Waterford Racines

Waterford was established in 2015 by Mark Reynier, former owner of Islay's Bruichladdich, inside a converted Guinness brewery on the south east coast of Ireland. The distillery built its programme around terroir, sourcing barley from individual Irish farms and tracing each harvest through its TÉIREOIR code system so every bottle reads back to the field it came from. Racines is a Micro Cuvée produced for the French market in 2024, bottled by La Maison du Whisky as part of their Foundations catalogue. The assemblage draws on barley from three distinct Irish farms, Wilkinstown, Woodbrook and Ballinaboley, each harvested and distilled separately before being married in cask.

The cask composition leans heavily on ex-Bordeaux red wine casks, which account for roughly half the blend. Bordeaux casks contribute anthocyanins and condensed tannins from the original wine, pushing the spirit toward dried fruit esters, clove and a fuller mouthfeel. The balance is first fill Bourbon, where the American oak delivers vanillin and coconut lactones from the charred inner wood, and virgin American oak, which carries a higher concentration of hemicellulose and raw lignin for toasted sugar notes and a sharper spice signal. The result is an unusually wine forward Waterford, bottled at 50% without chill filtration or added colour.

Waterford entered receivership in November 2024 and was acquired by Tennessee Distilling Group in March 2026. Bottles from the original ownership run, including this one, are no longer in production.