Following the same principles he founded at Bruichladdich Distillery, Mark Raynier has built the importance of provenance into Waterford Distillery from the ground up.
In 2015, while converting a 2004 state-of-the-art Diageo site into a distillery, 86 separate farms across Ireland were taken on, providing barley that is grown in 19 different soil types, and includes organic and biodynamic growers.
Each of these farmers' crops are tracked across harvesting, storage, and malting, then each harvest is distilled separately to capture the unique characteristics of each farm's "terroir". By marrying these components for maturation and bottling, Waterford Distillery are able to create perhaps the most finely-tuned whisky on the market.
The first spirit ran off the stills in January 2016, and the first releases immediately attracted a strong following.
