Waterford Distillery in Ireland has added two heavily peated expressions to its whisky line-up.

Peated: Lacken and Peated: Woodbrook are both single farm origin whiskies, produced from barley grown on Lacken farm in Co. Wexford and Woodbrook farm in Co. Dublin respectively. Its peat is sourced from Ballyteige in Co. Kildare.

They are thought to be the most heavily peated Irish whiskies produced to date, with Lacken using malt peated to 57ppm (phenol parts per million) and Woodbrook's malt peated to 74ppm. Both overtake Teeling Blackpitts, which uses (Scottish) malted barley peated to 55ppm and was the most heavily peated whisky produced by an Irish distillery in the modern era.

Waterford added that, as Lacken and Woodbrook are both double distilled as opposed to triple distilled, they are likely to have retained more peat influence than historical peated Irish whiskies.

These new expressions from Waterford follow the launch of its peated Fenniscourt and Ballybannon expressions in 2022, the first in generations to be produced using Irish peat. As on all Waterford whiskies, a unique 'Téireoir Code' on each bottle gives details of where the barley was harvested, stored, and malted, and on the whisky's distillation and maturation.

Mark Reynier, Waterford Distillery founder and CEO, said: “Our ongoing exploration into the old ways of whisky making have taken us, once again, to forgotten flavours: Irish peat, the original taste of Irish whisky. Having demonstrated the unique flavours from our first peated single farm origins, and that terroir trumps peat, we decided to dial up the smoke.

“This new brace of single farm origins – using Irish peat and Irish barley – have been peated to levels higher than most of the famous Islay whiskies, and certainly the most for an Irish whisky... Those terroir flavours are still distinct and still apparent.”