Terroir-Driven: The Waterford Whisky Podcast Waterford Distillery

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.