Terroir-Driven: The Waterford Whisky Podcast

In the latest episode of the season, we've gathered the team behind the Arcadian Farm Origin Whiskies from Waterford Distillery for a fireside chat. After eight episodes covering the various groundbreaking whisky releases in the series, we wanted to bring the whisky makers together to follow up on some of the topics covered this season, get some additional insights on the whiskies released and try to sneakily get some information on future releases. In this fireside chat, we're joined by Head Distiller Ned Gahan, Head Brewer Neil Conway and Terroir Coordinator Angelita Fonseca-Hynes.

With two peated whisky releases now on the market, the team from Waterford Distillery reveals the unlikely journey that the distillery took on its way to releasing these expressions, we’ll hear about challenges inherent within the Irish whisky landscape of producing peated whiskies the Waterford way and we’ll discuss proposed legislation that could threaten the very use of peat by distilleries in Ireland.

For almost 20 years one solitary Irish whisky represented the peated category. Today that number has swelled to almost fifty different peated expressions, with more on the way. Are palates warming to the smoky characteristics of a peated whisky or has there long been a lack of supply? Many Irish whisky brand owners have now put smoke and peat front and center in their ranges. In this episode we meet the makers betting on peat.

In releasing its first two peated Irish Single Malt Whiskies to the market, Waterford Distillery has not only made history for the distillery but for the world of Irish whisky, being the first distillery to make a whisky entirely from Irish barley dried over Irish peat in generations. Often overshadowed by its Scottish neighbours when it comes to talk of smoky or peated whiskies, Ireland's historic use of peat tells its own remarkable story of cultural and economic development, of communities built and indistries created. In this episode of the Waterford Whisky Podcast, we examine that rich history and its relevance to the world of whisky.

For years, once-widespread barley varieties such as Hunter, Goldthorpe and Old Irish lay dormant, yet preserved, in the Department of Agriculture's Seed Bank outside Dublin. These grains held the flavours and stories of a different time where different approaches to farming, brewing and distilling reigned. If Waterford Distillery was to continue its quest of pursuing whisky flavour and "the old ways" the team knew that what they sought lay in cold storage in the laboratories of the Seed Bank. In this episode we'll share how Waterford Distillery and its growing partners turned 50 grams of heritage barley into 50 barrels of whisky through a 5 year-long passion-fueled process full of challenges and new learnings.

At the turn of the 20th century, farmers in the south of Ireland led the barley breeding movement, creating strong, resilient varieties of barley grown to be malted for use in beer and whisky making. Were these grains more flavourful? Did they exhibit characteristics that we may have interest in today? Most of these historic, heritage varieties have long since died out, but five years ago the team at Waterford Distillery wondered if they might be able to resurrect some of these long-lost grains. They began by exploring the history of Ireland's heritage barley varieties.

The growing, the farmers, the soil, the barley are all well documented at Waterford Distillery. Once the barley is picked up from the growers it begins the journey that will lead ultimately to the distillery. In the last season of the podcast, we broke down the entire process from growing to bottling and shared in detail the unique process at the distillery whereby each farm’s barley is stored, malted, brewed and distilled separately from other farms' harvests. When it comes to biodynamic and organic whisky making, however, there are extra complexities to ensure compliance with the certifying bodies.

In this week’s episode we’re continuing the exploration of biodynamic farming and growing that we began investigating last week and we’re going to get a better understanding of what makes a farm, a grain and a whisky organic. We’ll hear from the growers behind the barley that eventually ends up in Waterford Distillery’s biodynamic and organic whiskies and we’re heading to the central valley of California to hear from a grower who is led by the spiritual approach to biodynamic farming and we’ll hear from a best-in-class pioneer of the biodynamic wine world in France.

In this season we’re following the flavour, pulling back the covers on Waterford Distillery’s unique approach and philosophy when it comes to barley, focusing on the Arcadian Farm Origins, a collection of whiskies with their roots in how whisky used to be made. They represent real rarity, due to the scarcity of the raw material. Before the mass production demands of today dictated what an entire industry grew, how they grew it and how they malted, fermented, distilled and matured, there were different approaches to whisky making - approaches tied more to nature, to age old practices; approaches dependent on available natural resources rather than artificial substitutes. Did these approaches yield more flavour? The Arcadian Farm Origin whiskies seeks to answer this question and in this episode we're going to begin understanding how the team at Waterford intends to do that.

In the final episode of our series we hear from the scientists and researchers who have spent the last two years investigating whether terroir can exist in whisky and we learn how the team at Waterford Distillery intends to build on their first whisky releases to achieve their goal of producing the most flavourful litre of alcohol ever created.

Does Waterford Distillery's approach matter to whisky drinkers? What do those who buy the whisky think about terroir and the data it gives access to? Can there be too much information shared? In this episode of Terroir-Driven: The Waterford Whisky Podcast, we hear from those who drink the whisky to try to get a better understanding of what matters to them, what they like and dislike about the whisky and we'll hear how whisky drinkers' expectations of their whisky producers have changed over the past few years. We'll also hear from founder Mark Reynier about his hopes for how Waterford's whisky is enjoyed.

Can a whisky’s terroir survive maturation? Why is such a large percentage of Waterford Distillery’s budget committed to the purchase and storage of casks? How much of a whisky’s flavour come from its time in a cask? What happens the whisky as it matures? In this episode of Terroir-Driven: The Waterford Whisky podcast, we’re answering these questions and more as we examine the most time-consuming aspect of whisky making, maturation, in order to best understand how the spirit and wood interact with one another and collectively build upon each previous step of the whisky making process in the pursuit of the most flavourful litre of alcohol ever created.

When we think of whisky production, brochure-friendly polished copper stills, stainless steel and piping spring to mind, but what really happens at this stage? Can the flavour nuances of terroir survive what appears from the outside to be quite an industrial process? In this episode of Terroir-Driven: The Waterford Whisky podcast, we’re looking at the science behind distillation, the unique low and slow distilling approach favoured by Waterford Distillery and how distillation can preserve, concentrate and maximise each barley field’s unique flavour.

Waterford Distillery’s unique whisky-making approach is centered around capturing the unique flavours present in each of the grower’s fields of barley. Before distilling can concentrate the flavours, there are a few essential steps to help extract those flavours from the grain and preserve their terroir. In this episode of Terroir-Driven: The Waterford Whisky podcast, we’ll follow the barley from the field to the maltster and on to the brewing stage with Grace O’Reilly, Waterford Distillery’s agronomist and Neil Conway, Head Brewer.

A terroir-driven approach to whisky making begins with the land - the fields and farms that give Waterford Distillery its barley. It's in these fields that the growers and their families maximize the flavour-potential of their barley crop. Aided and advised by Grace O’Reilly, Ireland’s only distillery-employed agronomist, growers follow a different process to growing and harvesting. In this episode of Terroir-Driven: The Waterford Whisky podcast we’ll meet growers who have farmed their land for generations, we’ll learn what it means to them to be part of Waterford Distillery’s approach and we’ll follow barley’s journey from sowing to harvesting.

Terroir - a word and approach more associated with wine making than whisky making has had its critics and detractors since the first day Mark Reynier announced he was building a distillery on its very premise. In this episode of Terroir-Driven: The Waterford Whisky podcast, we hear from whisky industry experts and enthusiasts who paint a picture of a whisky industry that has followed a certain approach to whisky making for many years and how Waterford Distillery’s pursuit of a barley and a flavour-forward process has been met with raised eyebrows and criticism from whisky producers and consumers alike. We’ll hear how early criticisms led to the establishment of a scientific study to determine conclusively whether terroir has a verifiable impact on whisky’s flavour and we’ll pose some of the criticisms leveled against this terror-driven approach to those inside the distillery.

Waterford Whisky has been years in the making. Before the establishment of the distillery and before terroir-driven spirit flowed from the stills on the banks of the River Suir, founder Mark Reynier spent a career in the wine and Scotch whisky world. Inspired by a different approach to the growing of vines and barley, Mark applied the insights gleaned in the years prior to his arrival in Waterford to the planning of a very different type of whisky distillery. In this first episode of Terroir-Driven: The Waterford Whisky podcast, Mark Reynier opens up about the events that led him to Ireland’s South East and shares with host Barry Chandler how he set about building a new approach to whisky making from farm to bottle. This episode takes us all the way back to the beginning - to the genesis of an idea and what it took to bring the idea of terroir-driven whisky to life.

Waterford Distillery Founder Mark Reynier has spent the last 5 years telling everyone who’ll listen (and even those who won’t) that he believes there’s an alternative to how whiskey has been made for generations. He believes there’s a better way and that mass production and a focus on yield has replaced a focus on flavour. He has strong opinions and firmly held beliefs and he’s betting the farm, many farms in fact, on these opinions being true and ultimately that they’ll matter to the whisky drinker who purchases a bottle of Waterford Whisky. Central to his approach is the concept of Terroir - a french term used to describe how a particular place’s climate, soils and terrain affect the taste of a crop and consequently the product it becomes an ingredient of. Is all this talk of Terroir just hype? Is it a marketing stunt? It may be universally accepted in France but can it translate to the world of whisky production? Why are so many people arguing about its very existence? It’s a topic that has divided whiskey makers, drinkers and anyone with even a passing interest in the world of whisky production. My name is Barry Chandler, an Irish whiskey enthusiast and I’ve been fascinated by Waterford Distillery’s approach and beliefs since first visiting the distillery in late 2019. In this podcast series I’m going to dive deep into the world of Terroir and one distillery’s journey to not just make a whisky inspired by it, but to prove, scientifically, and beyond doubt, that it exists. Each episode you’ll hear from distillers, scientists, growers, and whisk(e)y drinkers. They’ll share their opinions and perspectives so that you get to make your own mind up about whether Waterford Distillery’s approach matters to you.