Love Your Local:  'My journey from a whiskey business into my own bar’ - video Dailymotion

News Letter

Sam MacDonald, owner and operator of the Pure Irish tasting room in Ballyackmore, tells of how a 16-year career in the whiskey industry led to him opening his own bar in 2024

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00:00I'm Sam MacDonald and I'd like to welcome you here to my little whisky bar in Ballyhackamore

00:11in Belfast.

00:12This place is situated just within the Hearth pub, so we're upstairs, nestled away, a little

00:18bit hidden, but it's a very special place that I've created.

00:23Every whisky in this room is a single cask, single malt, so not only do they all come

00:28from individual distilleries, these all come from individual casks from individual distilleries,

00:32so they're kind of like, if you're a wine drinker, vintages of single malt.

00:36So very much the most interesting style of whiskies that you can get.

00:40And what I've created here is a room to best appreciate those whiskies, so it's very much

00:46about amplifying the experience as much as possible.

00:50So everything down to the stone top bar, which I serve on, which is like marble, so it keeps

00:57the whiskies at cellar temperature, to the glassware that I use, to the whiskies themselves,

01:03which as I say, are all individual.

01:05The water is all very specifically selected from Slemish Mountain, from St. Patrick's

01:10Well, and again, it's about creating the most amazing experience, the ultimate experience.

01:15My reasons for doing this is very much down to my experience in the industry.

01:20So I have worked in this industry for 16, nearly 17 years now, and I'm very fortunate

01:26that I've got to travel all over the world, experiencing whisky bars in loads of different

01:31places, and I've been inspired by how other countries serve Irish and Scottish whisky

01:36really wonderfully.

01:38So as I said before, each of the whiskies are single cask, so you'll never be able to

01:42get these whiskies necessarily ever again, so every experience that you're having is

01:48a once in a lifetime thing, and I want that to be the case.

01:52My objective is to create the best whisky bar in this country.

Love Your Local: 'My journey from a whiskey business into my own bar’

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