McConnell’s Distillery Review: Inside Belfast’s Historic Whiskey Revival

If you asked me what I thought I’d be doing on a rainy afternoon in Belfast, sipping whiskey in an old prison was probably not on the bingo card. And yet there I was, slightly drenched after making my way across town from visiting Titanic Belfast to the old Crumlin Road Gaol. The imposing security guard outside the prison museum almost made me think I was in the wrong place.

From The Ashes

Despite just opening in 2024, McConnell’s isn’t a trendy new whiskey label trying to fake old-world charm. This brand was actually established in 1776 and thrived for a long time until a string of disasters forced the distillery to close its door for nearly a hundred years.

In 1907, a fire tore through their distillery destroying 50 tons of malt and parts of the building. Only two years later, an even larger warehouse fire destroyed nearly half a million gallons of whiskey. When Prohibition in the US came in 1919, it caused the global demand for whiskey to drop by half. And by the time it ended in 1933, Scottish distilleries had adapted by using cheaper grain-based methods, while the Irish stuck to traditional pot stills and were left behind. McConnell’s officially closed in 1938. The name faded into obscurity.

At one point, Irish whiskey was the most popular spirit in the world. But by the 1970s, after years of war, economic decline, and consolidation, there were only two distilleries left in Ireland: Bushmills Distillery and Old Midleton Distillery. Both eventually operated under one monopolistic umbrella, and competition didn’t return until the Cooley Distillery opened in 1987. As recently as 2010, there were still four operational distilleries in Ireland. But things have changed and a great comeback story is playing out as demand Irish Whiskey is surging worldwide. In the US, it has overtaken Scottish Whisky.

Shots have been fired.

In 2020, the Belfast Distillery Company stepped in to revive the McConnell’s name while looking to put Belfast back on the Irish Whiskey distillery map. The original family is no longer involved, but their story is honored and the new group of distillers is aiming to build the brand beyond its original reputation.

Rebuilding Inside Prison Walls

While the company was cask busy aging their first batch of sourced spirits, work on the distillery began in 2022 – inside the A wing of the decommissioned Crumlin Road Gaol, a former Victorian prison that only closed down in 1996. The repurposing of such an odd choice of a building gives the distillery a unique space where visitors can see a working distillery as well as sit down in renovated cell blocks for a tasting.

In March 2024, the public finally got to just that.

On the ground floor, half the space is a showroom and reception area, while the other half is reserved for the on-site distillation. Old photographs show the gutting of the prison and installment of new V-shaped steel support columns and white tiles outlining where the removed cells used to be.

Much of the original architecture and many of the prison features remain, including a former cell with a makeshift ‘distiller.’ The second floor remains ‘open’ with a long corridor of tasting rooms and a bar connected by the original walkway over the top-lit atrium. Glass windows and doors replace the old steel enclosures, but the aesthetic undeniably retains features of its past.

The McConnell’s Signature Tour and Tasting

My visit and tour started with a history of the brand and a glass of the good stuff – one part whiskey mixed with two parts ginger ale. Why? Because the first ginger ale was originally created in none other than Belfast and it’s a great pairing with whiskey. The combination was so right that I felt like I must have had it before. But that was probably a false memory, because while I’ve mixed whisky with many things, I don’t ever recall ordering a ‘whisky and ginger ale.’

Fun Fact: Irish Whiskey is spelled with the ‘e,’ while Scottish Whisky is spelled without.

Oddly enough, as soon as I learned this, I looked at the McConnell’s bottle in front of me to find that it’s spelled ‘whisky’ without the e. Turns out, that whole ‘e’ in whiskey standard only started in the 19th century, long after the original founding of McConnell’s in 1776. They chose to keep the original spelling as a nod to their heritage.

While we looked closely at the bottle, it was pointed out that emblem on their topper is meant to represent the strings on the icon Harp of Erin and not prison bars, as it very much appears to look like. With the whole prison connection, I’m not so convinced – but I’ll go along with it. What do you think?

The Triple Distillation Process

The distillery tour includes a walk through of their facility and covers the basics of whiskey making, albeit specific to the McConnell’s process. The ingredients: malted barley, water, and yeast. That’s it. But from barley to bottle, a lot has to happen.

McConnell’s uses about 750 grams of malted barley to produce a single bottle. Roughly 30 tons are delivered and processed every week.

Mashing

Mashing marks the start of the brewing process as the grist (grounded barley) is fed into a Lauter Tun, where hot water activates the enzymes and converts the starches into fermentable sugars. The resulting liquid, known as ‘wort,’ is then separated from the spent grain. Farmers in the area can pick that up for free and use it for feed.

Fermentation

Next comes fermentation, where yeast is added to the wort to create alcohol, creating a low-alcoholic beer-like liquid called a ‘wash’. Fermentation time and temperature gets monitored carefully to create a distinctive flavor and alcohol profile.

Distillation

Distillation is where you get to the final spirit content via the unique Irish triple distillation method. McConnell’s uses three copper still pots, which you can see up close and side by side. In the spirit of restoration, the distillery has kept many vintage machinery from the early days of distillation.

Some are still in use, why others, like the spirit safe is no longer necessary. The locked box made of glass and brass sits between the stills and collection tank, where a sample of the spirit is collected, untampered, to be observed and measured. Unique to the process is that the only person who had a key was a tax officer working for Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise department. This was to ensure that spirits were not illegal siphoned off and can be taxed properly.

1. The Wash Still performs the first distillation by heating up the wash to 78°C, the boiling point of spirits. The alcohol will vaporize away from the water and move through a ‘neck’ into the next still. During this step, the ABV (alcohol by volume) goes from around 8% to 25% and the re-liquified vapors are known as ‘low wines’.
2. The Intermediate Still refines that the ‘low wines’ further into ‘strong feints,’ reaching 60 – 65% ABV. The shape of the stills and copper walls is important to the repeated processes of boiling and condensation and influences the flavor of the spirit.
3. The Spirit Still performs the distillation a third time, resulting in a clear spirit with a final ABV of around 80 – 82% or 40 proof . This is the new make that goes into barrels.

Aging

By Irish law, whiskey must age at least three years in wooden barrels in Ireland. McConnell’s has chosen to do a minimum age of five years. They began distilling their own mash in 2023, which means the first in-house distilled whiskey won’t be ready until 2029.

This was one of the easiest to understand explanations of the distillation process across the many distillery tours I’ve visited. It helped that our guide gave a simplified version of how prisoners in the very space we were standing in, used to make their own alcohol inside the cell blocks.

Distilling almost sounded so easy that I was ready to go home and build myself a little prison ‘hooch’ setup. For scientific purposes of course.

A Tasting Inside A Cell Block

We finished the tour in a sleek tasting room along the metal walkway where prisoners used to walk. Not hard to imagine when they’ve kept some of the original cells and doors as they were. We tasted from 3 drams with guidance and feedback.

Dram 1: The New Make

This was raw and straight from the final distillation. It came in at 50 percent ABV but was surprisingly smooth. There were notes of black currant and cream soda. I enjoyed it and wondered how it would taste once aged. A question that would

Dram 2: The 5-Year Blend

Aged in bourbon barrels that had only been used once, this one had a cleaner profile. The sugars caramelized from the barrel added sweetness. I also tasted vanilla, butterscotch, and a hit of roasted coffee after our guide mentioned it. The blend used 40% malt.

Dram 3: The Sherry Cask Finish

This one had an extra year of finishing in sherry casks meant to add an extra layer of complexity and flavor. It almost tasted like Christmas with notes of nutmeg, cinnamon, plum, and raisin. I could see myself enjoying this one regularly. (Update: found a bottle back in the States)

Worth the Visit?

Absolutely. McConnell’s was a highlight of my visit to Belfast. I love a good distillery visit, though for me as a photographer, it’s more about the space than the process. I find that a lot of new distillery repurpose old industrial buildings or warehouses. That McConnell’s went and did that with an old Victorian prison made the visit all the more special for me.

You can do their signature tour and tasting or you can opt for just the tour alone.

I loved the open space and being able to look down at the copper pots from the gangway. It was also an introduction into a wider world of Irish Whiskey beyond Bushmills and Jameson. I have a bottle of their Cask Finish sitting across from me right now, reserved for a neat pour or their famous McConnell’s 1776 cocktail, a take on the French 75.

McConnell’s 1776 Cocktail Recipe

1. Start with 40ml of McConnell’s Cognac Cask Finish
2. Add 20ml Pineapple Juice
3. Add 10ml Simple Syrup
4. Add Ice and Shake
5. Top with 60ml of Sparking Wine / Champagne
6. Garnish with Dried Pineapple Slice

Updated on June 13, 2025