Whyte & Mackay Showcase | 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/23/212

There's something quietly ceremonial about the Friday night of Belfast Whiskey Week — the first full day of the festival behind you, the weekend stretching ahead like an open cask. On the evening of Friday 21st October 2023, Whyte & Mackay brought their considerable portfolio to the table for From Island to Highland, a late-night showcase that drew attendees into the world of Jura, Fettercairn, and the incomparable Dalmore across a generous two-and-a-half hours of guided exploration.

About This Event

Friday Night and we have the opportunity to relax after our first day of the festival! Pull up a chair, grab a snack and lets look at a selection of whiskies from the Islands to the Highlands. We’ll explore the likes of Jura, Fettercairn and the famous Dalmore. We want cask strengths, older expressions, non-chilled filtered and great tasting whiskies; we are not asking for much. The Whyte & Mackay portfolio is extensive, and yet these three distilleries stand out. Dalmore is so recognisable, and yet, it's so understated. It’s like the prettiest person in the room, and you're somehow scared to talk to them; that’s Dalmore. The fear of rejection is high, yet the reward is great! Then there is the Jura. An Island whiskey that has pushed limits in regards to cask expression, levels of peatedness and taste. It’s great to revisit these bottles. Finally, Fettercairn, which has been around forever, yet seems like a new brand. Hundreds of years of history, and some super single malts from its unique stills. This will be fun! Timeslot: 9pm-12am Start Time: 9pm Duration: 2.5hrs Venue: TBC Drinks: 6 Drams Type: Showcase 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

Pull up a chair was exactly the right invitation. By nine o'clock, the room had settled into that particular rhythm that only a well-curated whiskey evening can produce — unhurried conversation, the clink of glass, and the kind of collective curiosity that makes a showcase like this sing. Six drams were on the table: cask-strength expressions, older bottlings, non-chill-filtered releases chosen to show the range and ambition of the Whyte & Mackay stable rather than its most familiar face. For many in the room, this was a chance to look past the labels they already knew and encounter something that surprised them.

Dalmore arrived first in the conversation, as it so often does — commanding, beautifully presented, that stag emblem carrying centuries of Highland gravitas. The description in the festival programme captured it perfectly: the prettiest person in the room, the one you're almost too intimidated to approach. But approach the group did, and the reward was considerable. Dalmore is a distillery that ages with extraordinary grace, its signature sherry cask influence layering rich Christmas cake and orange peel across a spine of deep, measured oak. In the expressions poured that evening, there was nothing showy — just quiet confidence in every glass.

Jura offered something altogether different, and all the more welcome for it. Island whisky carries its own duchas — a sense of place, of weather and shoreline baked into the spirit — and Jura wears that identity proudly while refusing to be boxed in by it. The distillery has long pushed at the edges of what Island Scotch can be, experimenting with cask finishes and varying levels of peat in ways that keep enthusiasts genuinely engaged. Revisiting those bottles in a festival setting, with fellow whiskey lovers around you to share notes and reactions, was a particular pleasure — the kind of communal seanchas around whisky that Belfast Whiskey Week does better than almost anywhere.

Then there was Fettercairn: the quiet revelation of the evening for many. A distillery with roots stretching back to 1824, operating in the northeast Highlands with a singular set of stills — water-cooled copper rings that produce a distinctively clean, fruited spirit — and yet somehow always feeling like a discovery rather than an institution. The single malts poured from Fettercairn had that quality of making you feel like you'd found something the rest of the world hadn't quite caught up with yet. If this showcase did one thing beyond everything else, it was putting Fettercairn in front of people who'd never quite given it the attention it deserves. Those who were also enjoying the broader festival programme that weekend may well have found similarly revelatory moments at the Indie Bottlers: Can We Expect Better? session, where independent bottlings brought their own spirit of discovery to the table.

Friday nights at BWW have a generous, unhurried quality that suits a showcase of this kind. By midnight, as the evening wound down, there was that satisfying sense of having covered real ground — not just geographically, from the island of Jura across to the east Highland heartland, but in terms of genuine whisky understanding. Whyte & Mackay's portfolio is broad enough that it could have felt unwieldy; instead, the focus on three distinct distilleries and carefully selected expressions gave the evening both shape and purpose. For those who'd been at the Glens of Antrim Distillery Showcase earlier in the day, the contrast between Irish and Scottish craft was a thread worth pulling — and for anyone curious about where Belfast Whiskey Week fits into the wider world of uisce beatha, our Whiskey Map charts the full geography of the festival's spirit. Sláinte mhaith to Whyte & Mackay for an evening that felt, from first pour to last, like exactly the right way to end a first day.