Back in 2020, Seattle-based American single malt producer Westland Distillery stunned the whiskey world with an announcement that it would drop its core range of three labels—American Oak, Sherry Wood, and Peated—the whiskeys that had built its reputation since its founding in 2010. That trio would be gone, along with Westland’s popular Peat Week annual release. The distillery then set about drilling down on expressing its Pacific Northwest terroir. Sherry casks from Spain and peated malt from Scotland would leave the limelight, replaced by local barley and peat, as well other surrounding elements of Westland’s Washington habitat.
Westland had already started blazing this trail with Garryana, its whiskey finished in native Garryana oak that debuted in 2016. To that was added Colere, with its mashbill of Washington barley, and Solum, made with Washington-harvested peat. All three expressions have won plaudits, but without the Westland core three, it still felt like a few legs of the table were missing.
Now comes a new core trio—Westland Flagship, Westland Wine Cask Finish, and Westland Beer Cask Finish—all three introduced this month. While those names sound like simple propositions, they’re not. Unlike other finished whiskeys, which usually feature barrels from a single winemaker or brewer, these expressions utilize casks from an array of beer or wine sources, with Washington provenance as the unifying factor. “From the beginning, our process has been inspired by the brewing and winemaking culture here in Washington,” says Westland managing director Jason Moore. “Our goal is to create the same environment from a whiskey-making perspective.”
Cask Finishing Culture
Westland’s warehouses are filled with whiskeys aging in beer and wine casks from local producers, the fruit of its close relationships with Washington brewers and winemakers over the years. On the beer side, Seattle is home to about 60 breweries, and Westland’s Ballard neighborhood alone has dozens of craft brewers. “From the very beginning, local brewers would call us to see if they could buy our barrels,” says master blender Shane Armstrong. Westland decided to create what Armstrong calls a “free library” for casks, lending them out to local brewers and getting them back for use in creating beer cask-finished whiskeys. That practice eventually became Westland’s Cask Exchange Program, whereby Washington brewers and winemakers make reciprocal exchanges with Westland.
For the new Beer Cask Finish, Armstrong tapped the Westland rackhouses to create a whiskey finished in casks from a broad variety of brewers and styles. The brewers involved in this expression were Red Hook, BrewLab, Fremont Brewing, Holy Mountain Brewing Co., and Matchless Brewing. Beer styles include saison, stout, brown ale, doppelbock, stock ale, scotch ale, and porter. The beer cask finishing at Westland typically is done for 4 to 5 years, meaning that whiskeys in this 8 year old expression spent at least half their total maturation time aging in beer casks.
Working With Wineries
Washington has 1,050 wineries, and Westland has also been working with some of them almost from the start, creating relationships that provide access to wine barrels. The new Westland Wine Cask Finish is a 5 year old finished in a variety of wine casks including cabernet sauvignon, syrah, petit verdot, Washington red blends, and tempranillo—the tempranillo cask from Spain being the lone non-Washington component. The wineries involved in this batch are Guardian Cellars in Woodinville and Force Majeure in the Walla Walla Valley in the south-central part of the state, near the Oregon border. While most of the whiskey receives a traditional cask finish, some of the liquid was matured in wine casks for the full 5-year term.
This release marks the first time Westland has utilized wine casks (other than sherry) as the main feature in its whiskey, at least on a broad national scale. The distillery has released some single barrel wine cask finishes in years past, and wine cask-finished components were part of the last two releases of Garryana, Nos. 7 and 8. “But it hasn’t been such a sole feature of a whiskey as it is with this expression,” says Armstrong.
The New Flagship
Not to be overlooked is Westland Flagship, the new anchor of the core range that replaces the original American Oak label. Armstrong sees this release as honoring the first decade at Westland by combining the best aspects of the three previous core expressions. “There’s still a bit of oloroso sherry cask-finished whiskey in there and some peated malt from Scotland,” he says. “Flagship has all of what used to be the core range, but in one whiskey. It covers a tremendous amount of ground.”
Westland uses its five-malt mashbill for this one, featuring Washington select pale malt, Munich malt, Extra Special malt, pale chocolate malt, and brown malt, as well as some Bairds heavily peated malt from Scotland. “About 65% of this whiskey is aged in new oak, which is more oak than people might be used to in single malts,” notes Armstrong. “But the spirit is big and malty, so it can stand up to the wood.” Also in the mix is some pale malt whiskey that was aged in first-fill oak, along with some peat and sherry. But as Westland increasingly looks to Washington provenance, it seems likely the peat and sherry elements will diminish over time.
Grains and Terroir
In its path to Washington provenance, Westland has placed great focus on local barley in recent years. The company purchased an 80-acre farm in Skagit Valley, 100 miles north of Seattle, in 2020, and later acquired a second property, where its earthen-floored dunnage-style warehouses hold more than 8,000 casks. Its farm property has been harvesting barley, and Westland is also working closely with local farmers to grow more. Over these years, Westland has distilled more than 30 different types of barley, mostly to create its Washington barley-based Colere expression. The distillery also works with barley farmers on the western end of Washington, but not the middle part of the state, where Moore says most of the farmers are commodity producers. “We’re very fortunate because Washington has an amazing barley-growing environment on both sides of the state,” he adds. “We also have craft malt houses that allow us to try new things, and the brewing culture inspires quite a bit of that. In the Skagit Valley, we work with nearly every farmer up there [to produce barley] and have it make sense for them to do so.”
The New Westland Cask Exploration Series Reviewed
All three of these new whiskeys are permanent additions to the Westland portfolio. This is Batch 1 for the two cask finished expressions. Batch 2 will differ from Batch 1, Westland emphasized, and part of the fun will be exploring the differences from batch to batch. The distillery plans to release the new batches on an ongoing basis, most likely every couple of years. “There’s so much flavor that can come from different cask types,” says Moore. “There’s still a lot to explore.”
93 points - Westland Cask Exploration Beer Cask Finish American Single Malt (Batch 1), 46%, $75
A complex nose that balances between sweet, earthy, and savory—sandalwood, roasted grains, cinnamon, and mint tea, along with dried orange slices, cream custard-filled pastries, and glazed doughnuts. Soft and silky on the palate, with raspberries, dark chocolate cocoa powder, apple cider, and confectionary sweetness, with excellent balance against the oak that maintains its presence. The finish offers more berries, cinnamon, barrel char, and balanced drying oak.
Availability: Nationwide; 10,961 bottles
93 points - Westland Cask Exploration Wine Cask Finish American Single Malt (Batch 1), 46%, $75
Notably dark, amber color, and a palate loaded with fragrant dark fruit, some hints of orange but primarily plum tart, baked blackberry, blueberry pie, raisin bread, and vanilla sweetness of French toast. Rich, full, and deep on the palate, lots of blueberry notes and a velvety texture. Very well structured and flavorful overall and the finish is a tour de force, with explosive spice that stays within its fruit-filled profile.
Availability: Nationwide; 14,614 bottles
92 points – Westland Flagship American Single Malt, 46%, $60
Fresh oak and light peat on the nose, that becomes more pronounced as the whisky settles in the glass. The peat is not smokey but more like dampened embers, set against orange peel, as vanilla and cooked malt. The palate is lush, honeyed, and fruity, with notes of apricots, sliced apples, blackberries, chocolate bar, and hints of wafting cigar smoke. The whiskey is light on its feet, yet full-bodied.
Availability: Nationwide
