Waterford: Heritage – Hunter (Ireland Single Malt Whisky: 3 Years: 50% ABV)
Visual: Quite rich gold color with a mix of fast and slow thick streaks coming from the spirit.
Nose: Thick. Alcohol jelly imagery. Alcohol soaked raspberries. Toffee and caramel. Vanilla. Crushed custard cream biscuits. Green grapes. Lime touch. Nan bread. Water adds light greenery and herbal notes, sage maybe? Menthol touch.
Body: Thick. Honey. Barley biscuits. Slight dry crushed rocks dust. Strong alcohol. Water adds lots of honey. Crunchy nut cornflakes. Smoother in general.
Finish: Drying. Dry crushed rock dust air. Numbing alcohol. Lime. Sour white grapes. Slight minty menthol. Water brings out golden syrup.
Conclusion: This is utterly fascinating, a whisky I am super glad I grabbed, but probably not one I could recommend to buy based on the quality of it as a drink in itself. However as a drink to help you understand the impact these legacy grains may have if used right, then this is definitely one to do if you are so inclined.
More than most Waterfords, this feels quite young in the alcohol presence and general mouthfeel, despite being roughly the same age as most of the other bottlings. Don’t get me wrong, it is still super impressive for handling the alcohol for a three year old whisky, but much more raw feeling than most from the distillery.
However, on the good side of things, it is so much more malty and sweet than I would ever expect from a three year old whisky. Most whiskies this age lead with fruity and bright notes draped over a lighter body. This is all custard, toffee, vanilla, honey and other sweet notes. I presume this is the barley chosen bringing such a big body despite the young age and I am gobsmacked by its influence if so.
Around that is some light sour grapes, and subtle wine barrel aged influence, but that sweet base is the main stay. This makes it fairly simple, and not a must have dram on quality and depth of flavor – it is solid but not exceptional. However as a show of what this non standard malted barley can do with its emphasis on flavor rather than pure sugar yield, this is bloody fascinating.
I hope they do an older version of this, as right now this feels like a proof of concept. Not a great dram in itself but it has 100% sold me on what these heritage barleys can bring to the table and I want to see it live up to its potential.
Background: Ohh the heritage series, this interested me. I’ve mentioned before that the idea of Terroir in whisky has been intriguing me recently – especially after reading a book on the subject – and that is something Waterford have always really explored. However the other thing that book mentioned, and this whisky explores, is the less used low yield barley strains that have nigh vanished from whisky making. Everything is grown for sugar yield now, to make more alcohol – but the hypothesis is that those lower yield grains may have extra flavours from everything else they bring to the mix. Thus when I saw this, in this case on The Whisky Shop’s web site, I definitely was going to grab it. This barley – Hunter – has quite a story to it. At the start they have 50 grams of seeds that was all that was left of it at the seed bank of The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and they had to work up from that until they had enough to make 50 barrels for this, 10,000 bottle release. That is quite some effort to make something a bit unusual. Music wise I went back to Nine Inch Nails: Year Zero, a theme album that still seems far too on point these days.
