5. From 50 Grams to 50 Barrels - How A Dormant Barley Variety Became 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. 

Om Podcasten

Influenced by the world's greatest winemakers, Waterford Distillery obsessively brings the same intellectual drive, methodology and rigour to single malt whisky. But what does that actually mean? It means applying strict production criteria to Irish barley and whisky production. It means sourcing barley from individual Irish farms - some organic, some biodynamic. It means malting, fermenting, distilling and maturing those farm crops in complete isolation - from field to barrel. The distillery showcases the barley flavours derived from individual Irish farms, terroir by terroir, in its Single Farm Origin series. But the ultimate goal is to one day use these individual terroirs to produce world’s most unique, complex and compelling whisky. In this podcast series, the award-winning whisky communicator Barry Chandler has unfettered access to the distillery and its people, to break down each step of the production process from growing the barley to bottling the whisky so that you, the whisky fan, can understand about where flavour is created and what the possibilities are when a distillery chooses to obsessively explore that prime raw ingredient of single malt whisky: barley.