8. The Science of Whisky Terroir

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.