In the wine world we are used to the idea of terroir being one of the most important factors in flavour. Similarly, in the world of whisky the idea of place and flavour going together is also logical and widely-known, for example the peaty whiskies from Islay and Sherry bombs from Speyside. However, in today’s world there is even greater emphasis on flavour than address. Peaty whisky doesn’t just come from Islay, it can come from Glasgow or even Australia for that matter, and sherry styles from Taiwan or Japan, for example in the form of Karuizawa.
Within the new world of whisky and flavour, there is one distillery which believes whole heartedly that a large part of the flavour does in fact come from the land on which the barley is grown, and the variety of barley used. Waterford have their barley grown in eighty six farms across Ireland. Each farm has a different soil type and plants different varieties of the grain. To be certain they can show the difference between them, they ferment and distil the barley from the different farms separately.
I’ve been to Waterford and tasted new-make spirit from at least a dozen different farms and varieties, all fermented and distilled the same way, and the difference is remarkable. One of my questions was: why do they do it? There are two simple answers. Firstly, with lots of different new-make spirits, once matured they have a huge palate of flavours to play with when they blend them together to make their whisky. The second reason is to be able to taste the difference if they do single farm bottlings. Waterford are about to launch their inaugural whisky, and within this whisky there is spirit blended from thirty six farms. We await the result with great delight!
The distillery itself is based in Waterford and is not a boutique style distillery. They have two pot stills and the capacity to produce a million litres a year. Their first spirit ran off the stills back on the 9th of December 2015 and production started in January 2016, so by now they certainly have enough casks to create an excellent whisky.