The recent opening of Waterford Distillery represents a niche market for Irish malting barley. Value-added crops are essential to our tillage sector, where producer scale is small by international comparison, so it is terrific to see a new venture open in the whiskey market which aims to remain niche with personalised grower interaction.

The first spirit from the distillery was produced in early December and the intention is to produce individual high-end whiskeys using the specific characteristics of barely from individual fields.

The barley is produced, assembled and malted by Boortmalt and there are only 48 specific growers involved in this project.

The barley produced by each grower is stored separately and will be malted and distilled individually. The aim is to capture the uniqueness of each location in the production of very specific flavours to produce individual up-market Irish whiskeys.

Distilling commenced in the new plant in early December when barley grown by David Power from Park in Carlow flowed out as clear spirit. By law, this spirit cannot be called whiskey until it has been aged for at least three years in casks.

The new Waterford Distillery was established on the former Guinness brewery site in Waterford, following its acquisition just 53 weeks earlier. The project is headed up by Mark Reynier, who is described a leading whiskey entrepreneur. Back in 2000, he was involved in rejuvenating the Bruichladdich Distillery on the Isle of Islay in Scotland and this was sold to Remy Cointreau in 2012.