Waterford Distillery is a single malt whiskey distillery located in Waterford City. Here CEO, Mark Reynier provides an update on progress and of his ambition to create the most profound single malt whisky that has ever been seen.
What makes Waterford Distillery unique?
We utilise leading-edge machinery and equipment that you would normally never find in a distillery. As an example, we have a ‘mash filter’ used primarily in brewing for efficiency purposes but for us it acts as a ‘terroir-extractor’, allowing us to input the individual farm-grown barley that we put into the distillery. We also source our barley from over forty different farms, keeping the barley from each farm separate from field, to farm, to barrel, to bottle. This means we can build up a library of component mini-Waterford Whiskey that we can then play with in creative ways to create the most profound single malt whisky that has ever been seen.
What attracted you to the world of distilling?
What attracted me was an opportunity to make a difference in an industry that I believed was massively consolidated and industrial; and had lost the very essence of what it was originally all about – which was growing barley locally with individuality of flavour, associated with distilling on a local basis.
“We utilise leading-edge machinery and equipment that you would normally never find in a distillery.”
What were the challenges into converting a state-of-the-art brewery into a distillery?
Having to convert and transform a cutting-edge brewery into a working distillery was the foremost challenge that we encountered. Fortunately, our site manager Paul McCusker had previously been employed here and had also worked on dismantling the original site, so it made perfect sense that he could help in the re-equipment of the site.
The next step was getting back the guys who used to work here
