A few weeks ago I was talking to the team at the new McConnell’s Distillery and they very kindly offered me a tour!
I am partial to an Irish whiskey or three, and so is Jamesy, so we decided that this would make an excellent busman’s holiday and headed up to the distillery’s new home in Crumlin Road Gaol!
The distillery and visitors section are located in the A Wing of the gaol, in what was originally the women’s wing, where the Belfast Suffragettes were held over a century ago.
The conversion of the A Wing has been very sympathetically done, using traditional materials and retaining most of the original features – it still looks like a Victorian gaol, but with three huge copper stills in it.
The history of McConnell’s Distillery
The distillery only opened in April 2024, but the McConnell’s brand was established in 1776 by grocer and spirit dealer Hugh McConnell. He died young, leaving his wife Eleanor and three small children.
Surprisingly, Eleanor not only continued the business but developed it, and by 1841 McConnell’s appeared in Martin’s Trade Directory as a ‘rectifying distiller’.
Demand grew, and in 1899 J&J McConnell’s opened a new distillery and brewery on reclaimed ground on the Ravenhill Road, south of the River Lagan. This distillery was known as Cromac Distillery and it made use of the famously pure soft water from the Cromac wells.
Incidentally, the same water was used by companies like Cantrell & Cochrane (C&C) to produce soft drinks which were exported around the world. In fact, C&C produced the very first ginger ale (which goes very well with Irish whiskey!) from Cromac water in the 1850s.
Unfortunately, distilleries were prone to catching fire back then, and in 1907 McConnell’s was badly damaged, with 50 tons of malt destroyed and £5,000 worth of damage to buildings and machinery done.
Two years later another fire broke out at McConnell’s – one of the largest on record in Belfast at the time. Their warehouse on Dunbar Street was burnt to the ground and half a million gallons of whiskey were destroyed. This time the loss was officially estimated at £200,000.
Luckily McConnell’s had five other warehouses and their distillery was unaffected, so the company continued to trade. In fact, it wasn’t fire but Prohibition in the United States that finally closed the distillery down in the 1930s.
McConnell’s Whisky was relaunched in 2020 and moved to its new home in Crumlin Road Gaol this year.
You’ll notice that unlike most Irish whiskies, it’s spelt without an ‘e’, but that was how it was originally spelt on the old bottles and the company decided to stick with the tradition!
The visitors centre
The visitors centre is an absolute treat. There’s a gift shop, a lovely little bar (which would make a great stop after you’ve visited the main gaol!) and of course, the distillery itself.
Our guide was Gerard, and he did a brilliant job – we couldn’t believe it when he told us afterwards that it was only his sixth tour! We started on the first floor with a McConnell’s and ginger while we learned about the history of the whiskey, and then we were shown each step of the distilling process.
After the tour of the distillery we had a flight of the base spirit, followed by the Five Year Old, and the Sherry Cask. We also got some instruction on how to savour the whiskey properly – apparently you have to open your mouth and inhale as you lift your glass to get the full effect!
We had a great time at McConnell’s distillery – the only problem was it had put us in the mood for more drinks! So we took ourselves down to the Duke of York (with a short stop along the way at The Reporter) where we continued our whiskey tasting in a slightly more free form style.
We are not proud of the pictures below.
Tickets for the tour of McConnell’s distillery are £25 with drink and £20 without – children aged 10-18 can accompany adults for £15 (and no drink, obviously!).
If you are booking a private West Belfast tour with us, let us know if you want to add a visit to the distillery to the tour and we’ll do our best to arrange it.
The cafe and bar are open to the public without needing to take the tour. It’s a great addition to the Belfast tour scene and well worth a visit.
But maybe learn from our mistake and don’t use it as a launching pad for a pub crawl!
