The Craft Drinks Trail

Start the day in Downpatrick (*Dún Pádraig*), the cathedral town where Saint Patrick is buried. You need a proper breakfast before a day of tasting. Try Denvir's Hotel — it claims to be the oldest coaching inn in Ireland, and the full Ulster fry is the real thing. Soda bread, black pudding, and strong tea to set you up. Or head to Daily Grind on Market Street for something lighter — good coffee, pastries, and a window seat overlooking the town. Either way, don't rush. The first tour doesn't start until 10:30.

Ten minutes south of Downpatrick, at the end of a long gravel drive flanked by old oak trees, you'll find Rademon Estate. Fiona and David Boyd-Armstrong converted a farm building into a distillery in 2012 and created Shortcross Gin — the first gin to be distilled in Northern Ireland in more than 180 years. The guided tour takes you through the whole process: the copper pot stills (they named them), the botanical garden where they grow their own botanicals (wild clover, elderflower, elderberries from the hedgerows), and the blending room where you taste the finished product. The gin is crisp, floral, and unmistakably local — you taste the estate in it. Book ahead. Tours fill up, especially in summer. The shop stocks gins, vodkas, and poitín you won't find anywhere else.

Head back into Downpatrick for lunch before the afternoon leg. The town has more going on than most visitors realise. Denvir's Hotel does a solid lunch menu — seafood chowder, beer-battered fish, locally sourced steaks. If you want something more casual, Oakley Fayre on Market Street is a good call for sandwiches and soups made with local produce. If the weather is with you, grab a takeaway and sit on the grounds of Down Cathedral — lunch with a view of the grave of Ireland's patron saint is hard to beat for conversation value.

From Downpatrick, drive south towards the Mournes. At the foot of the mountains, in the townland of Killowen near Rostrevor, Brendan Carty built a distillery so small you could fit the entire operation in a generous living room. This is Ireland's smallest licensed distillery — a direct-fired copper pot still producing whiskey the old way, before industrialisation smoothed everything out. Brendan's approach is deliberate: small batches, unusual cask finishes (rum, acacia honey, Hungarian oak), and a style that tastes nothing like the big-brand Irish whiskeys. The tour is intimate — this is one person showing you their craft, not a corporate visitor centre. You'll taste whiskey straight from the cask, learn why peated malt behaves differently over a naked flame, and understand why the Mournes matter to the flavour. If you care about whiskey at all, this is the highlight of the day.

Just down the road from Killowen, on the shore of Carlingford Lough, NearyNógs is Northern Ireland's first bean-to-bar chocolate maker. They import raw cacao beans directly from small farms in Colombia, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic, then roast, crack, winnow, and temper everything on site — from bean to finished bar with nothing in between. The factory is small, the process is absorbing, and the tasting afterwards is the sort of thing you'll be talking about at dinner. Try the Mourne sea salt bar and the single-origin dark chocolate. If you're smart, you'll leave with a bag full of bars for people back home. If you're smarter, you'll buy extra because those "gifts" will be gone before you cross the border.

Drive north through the mountains to Castlewellan, where Whitewater Brewery has been making craft beer on a working farm since 1996 — long before "craft beer" was a phrase anyone used in this part of the world. They were the pioneers, and they're still here. The brewery sits in a converted barn with views of the Mournes. Every beer is named after the landscape: Belfast Ale, Maggie's Leap IPA (named for the coastal chasm south of Newcastle), Copperhead (for the autumn bracken on the mountains). The tap room is the kind of place where a quick tasting turns into an hour of conversation. If you're the designated driver, there's no shame in buying a mixed case for later. The Maggie's Leap is the flagship — hoppy, golden, and very drinkable.

End the day in Rostrevor (*Ros Treabhair*), the adventure village on Carlingford Lough. After a day of tasting gin, whiskey, chocolate, and beer, you want somewhere relaxed and honest. The Kilbroney Bar does hearty pub food with views over the lough — good steaks, fish and chips, and a drinks list that will include at least one thing you tasted today. The Corner House is a solid local choice — friendly, unpretentious, generous portions. If you want something more refined, The Rostrevor Inn offers a seasonal menu with local produce. Whichever you choose, you've earned a pint of Whitewater and the view across the lough to the Cooley Mountains. This is how a craft drinks trail should end — in a village that feels like it's been waiting for you.