Westland

Founders Series: Your Land, My Land, Westland

The Founders Series takes advantage of Scotchology’s founders meeting to celebrate our 10th Anniversary in August of 2023. Since we can’t meet in person as often as we were able to when the club first started, we decided to make the most of our time together and sampled a truly broad, exciting range of whiskies in some semblance of batching. The first batch features Westland, an American distillery we have gone to early and often. But a handful of reviews doesn’t quite convey how often we have been there individually or in groups, or how many expressions we have tried and bought for our private collections over the years. This series will expand whenever we gather continue focused explorations of brands or concepts.

By Adam | March 5, 2024 | Musings | No Comments |

Westland Distillery was founded in 2010 in Seattle by Matt Hofmann, and the Westland Sherry Wood is one of the three core offerings, along with the Peated and American Single Malt. Like those offerings, the Sherry Wood was moved to the distillery’s Heritage Collection in 2022 to make room for a new signature single malt expression. The base spirit of this whiskey is the same as the American Single Malt, fermented with Belgian Saison Brewer’s yeast, but then finished in ex-Pedo Ximénez and Oloroso sherry casks for an undisclosed amount of time. While there are supplies out on liquor store shelves and this single malt is still available for purchase via the distillery’s online store as of this review, there is no more being currently produced.

By Adam | May 5, 2023 | Foreign | No Comments |

Westland Distillery opened in 2010, started by head distiller Matt Hoffman and Emerson Lamb. The core line of the distillery is made up of three single malts. This Westland Peated was first released in 2014 and is unusual because as experimental as American whiskey generally is, one element that’s almost never seen is peat. One of the more practical reasons for this is because peat is generally harvested from wetlands, and wetlands have been federally protected under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. Thus, Westland imported peated barley from Scotland to add to their regular five-malt spirit to make this peated single malt. A fortunate loophole allowed them to recently start harvesting local Washington peat for future projects, but it will be a few more years before the results of that local element are released.

By Adam | May 10, 2020 | Foreign | No Comments |

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