Westland Flagship American Single Malt Whiskey Review

Founded in 2011 they moved to their current distillery in Seattle in 2013. It’s not a huge output by modern standards with around a 260,000 LPA production limit but that didn’t put of Remy Cointreau from buying the distillery in 2017. 

The distillery highlights locally grown and malted grain and while it does currently use some Scottish peated malt in their flagship malt they are trying to move into using only local peated malt. 

The Solum expressions actually only use malt peated with Pacific Northwest peat. 

The Colere expressions explore the impact of different barley varietals and the Garryana expressions explore the use of Garry Oak which is unique to the Pacific Northwest, a bit like Mizunara these are difficult trees to get staves from but Westland believe it is well worth the effort.

I was lucky enough to visit the distillery in April of 2025 and the facilities, the ethos and the final products all impressed me greatly. The use of their 5 malt mash bill is unusual but shows they are constantly in pursuit of flavour and not just volume. There's a bit more information about this mash bill below.

Westland American Single Malt 46% abv/92 proof

5 malt mash bill – one barley varietal in 5 styles – Washington select pale malt, Munich malt, Extra Special malt, pale chocolate malt and brown malt (as well as Bairds heavily peated Scottish malt). This can mean less yield from the roasted malts, in some cases by as much as 50% as the roasting reduces how much fermentable sugar is in the grain.

Maturation uses virgin oak casks (around 65%) as well as used American oak, first fill ex-bourbon, first and second fill ex oloroso hogsheads and butts.

Aged for a minimum of three years as per the bottle but according to other online sources it is actually aged for at least 40 months/3.5 years. I’m nearly sure on the tour they said it was 5 to 6 years old but I’m happy to be wrong.

NC/NCF Priced at $60 normally, I paid $46/£36.75/E44.50

Nose: Honey & malt, vanilla fudge, cinnamon and orange peel. Now the oakiness kicks in with the virgin oak definitely saying hi! A light waxiness and gentle peat smoke. Baked apples now with a touch of milk chocolate.

Palate: A medium mouthfeel to this – the malt is apparent along with baked apples, honey, dried apricots, fruit and nut Cadbury’s chocolate and black coffee. A wisp of peat smoke is followed by virgin oak spice and cinnamon.

Finish: Short to medium with malt, black coffee, oak spice and mild peat smoke.

Score: 6 out of 10 (based on the $60 list price)

Overall: This is definitely a good single malt if not a brilliant one. It does come across a little young but it delivers plenty of flavour helped by the natural presentation and honestly it shows up plenty of young Irish and Scottish single malts.

I will say I have tried some of their single casks that were 7-9 years old and they really were pretty classy, especially the Garryana oak matured releases.

A distillery to keep an eye on!

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