The Waterford distillery was originally built as a state-of-the-art brewing Guinness facility by Diageo in 2003. It was purchased and transformed into a distillery by Mark Reynier in 2014. The former proprietor as Bruichladdich, Reynier was inspired to look to Ireland for his next project following the testimony from the Islay distillery’s Duncan McGillvray that the barley from across the Irish sea was the best he had ever seen. As with Bruichladdich, the Waterford distillery is terroir-focussed, sourcing all of its barley requirement from 46 local farms. The distillery operates a column still, and two pot stills procured from the closed Inverleven distillery in Scotland. The first spirt ran from them in January 2016, and its first publicly available bottlings were produced in 2020.
The distillery's inaugural 2020 single malt releases proved exceptionally popular. This, the first release of spirit produced using barley from Ballykilcavan farm in County Laois was distilled in week 8 of 2016. The barley was grown by David Walsh-Kemmis, harvested in August 2015 and bottled in July 2020 after maturing 3 years 11 months and 18 days.
The distillery's inaugural 2020 single malt releases proved exceptionally popular. This, the first release of spirit produced using barley from Ballykilcavan farm in County Laois was distilled in week 8 of 2016. The barley was grown by David Walsh-Kemmis, harvested in August 2015 and bottled in July 2020 after maturing 3 years 11 months and 18 days.