Waterford Organic Gaia 1.1 - 50% abv - harvest 2015/bottled 2020
Age: 3 years, 9 months
Disclaimer before we start: This is going to be a roller coaster of a whiskey review…
I’ve been following (and a fan of) this distillery since it opened and have tried some of their spirits at the distillery, lucky me right? Their new make has a very farm like quality and is fairly delicious even without maturation. This is the first time I’ve had one of their bottles as a finished product in front of me. A very strange moment because I can attach a face and personality belonging to the main characters involved in the distillery including those who directly brewed and distilled the spirit. Very satisfying to see their hard work come together.
The bottle: I love how it looks and feels. I’m sure it’s supposed to divide and provoke. The distillery’s attitude to whiskey is that of a wine maker: Fantastic raw ingredients, terroir driven, overlaid with a healthy dose of transparency. The bottle and its contents should be enjoyed like you would a wine, it should be shared and probably be served as part of a meal. Maybe before, maybe after or even during. Let’s be honest here, based on looks alone it sits well as part of a good table setting. The bottle’s blue glass adds a lot of drama and a wow factor as far as I’m concerned.
I mentioned a roller coaster and here comes the first dip: we tried to open the bottle, it has a glass stopper borrowed from the wine industry. Too smooth, too small, very very tight fit, impossible to get open. Do I twist, do I pull? This isn’t just me be being an idiot by the way, I had five other monkeys try to open this bottle too. I say monkeys because that’s what we all felt like. Eventually you get it open and whiskey flies out all over the place. See the video at the top. You shake your head and think why?
I have an idea though and I’m not sure if it’s by design or accident but in the end I really like it! Let me paint you a picture:
You’re sitting at a table eating with friends or family, the mood is good, so is the food the wine is flowing. It’s relaxed, it’s fun. Then comes the whiskey. Traditionally this often makes the mood more serious. “Oh this is rare? Let’s put it on a pedestal, we’re fancy people” Bullshit, whiskey is for drinking and sharing!
Serious mood? With the Waterford bottle and its sticky top this isn’t possible cause whiskey comes flying out any sense of reverence or church like silence disappears.
I LOVE IT!
Within seconds you know this is for consuming, for enjoying - don’t hold back on your guests! Fill their glasses! Raise the roof! If the mood is right this uncorking is really fun! We all got a good bit of mileage from the sticky cork and liquid flying out of a whiskey bottle. At the end of the day I’m willing to loose a glass or two to the floor/table top/friend’s shirt etc as part of a good evening!
Would ya come on Gearóid and tell us what’s the whiskey like???
Well after you’ve splashed your friends and get to pouring a glass you find out that the bottle drips when you poor it too! Ha, I knew it would! This all means that even before you’ve nosed your glass you’ve already interacted and smelled the whiskey. It’s in the air on your hands and so on. It smells great. It’s young, like the distillery. Grain heavy, new make heavy but absolutely no aggressive alcohol which considering it’s 50% abv that’s fairly impressive. The barley aromas are amazing! It’s a grain first product more than a whiskey. Fruit. Herbs. Wood. Sweet wine barrels. Soil and farms. The smell of this whiskey on your hands is fascinating because it’s like being in a barley silo with all the additional fruitiness that the yeast, brewing and distillation bring to the table.
In the glass it’s wood forward, which again considering how long it’s been in the barrels shows me the quality of wood and cooperage being used here. The colour is beautiful. It looks like the barley that it came from, golden.
Moving on to the flavour and the next part of the whiskey coaster: At first I was disappointed. After all that drama with the bottle the flavour was just ok. BUT this is my problem. It’s not “just ok”, the whiskey is great. I had been waiting and building this up in my mind for so long that anything they delivered would have disappointed me.
The finish is fantastic whether you have high expectations or not. Long, warm and intense nothing like you’d expect from a young whiskey.
Later that day I tried the whiskey again to get a better idea of the flavour. It’s great. Simple as that, my bad. It’s a fantastic whiskey. The new make is very present and allows you to experience the flavour that the organic barley has to offer when it’s given time to shine. It’s exceptionally smooth and the alcohol is so well bound that I barely noticed how high the abv is. It tastes like grain, pepper, cloves, oak and pears. Very Irish flavours.
The finish is long, dry and warm and reminds me of a spiced, stewed pear I had in Morocco a long time ago. Amazing how flavour and aromas can transport you through time and space. A very Irish countryside nose finishing in a dessert that I ate in the desert 10 years ago. Hope I got the number of sssss’s right there…
So I mentioned terroir. Every bottle should be like a bottle of wine with an individual farmer and vintage right? Except there are multiple farms on the label. So this is a cuvée, a winey way of telling you it’s a blend. Multiple farms? So why the whole terroir thing I asked myself. It looks like the grain was mixed before mashing, distillation, maturation and bottling. So it’s neither a blend or a cuvée and instead a snapshot of organic Irish barley that was harvested in 2015. Nice. Quick side note: Waterford are the first modern distillery to release a certified organic whiskey.
As some of you know if you’ve been to one of my events I champion food and whiskey together. I had the idea that this would match to a traditional Irish beef stew so I tried it out and yep it’s fantastic. I’ve attached my recipe in case you want to try for yourself.
I’ve never had so many mixed reactions to an Irish Whiskey. I feel like it took me on a journey and as with all journeys there are parts you enjoy and parts that are frustrating. At the end of my trip I can sit here and safely say I really enjoyed it. While writing this and collecting my thoughts I poured myself another glass and got to relive my journey and the time I spent with the friends I got to share some of it with. Waterford Organic Gaia 1.1. What a ride, the Irish reading this will hopefully get the double entendre.
Well done Waterford, a great whiskey and thanks to Kirsch Import for sending me the bottle.
Nose: Herbs, barley, grain, almonds, oak, white vermouth, preserved lemons, mint, caramel, salt, earth, spices and maybe honey?
Palate: Oily but smooth. Barley, pepper, cloves, oak and pears.
Finish: Long, exciting, dry, warm and reminds me of spiced & stewed pears.
Beef stew recipe:
olive oil
500g chuck steak, cubed
2 onions, roughly chopped
1 carrot, roughly chopped
1 celery stalk, trimmed, roughly chopped
About a 1/4 of a turnip, peeled, roughly chopped
2 tbsp plain flour
1 litre beef stock
400ml porter
2 bay leaves
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Start off by measuring out 400ml of the porter. You’ll figure out what to do with the other 100ml yourself…
Heat the oil in a large, lidded casserole pot over a medium heat. Cast iron is best. Fry the chuck steak until browned on all sides. Remove and set aside. Do not eat it yet!!
Add the onions, carrot, celery and turnip and fry until golden-brown, adding a little more olive oil if need to. Season with salt and pepper.
Add the plain flour and stir well. Cook for a couple of minutes, or until it turns a nut-brown colour. Pour in the hot stock and stir well until the sauce thickens.
Return the beef to the pot, add porter and bay leaves and bring the mixture to the boil. Reduce the heat until the mixture is simmering, then leave to simmer gently for one hour with the lid slightly ajar.
Check the seasoning and serve with chopped chives and parsley.
The photo above was taken in Hamburg at a bar called Standard. They need your support at the moment (as do most bars) so drop by their page and have a look: https://standard.hamburg/
Thanks to Amy, Max and Ole for helping with this post.