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Explainer / What is biodynamic whisky – and how does terroir come into play? The new farming practice is more sustainable and can improve flavour – meet the distilleries sparking the trend

Waterford’s Luna is another example of what is termed biodynamic whisky. Photo: Waterford Distillery

It is not often that there is a world first in whisky, a product that has been around for centuries. But two single malts released late last year are the outcomes of nothing less than a revolutionary – and contentious – approach to the age-old spirit-making process.

Filey Bay is made with barley that is – unusually – grown by the distillers themselves. Photo: Spirit of Yorkshire

Biodynamic: Luna, from Waterford Distillery in Ireland, and The Biodynamic Project from Bruichladdich in Islay, Scotland, are the world’s first whiskies made with biodynamically grown barley.

Biodynamic agriculture is a radical approach to farming – think of it as organic with some esoteric elements thrown in – proposed by Rudolf Steiner in 1924.

What makes biodynamic whisky controversial is less the farming – although some dismiss biodynamic practices as pseudoscience or even occult – and more the zealous focus on barley, one of the three ingredients in whisky, along with water and yeast.

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The perceived wisdom is that the violent processes involved in making whisky – primarily distillation, but also malting, and the dominant impact of the wood casks the new spirit rests in – means that the flavours that barley imparts in the whisky are negligible.

Waterford Distillery believe in barley, like wine, having a terroir. Photo: Waterford

But Mark Reynier, CEO of Waterford and former head of Bruichladdich, believes this is just dogma repeated by big spirits companies on a mission to make whisky ever faster and cheaper.

Instead, whisky should be an expression of terroir, a concept Reynier was well versed in from years in the wine trade. Terroir is defined as the characteristic taste imparted by the environment, including factors such as the soil, topography and climate in which it is produced.

What makes biodynamic whisky controversial is less the farming … and more the zealous focus on barley, one of the three ingredients in whisky

He applied the concept first at Bruichladdich, and after the distillery was sold to drinks giant Rémy Cointreau in 2012, he set up Waterford distillery in an old Guinness beer factory to fully develop his ideas.

To understand the impact of terroir on whisky, Waterford distilled malted barley from different farms separately. The label’s head brewer Neil Conway says the difference between each new make spirit was marked.

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“We would take 75 tonnes of malt from different growers around the southeast of Ireland and process them separately as single-farm entities. Our distillers came to the point when they could spot the difference from farm to farm. They would look out for their favourite growers, as they liked their flavours more than others,” he says.

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Conway says they manage the process to maximise the barley’s impact. “Distillers that want more spirit from their grain distil fast. But we slow everything down to take flavour from the barley in the right way: a long, low and slow distillation,” he says.

Proponents of biodynamic whisky say these ears of barley retain a taste characteristic of the soil and conditions they grew in. Photo: Spirit of Yorkshire

While doubters remained sceptical, Waterford spearheaded a study into barley samples from two different farms, micro-malted and micro-distilled in laboratory conditions. In February 2021, the peer-reviewed research paper was published, concluding that distinct flavours associated with terroir were found in the barley and in the resulting spirit.

Conway says their work is less about trying to prove they are right and more about understanding how flavour works. After their Single Farms Origin range, Waterford began the Arcadian Series with an organic barley release called Gaia. Biodynamic barley was the next layer in that equation of finding flavour.

While biodynamic grapes are used by some of the world’s top winemakers, including Romanée Conti and Lafite, no one was growing biodynamic, or even organic, barley in Ireland until Waterford persuaded farmers to convert. In 2017, Waterford had the first-ever crop of certified biodynamic barley and set about making Luna to showcase flavours produced by this way of farming.

Central to biodynamic whisky is the idea that barley’s flavours survive distillation. Photo: Spirit of Yorkshire

Stauning Whisky in Jutland, Denmark, is another distillery focusing on terroir. It was set up by nine friends in 2005, embracing the New Nordic philosophy – a 2004 manifesto that defined a characteristic regional approach to cuisine based on the use of local ingredients, seasonality and respect for nature.

In 2018, a new “dream” – as Stauning co-owner Hans Martin Hansgaard calls it – distillery was built with a £10 million (US$13.1 million) cash injection by spirits accelerator Distill Ventures, backed by drinks giant Diageo.

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The distillery has 100 per cent floor malting for rye and barley that is sourced from two nearby farmers, distillation in small pot stills, and smoking with local heather and peat.

“What makes whisky really interesting, for us, is when it’s an expression of the local area. Our barley and rye grows five kilometres from the distillery, in the salty air and strong winds off the North Sea, and takes the characteristics of this area, lending fruity, fresh and citrusy flavours to our whiskies,” says Hansgaard.

Terroir is defined as the characteristic taste imparted by the environment, including factors such as the soil, topography and climate

“Our terroir is obvious particularly in our smoked whiskies: we use local heather and peat, which is more like a bonfire, much gentler than, for example, an Islay smoke.”

While expressing terroir was the key driver behind Stauning, Hansgaard points out that there are environmental benefits of using local ingredients, too, in terms of reducing the carbon footprint of transportation.

The Spirit of Yorkshire distillery grows its own barley. Photo: Spirit of Yorkshire

The Spirit of Yorkshire distillery in Northern England – that make Yorkshire’s first and only single malt, the award-winning Filey Bay – reduce food (or should that be drink?) miles to zero by being field-to-bottle: they, unusually, grow their own barley on the family farm.

David Thompson, director and co-founder, does not subscribe to the idea that barley has a detectable impact on the flavour of the final single malt; instead, his fixation on barley centres on the environmental impacts of farming.

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“If you’re in control of the raw materials from before you even plant the seed, you can choose how you do it. It’s about looking after the soil, and doing the right things for the environment, being biodiverse rather than green,” he says.

The distillery experiments with different farming practices, including direct-drilling and using cover crops. They plan to keep Filey Bay 100 per cent home-grown – it makes the whisky unique and is “good for the story”, says Thompson.

Whether to express terroir, or to express the story of a single malt, these distilleries are certainly changing the conversation about whisky, and doing so by putting barley centre stage.

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  • Traditional whisky makers have dismissed the providence of barley, or terroir, but biodynamic farming – think organic, but more esoteric – threatens to shake up taste buds
  • Ireland’s Waterford Distillery applied the concept first at Bruichladdich in Islay, which was sold to Rémy Cointreau, then built a distillery in an old Guinness beer factory