kane and Annie Bethell arrived not as lecturers but as fellow enthusiasts, and that distinction mattered. The conversation started, as promised, at learner's pace — what is a whiskey club, really? Why do they exist? — before gathering its own momentum as the afternoon rolled on. What emerged was a rich, candid exchange about the duchas of whiskey culture: the inherited sense that this is a drink best shared, best understood in company, best appreciated when someone across a table from you lights up at a pour they weren't expecting. Attendance at whiskey clubs worldwide has grown steadily in recent years, and both speakers had lived that growth from the inside, bringing with them personal triumphs and the kind of frank acknowledgement of challenges that only comes from people who've given their own time and money to something they believe in.

The rise of online communities took up a fair portion of the discussion — and rightly so. Smaller distilleries and independent bottlers who might once have struggled to build an audience beyond their own postcode have found devoted global followings through exactly the kind of community-driven enthusiasm that whiskey clubs embody. Some brands have even cultivated what the speakers cheerfully described as kults: tightly knit, fan-led followings with their own rituals and vernacular. It was a thread that connected naturally to other explorations happening across the week's programme — not unlike the global perspective on offer at Around the World in Eight Drams, where geography and community intersect in the glass.

The whiskies poured were well chosen for the occasion — expressions either made in collaboration with clubs or reflecting that community-first ethos — and the bespoke cocktails and local produce that accompanied them added a distinctly Belfast texture to the afternoon. Attendees were encouraged to get their oar in, and they did: the room had plenty to say about where whiskey clubs in Belfast are headed, what they need, and what they owe to the wider culture of the uisce beatha. In that sense it shared a spirit with events like On the Couch with Women Who Whiskey, where conversation itself was the main event, and the drams were its punctuation. For anyone thinking about the long seanchas of whiskey culture — the stories passed on, the knowledge shared between people — this was an afternoon that sat firmly within that tradition.

By the time the session wound down towards six o'clock, The Regency had done what it does best: created a space where strangers became acquaintances, acquaintances became friends, and everyone left with at least one opinion they hadn't arrived with. Slàinte to Paul, Annie, and everyone who pulled up a cushion and joined the conversation. If you're curious about the full breadth of what BWW 2023 offered, the Whiskey Map gives a good sense of just how far across the world — and how deep into community — the week's programming reached.