Whiskey Island Premium Whiskey Tours and Tasting
Whiskey Island offers a suite of fully escorted whiskey trails and distillery tours to the four corners of Ireland. We also specialise in fun comparison whiskey tastings at private events nationwide. Whiskey Island was born in response to the incredible distillery boom taking the country by storm right now. Our goal is to share our whiskeys, and the stories of the people behind the whiskey, with the discerning visitor to Ireland.
We are in contact with nearly 60 distilleries and brand homes. Some are open for business and others are still work in progress. All of these whiskey stops are offering unique whiskey experiences (and in some cases; gin, vodka and poitin experiences!) sharing their stories and whiskeys with pride. We have come a long way from the total of five whiskey visitor attractions in Ireland 10 years ago!
Our goal is to minimise repetition. If we take a small group on a whiskey trail over 3 days for instance, and we visit 6 distilleries, really our guests only need hear the process piece once. We want our guests to sample many brands of whiskey during their time with us, and meet the people behind the brands so that their entire whiskey trail tells overall story of Irish whiskey through the ages.
Malahide Castle Dublin Whiskey Tours.
Our trails cover the entire island of Ireland. We have two whiskey trails in Dublin taking in all the city’s whiskey stops between them over a half-day. We have an overnight trail to Northern Ireland taking in the new distilleries of County Down along with the famous Old Bushmills Distillery at the end of the spectacular Causeway Coast. We have a three day trail through the east of the country with overnights in Kilkenny & Cork. We’ve also put together a lovely extended trail along the west coast, from Donegal to Kerry, blending (excuse the pun) whiskey & golf. Golf and whiskey are a match made in heaven! Of course, most of the trails we put together are bespoke.
We receive as many requests for whiskey tastings as we do whiskey trails. Some groups, especially corporate, might not have time for a distillery tour while in Ireland. So we bring the whiskey to them and conduct our tastings at their hotel or venue, typically before or after dinner.
We are full service and manage all land components for our clients; executive transportation, hotels, guiding, airport transfers, meals and distillery visits of course. Our trails are not 100% whiskey focused; we include the must-sees in the areas we’re exploring also. We are not going to whizz past the Cliffs of Moher or the Giant’s Causeway in a hurry to get to the next distillery for instance! Our trails have whiskey in their heart, but there’s lots of essential sight-seeing along the way.
Stuart McNamara (@WhiskeyBlogger) is an international Whiskey Blogger who edits several International Whisk(e)y and Whiskey Tourism sites including IrishWhiskey.com and WhiskeyBlogger.com. He is Chair of the Irish Craft And Artisan Distilleries Association (ICADA) and is an elected member of the National Council of ISME, the Irish SME Association. He is also the creator and editor of International Irish Whiskey Day which is celebrated on 3/3 or 3rd March each year and had a global social media reach in 2021 of over 20 Million. He is a Director of Portmagee Whiskey and has also acted as both a brand and product development consultant to several other Irish Whiskey and other spirits producers.
