Westland: American Single Malt Pioneer
American single malt whisky is a category that barely existed twenty years ago and is now one of the most exciting developments in global distilling. Of the producers shaping that emergence, Westland Distillery in Seattle is arguably the most important. Founded in 2010 by Matt Hofmann and Emerson Lamb in the SoDo (South of Downtown) neighbourhood of Seattle, Westland has spent fifteen years making the case that American single malt deserves recognition as a distinct world spirits category rather than as a pale imitation of Scotch. In 2016, Westland was acquired by Rémy Cointreau — a signal that the world's most sophisticated spirits companies had taken notice.
The founding premise at Westland was to produce whisky that was genuinely American and genuinely of its place — specifically of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest — rather than attempting to replicate Scottish production methods in a different climate. Seattle sits at the northern end of the Pacific coastal region, in a temperate rainforest climate shaped by the Olympic Range to the west and the Cascades to the east. The agricultural products of this region — pale ale malt, Washington State barley, old-growth Garry Oak from the Willamette Valley — are the raw materials from which Westland builds its distinctively regional whisky. Use the distillery map to locate Westland alongside other American single malt producers.
The Grain Bill: A Craft Brewing Approach
Westland's most immediately distinctive technical choice is its complex grain bill. While Scotch single malt must be made from 100% malted barley, Westland embraces the American craft brewing tradition's freedom with malt variety. The core expression uses a blend of five different malts — Washington Select Two-Row, Munich, Crystal 77, Pale Chocolate, and Biscuit — each contributing different flavour compounds to the fermentation wash. The approach mirrors what a craft brewer might do in designing a complex ale: layering roasted, caramel, and base malts to build depth and complexity before the spirit even enters the still.
This multi-malt approach reflects founder Matt Hofmann's background: Hofmann studied distilling at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh but came of age during the Pacific Northwest craft beer revolution, and the decision to apply brewing complexity to a distillery wash was a conscious synthesis of both traditions. The Munich malt contributes a biscuity, bread-like quality. Crystal malt adds caramel sweetness. Pale chocolate malt introduces a coffee-like depth without the bitterness of a full roast. The result is a new make spirit with considerably more intrinsic flavour than a single-malt Scotch ferment made from a simple pale ale malt base.
Fermentation and Distillation
Westland uses a long, cool fermentation cycle — typically four days rather than the 48-72 hours standard in most commercial whisky production — that allows yeast to develop a wider range of flavour-active compounds including esters and fruity fermentation notes. The company sources its yeast from a Pacific Northwest craft brewery, and the brewing-derived yeast strains produce different congener profiles from the standard commercial distillery yeasts used by most Scotch producers.
Distillation is carried out in custom copper pot stills — a wash still and a spirit still in the traditional double-distillation configuration. Copper contact during distillation strips sulfur compounds from the spirit and promotes fruity, ester-forward character, and Westland's relatively slow distillation regime maximises this copper interaction. The spirit comes off the still at a lower strength than some producers, retaining more of the original flavour compounds from the wash.
The new make spirit that emerges is fruity, rich, and distinctly malt-forward — recognisably in the same family as new make Scotch but with a character all its own, shaped by the Pacific Northwest malt varieties and brewing-influenced fermentation.
Garry Oak and Cask Strategy
Westland's most radical and significant innovation is its use of Garry Oak (Quercus garryana) — a native Pacific Northwest oak species — as a cask material. Garry Oak is the only oak species native to the Pacific coast of North America, growing from southern British Columbia to northern California in open woodland habitats that have been dramatically reduced by agricultural conversion. The wood is harder and denser than American white oak (Quercus alba) and differs from both American and European oak in its chemical composition, producing different tannin structures and aromatic compounds during cask maturation.
Westland partnered with cooperages and conservation organisations to source sustainably harvested Garry Oak for cask production — the wood's relative scarcity and hardness make coopering challenging. The whisky aged in Garry Oak casks has a dramatically different character from the bourbon-cask and sherry-cask expressions in the range: spicier, more tannic, with pronounced dried herb and forest floor notes that have no equivalent in any other whisky style. The Garryana series, released annually as a limited expression, has become one of the most sought-after and critically acclaimed American whisky releases.
The Core Range
Westland's core three expressions represent distinct approaches to American single malt character. The American Oak expression uses predominantly ex-bourbon barrels and defines the accessible end of the range: approachable, vanilla-forward, with malt sweetness and clean Pacific Northwest grain character. It is the expression that makes the best first argument for American single malt as a legitimate world category.
The Sherry Wood expression uses a combination of ex-bourbon casks and Spanish sherry butts — primarily Oloroso and Pedro Ximénez — for aging and finishing, producing a richer, dried-fruit-dominant style that draws on the same wood tradition as Macallan or Glendronach in Scotland. The sherry influence at Westland is typically more restrained than at some Scottish producers, integrated with the complex malt character rather than dominating it.
The Peated expression uses Scottish-style malted barley that has been dried over peat smoke, producing a spirit that combines the familiar iodine and smoke notes of Islay-style Scotch with the underlying complexity of Westland's Pacific Northwest grain bill and fermentation approach. The result occupies an unusual position in the global whisky landscape — recognisably peated, but with a character distinct from Scottish equivalents that reflects the American production context.
The Colere Series and Barley Provenance
One of Westland's most ambitious ongoing projects is the Colere series — a range of annual whisky releases that explore how individual Washington State barley varieties affect the character of the finished whisky. Each vintage of Colere is made from a single heritage or experimental barley variety, grown on specific farms in Eastern Washington, to produce what amounts to a terroir-focused investigation of barley's contribution to whisky flavour.
The project draws on the established wine model of single-vineyard and single-variety production, applying equivalent thinking to whisky's grain agriculture. Varieties explored in the Colere series have included Wintmalt, a heritage winter barley; Alba, a winter barley cultivar; and various experimental agricultural research varieties. The results vary significantly from vintage to vintage — demonstrating that barley variety contributes meaningfully to whisky character in ways that most distillers, who blend many barley types and crop years, obscure.
American Single Malt as a World Category
Westland's influence extends beyond its own production. The American Single Malt Whiskey Commission, co-founded by Westland, successfully petitioned the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) to establish American Single Malt Whiskey as an official recognised spirits category in US law — a designation that came into effect in 2024. The category requires production from 100% malted barley, distillation in copper pot stills, maturation in oak casks of 700 litres or less, and production entirely within the United States.
The establishment of this legal category creates the framework for American single malt to develop the same kind of regulated identity that has made Scotch single malt a globally recognised and protected designation. It provides consumer clarity, prevents other grain spirits from using the name, and gives producers like Westland a stable regulatory foundation on which to build export market development. For Westland specifically, it is the institutional recognition of the vision that Matt Hofmann and Emerson Lamb set out to achieve when they first began planning the distillery: that American single malt deserved to stand alongside Scotch, Irish, and Japanese whisky as a distinct world category.