Waterford

Former Bruichladdich CEO Mark Reynier (2000-2012) was building a new distillery at Grattan Quay Waterford in the South East of Ireland.

The former managing director of the Islay distillery Bruichladdich Mark Reynier convertwd a former Diageo (Guinness) owned brewery into a distillery. He had resurrected the defunct Islay malt distillery in December 2000. It was sold to Remy Cointreau in July 2012 for £58m.

A group of 50 private shareholders around him - Sir John MacTaggart, John Adams (former finance director at Bruichladdich) and others - bought Diageo's brewery in Waterford which was built by Guinness in 2004 but closed at the end of 2013. Diageo centralized its beer production at Saint James`s Gate Brewery in Dublin.

Refurbishment of the new distillery started in April, 2015, spirit distillation started in December 2015.

The Waterford Brewery was part of Diageo and was situated in the centre of Waterford City. Up to the end of 2002, the brewery produced beer in kegs and bulk beer for bottling and canning for both domestic and export markets. The old brewery buildings belonged to The Strangeman‘s Brewery / Phoenix Brewery. There are plans to open them as a museum.

Brewing production activities at the new production site started in 2004 and ceased in September 2013 and roasting malt activities ended in November 2013.

The site on Grattan Quay in the centre of Waterford has been converted into a grain and malt distillery which will initially produce around 3 million litres of pure alcohol. The barley will be sourced from 46 contracted farmers (6 organic farms) from Wexford and Waterford. The barley will be malted by Minch Malt. It seems as if there is going to be an Irish Terroir Whiskey.

Two pot stills which came from the closed Inverleven Distillery in Dumbarton, Scotland, and one column still distil grain and malt spirits. According to master mind Mark Reynier the first whiskeys will be expected in 2019. The Waterford distillery has been licensed to distil spirits.

“I was rather annoyed after the Remy thing, I wasn’t ready for that,” Reynier said. “It wasn’t what we'd agreed as a board that we were going to do. I felt rather let down by some of my fellow directors, but that's water under the bridge and it's given me the opportunity to think of other things, and this is one of them.”

(just-drinks.com)

He also added: “It gives me the opportunity to challenge Pernod Ricard in Ireland and create a significant Irish whiskey brand with a whole lot of extra credibility that sometimes is missing from big companies.”  (The Spirit Business.com)

Renegades Spirits‘ chairman is one of the former Bruichladdich investors from Islay, Sir John MacTaggart. The former Remy Cointreau CEO, Jean-Marie Laborde, who managed the Bruichladdich deal in 2012, also joined the board.

Refurbishment started in April, 2015.

The first spirit run on December 9th, 2015.

Distillery Manager: Paul McCusker (2015)

The Gateway to Distilleries presents photos by kind permission of the author Rachel MacNeill, editor of the blog www.whiskyforgirls.com and owner of www.wildandmagicislay.com

and Mark Reynier, Waterford‘s Distillery Director and Co-Owner. Copyright is to the authors.

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