Belfast City Airport - Duty Free

On a recent trip to England I had the delightful pleasure of flying out of the George Best - Belfast City Airport and had an opportunity to browse through the whisky selection within duty free.

Now any of you who have flown out of this airport will know that it is not exactly up there with Heathrow in terms of size, choice of shops or facilities but as far as a lowly Northern Ireland airport goes the whisky selection is not too bad at all.

As you edge through duty free, towards the magical shelves, the first thing that strikes your eye is a "2 for £70" offer on selected bottles.  At the time of writing this the bottles in this offer included - 

Aberlour 12yr 

Ardmore - Traditional Cask

Auchentoshan - Springwood

Benromach 10yr

Chivas Brother's Blend

Drambuie 15yr

Glen Garioch - Founder's Reserve

Glenrothes - Robur Reserve

Highland Park - Einar

Jura - Superstition

Old Pulteney - Noss Head

Woodford Reserve

In addition they have a "2 for £60" offer on Johnnie Walker - Double Black.

With each bottle being 1 litre in size I'm sure you'll all agree that £35 a bottle for any of these (or £30 a bottle of Double Black) is good value indeed.  I am of course saying this in the knowledge and recognition that the majority of these are NAS whiskies but when you are hindered by a small number of quality whisky shops, in Belfast, I feel these represent good value to try something a little different.

Looking elsewhere along the shelves you will find more duty free exclusives from distilleries such as Talisker, Glenfiddich, Bowmore, Glenlivet amongst others.

For those of you wishing to sample a dram from a little closer to where you are flying from they have a decent selection of Irish whiskies with Bushmills and Jameson represented well alongside standard bottlings of Tyrconnell, Connemara, Greenore, Kilbeggan and Tullamore Dew.  The only real exclusive of note amongst these was a Jameson Signature Reserve.

Lastly I'll also make mention of the service that is provided for those of you who wish to avail of these offers but are flying away on a short trip and don't want to have to carry a couple of bottles of whisky around with you on your trip.  If this is a worry then you can buy as much as you like and allow the airport to securely store these for you where you can collect them upon your return to Belfast. 

All in all I feel, that amongst a limited market, the duty free at Belfast City Airport is an extra outlet that can sometimes be overlooked and should maybe be considered more often for a chance to expand your whisky collection.

Until next time,

Sláinte.

SI

"World of Whiskies" website with more info on bottles and offers - http://worldofwhiskies.com