Waterford Whisky is IN THE HOUSE! Not just in the house but busting down our Irish doors! A 750ml bottle of 50%ABV LIMITED EDITION Irish Single Malt Whisky that is EXCLUSIVE in Australia to the Club. A ‘single farm origin’ whisky – The Waterford Knockroe 1.1!
An elegant mix of U.S. First fill Oak, U.S. Virgin Oak, Premium French Oak and Vin Doux Natural (a sweet wine) maturation that only Waterford can perfect.
“East of the River Barrow, Kenneth Ashmore’s rolling lowland farm, Knockroe – An Cnoc Rua, Red Hill – stands on the Bo Choill Road east of Maganey, which runs towards the old town of Castledermot. In an ancient landscape scattered with Bronze Age remnants, the well-drained and quick-drying sandy loams, derived from limestone, make for good tilling in the early spring – ideal for a long barley growing season.”
And thus, a description of the exact farm where the barley for our Malt of the Month was grown – Knockroe. This will give you a bit of an idea of the Distillery we are highlighting this month.
Waterford is a special kind of place, created and staffed by a special kind of people who make a special kind of whisky.
Apart from an incredible heritage, remarkable philosophy, and great whisky itself, Waterford are big on two things. Firstly Terroir. Now the basic mantra at Waterford is that whisky is, at heart, an agricultural product. In early times, ‘Uisge beatha’ was made by farmers from their own crops. Each farm with it’s own ‘terroir’, will naturally produce barley that imparts that terroir onto the whisky. Waterford both demonstrate, and celebrate, this with their Single Origin Farm range of which the Waterford Knockroe 1.1 is one.
Waterford Whisky is IN THE HOUSE! Not just in the house but busting down our Irish doors! A 750ml bottle of 50%ABV LIMITED EDITION Irish Single Malt Whisky that is EXCLUSIVE in Australia to the Club. A ‘single farm origin’ whisky – The Waterford Knockroe 1.1!
An elegant mix of U.S. First fill Oak, U.S. Virgin Oak, Premium French Oak and Vin Doux Natural (a sweet wine) maturation that only Waterford can perfect.
“East of the River Barrow, Kenneth Ashmore’s rolling lowland farm, Knockroe – An Cnoc Rua, Red Hill – stands on the Bo Choill Road east of Maganey, which runs towards the old town of Castledermot. In an ancient landscape scattered with Bronze Age remnants, the well-drained and quick-drying sandy loams, derived from limestone, make for good tilling in the early spring – ideal for a long barley growing season.”
And thus, a description of the exact farm where the barley for our Malt of the Month was grown – Knockroe. This will give you a bit of an idea of the Distillery we are highlighting this month.
Waterford is a special kind of place, created and staffed by a special kind of people who make a special kind of whisky.
Apart from an incredible heritage, remarkable philosophy, and great whisky itself, Waterford are big on two things. Firstly Terroir. Now the basic mantra at Waterford is that whisky is, at heart, an agricultural product. In early times, ‘Uisge beatha’ was made by farmers from their own crops. Each farm with it’s own ‘terroir’, will naturally produce barley that imparts that terroir onto the whisky. Waterford both demonstrate, and celebrate, this with their Single Origin Farm range of which the Waterford Knockroe 1.1 is one.
I said ‘two things’ – the other thing Waterford take VERY seriously is their transparency in labelling. Seriously – this distillery is the absolute world leader when it comes to informing the customer of what – EXACTLY – they are buying.
Every bottle of Waterford whisky has a ‘Téireoir code’ on it – type this code into the Waterford website and you get all the information on that bottle of whisky. And I do mean ALL the information! An absolute font of information about every one of their whiskies is available. The cask breakdown, the farm of origin, when the barley was sown, when it was harvested, malted, fermented, distilled, filled into casks, casks married and … sent for bottling. There’s a picture of the soil, the farmer and his dog! There is even a recording of the sounds of Knockroe Farm. To get you excited – here’s all the info on the Waterford Knockroe 1.1.
So in summary – the Knockroe 1.1 barley was harvested in August 2015, fermented for 145 hours and distilled during the week of 14-20th March 2016. It was matured for 4yrs, 5 months a one day in a mix of U.S. First fill Oak (34%), U.S. Virgin Oak (20%), Premium French Oak (23%) and Vin Doux Natural (23%) (a sweet wine) before being bottled at 50% on the 30th November 2020. Anything else you like to know? Yeast? Soil composition, map to the Knockroe farm itself? It’s all there! Seriously… all of it! AMAZING!
OUR TASTING NOTES
Nose: Warm Banana bread with melting butter, floral, jasmine notes and fresh wet-cut grass
Palate: Lovely mouth coating viscosity with mild pepper (very well integrated 50%ABV), fruit mince with some ginger heat and vanilla sweetness with a butter-scotchy sweet centre.
Finish: Peppery and Ginger spice around a core of caramel, espresso and dark chocolate, with a lingering – almost salty – finish.
I’m honestly not sure if it’s my imagination on reading all about this whisky before trying it (and thanks to Waterford, I do mean ALL about it!), or I can actually get a sense of an Irish barley farm in my mouth when I drink it. In any case, this is definitely single malt whisky that celebrates the barley it’s created from. There’s no overpowering cask notes here – rather the casks have been used to temper and round the spirit as well as impart their subtle nuances. If it was a meal, I think you’d describe it as ‘delicious in it’s rustic authenticity’ – and I think it’s a pretty fitting description for this delightful whisky.
FROM WATERFORD
Single Farm Origins are where the Waterford Whisky concept begins. Some call it terroir – that 3D influence of soil, microclimate and place on the growth of a barley. One farm, one place, one spirit.
The idea is taken right out of French vineyards, which our founder Mark Reynier visited for the first two decades of his career. We use these as components in our cuvées – like the Grand Vins of Bordeaux – but on their own they give us precision of place, real provenance, the genuine taste of a singular place. Knockroe is one of our classic farms, standing in perfect barley-growing country in County Kildare, and farmed by Kenneth Ashmore.”
Nose: Honey-drenched barley, freshly cut lucerne hay, the sweet organic notes so dominant in this expression. Sugarcane, warm flapjacks drizzled with golden syrup, butterscotch, uncooked fruit cake mix, melted butter on a honeyed crumpet.
Palate: Viscous barley sugar, with lemon tang and salted fresh ginger root washing over the tongue, then cracked black pepper and gorgeous caramelised muscovado sugar on the finish with a curious sweet sardine note lingering on the aftertaste.
Head Distiller’s Observations:
Appearance: A yellow gold with oily legs that grip the glass like a free mountain climber.
Nose: Dried flowers with fern and sage, dry hay , warm lavender, buttery, dried tea, porridge, milk chocolate, toasted bread, grapefruit, cloves, fudge and ripe banana.
Taste: Cloves, black pepper, ginger, custard, tobacco, malty, soft spices, citrus peel, blood orange, dark chocolate and lemon posset.
Finish: A gentle oily spice that leaves a hint of ginger and lemon.
ABOUT WATERFORD
From Crafty Field – Australian Distiller (Craft Works) and unofficial Waterford Brand Ambassador in Australia
Mark Reynier, the founder and CEO of Waterford Distillery is a very interesting person in the global whisky industry. Mark is widely accepted as a maverick, a man on a mission who is driven by passion and determination with a single-minded belief that, as terroir is real in the wine industry then barley terroir is an important part of making a great whisky. Mark has stated his intent is not to make the best whisky in the world but instead to make the most flavoursome whisky in the world.
His belief in whisky terroir stems from his upbringing in the wine industry that later led him to become a wine merchant, an independent bottler and finally a whisky producer/ innovator firstly with Bruichladdich and then Waterford, championing a focus on the importance of barley.
Waterford Distillery approach is through exploring whisky terroir and using some of the best barley in the world combined with cutting edge whisky making process and sourcing the best casks possible and bringing it all together in harmony.
Waterford Distillery works in close partnership with farmers across Ireland planting varieties of barley in locations that showcase differences in farming techniques, soil composition, climate and other factors that is loosely referred to as terroir.
Through this approach, Waterford Distillery have released single farm whisky releases, vatted farmer releases as well as heritage older varieties of barley that have been resurrected from the past and using a combination of a methodical approach backed up with independent scientific review. At Waterford Distillery they say”our view is rather than a manufactured product, Waterford Whisky is an agricultural produce”.
If you ever get a chance to listen to Mark speak about whisky then prepare yourself to go down the rabbit hole of whisky, so suggest you pour yourself a decent pour of Waterford Irish single malt whisky and savour that moment.
