Waterford Gaia Organic 2.1 Irish Single Malt

Gaia Organic 2.1 is a single malt which is part of Waterford's Arcadian Series, which celebrates alternative and often heritage varieties of barley. It’s also one of the first certified organic Irish whiskies. The barley used is grown entirely according to organic farming standards, prioritizing natural and sustainable practices, emphasizing soil health and biodiversity. It’s certainly a groundbreaking whisky, proving that delicious, complex spirits can be produced using organic methods.

Waterford Whisky may have gone into administration in late 2024, but since its demise, its cult following has only grown and bottles are steadily becoming harder to find. Founded in 2015 by Mark Reynier, they only had a short life, but made a big impact. Their USP was exploring terroir's impact on whisky by championing a barley-forward approach and, in collaboration with individual farmers, selecting grain from unique soils and microclimates and distilling each harvest separately to create distinctive single origin whiskies that showed clear, farm-by-farm flavour influence. Sadly it was a project not destined for success, but such was their reputation that remaining bottlings are slowly becoming collector's items.