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KWM 2023 Whisky Calendar Blog Day 11 - Waterford Heritage Hunter 1.1

Posted on March 19, 2025

by Evan

While drinking all of this Scotch Whisky is most definitely not boring, I think it is time to change things up a little bit. How about we step away from Scotland and try a drop of Irish today, instead?

Irish Whiskey is in the middle of a boom the likes of which it has not seen in more than one hundred years. For a large part of the 20th Century, there were only two distilleries in all of Ireland making whiskey, which was far from its peak. That number increased to three in the mid-1980s, and that number stayed stagnant until around fifteen years ago.

The current Whiskey Boom, and the growing Irish economy have led to a modern revival of whiskey production in the country. There are currently more than thirty distilleries once again operating in Ireland, including the highly touted Waterford Distillery, which we will be tasting whisky from today.

The tale of the Irish Waterford Distillery actually starts in Scotland – on Islay in fact – with the sale of Bruichladdich Distillery to Remy Cointreau in 2012. Mark Reynier was the head of Bruichladdich at that time, and part of the group that resurrected the distillery after purchasing it back in the year 2000. Since the sale to Remy Cointreau, Reynier has taken is resources, knowledge, and fanatical passion and energy, and used it to forge two other distilleries: Waterford Distillery in Ireland and Renegade Rum Distillery in Grenada. With both of these projects, Mark has made terroir the focus of the spirits produced.

Above: Mark Reynier, trying to decide if his next distillery project would make terroir-driven Aqvavit in Norway or terroir-driven Ouzo in Greece.

Waterford Distillery was founded in 2016, on a site that previously held a Guinness brewery, in the town of Waterford which resides near Ireland’s southeast coast. Since its inception, Waterford Distillery has had a near-religious focus on the barley and the farms it is sourced from. Nearly every batch of whiskey it has released since the first in 2020 has been named after the farm the barley was harvested from or the barley strain itself. The full name for the whiskey we will taste today is Waterford – Arcadian Farm Origin - Heritage: Hunter 1.1. What does that actually mean? Here is the description from Waterford:

“Arcadian Barley, from our secret garden of delights, explores the natural flavours, intensity & honesty of the old ways. We have had to go to extraordinary lengths to eschew the quotidian varieties — those modern yield enhanced versions that distillers are obliged to use, in order to celebrate the lost flavours – flavours that evolved over centuries in harmony with Ireland’s terroirs. Indeed, to rediscover the flavour of iconic Irish barley we must venture back in time.

Hunter, named after pioneering plant breeder Dr Herbert Hunter, was introduced in 1959 and was for almost two decades noted for its distinctive flavour. We now reintroduce this game-changing barley to a new era of single malt connoisseurs. Vanished from the Irish landscape since the late 1970s, superceded by more economically rewarding crosses, all that remained of Hunter was a 50 gram bag in the seed bank of the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine.

Planted in greenhouse grow bags, this 50 grams grew to four kilograms, and the cycle went again and again over two years, until there was enough for ten acres at our partner Minch Malt’s test site in Athy. Test successful, Hunter was sown on a commercial scale on the lime-rich Elton series terroir of Donoughmore, yielding 25.5 tonnes of malting barley — enough to fill 50 casks. It is from that first pioneering distillation that this whisky has been drawn.”

Okay – so most of that flew over my head – which interprets anything plant and biology (plantology?) related just as it does any other unknown foreign language. I just want to try the whisky, dangit. BUT! How cool is it to get this level of care and interest for the barley itself when it comes to whisky? Sure, other companies do revive or re-introduce lost or older barley strains for special releases. However, this is Waterford’s modus operandi – it is the idea the distillery was founded on.

We have already seen a plethora of releases from Waterford since they debuted their blue bottles with the glass top enclosure in 2020, and we will see a wide variety more in the future I am sure. Will the Heritage Hunter 1.1 give us a reason to keep an eye on this brand? Lets give it a try and find out!

Waterford Heritage Hunter 1.1 - 50%

Evan’s Tasting Note

Nose: Poached pears, applesauce, lemon and honey lozenges, fruit cup syrup, sunflower seeds, sawdust in a lumber mill, and creamy custard.

Palate: Toasty oak and spices with juicy fruits. More pear and apple notes along with a spicy ginger heat, creamy icing sugar frosting, macadamia nuts, and a touch of something herbaceous.

Finish: Creamy and sweet with the spicy edge of ginger and active oak on the fade.

Comment: I especially enjoy the silky texture and the tingle of spice on the palate. Tasty stuff.

Cheers,
Evan
evan@kensingtonwinemarket.com
Facebook & Instagram: @sagelikefool

You can find all blog posts for Kensington Wine Market’s 2023 Whisky Calendar Here