• Category – Spirits, Irish whiskey, 50% abv
  • Available – From this month
  • Location – The UK, available to the on- and off-premise
  • Price – SRP of GBP70 (US$96) per 70cl bottle
  • Distributor – Speciality Brands

Renegade Spirits’ Waterford Distillery, the Irish spirits venture set up by Bruichladdich co-founder Mark Reynier, has launched a flagship single malt whiskey.

The Cuvée uses the same terroir-driven ideology as Bordeaux wineries, applying the concept to whiskey production. Twenty-five individually distilled single-farm whiskies have been blended together to create the new release.

Speaking to Just Drinks in 2014 following his purchase of the Waterford Distillery site, a former Guinness brewery in the Irish town of the same name, Reynier said the terroir-approach to whisk(e)y making was something he aspired to at Bruichladdich and was looking to progress with his latest project.

To make The Cuvée, Reynier catalogued a library of whiskies using barley from a range of soils and microclimates. The whiskies are then married together in the same way that Bordeaux wineries blend a collection of wines to make a Grand Vin.

“I’ve always been intrigued by how the greatest Bordeaux wines were made,” Reynier, a former wine merchant, said. “Why not with whisk(e)y? This is the vision seven years in the making, the essence of the Waterford project.”

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The Cuvée will be distributed in the UK by Speciality Brands. A global launch is planned, a Speciality spokesperson told Just Drinks, without disclosing further details.

Bruichladdich was sold to Remy Cointreau in 2012 for US$48m, with Reynier exiting the Islay-based Scotch whisky producer shortly afterwards.

“I find it hard to forgive and forget” – Click here for Just Drinks’ interview with Renegade Spirits’ Mark Reynier from 2016.