Westland Ready To Go With First Native Oak Malt

By Richard Thomas

Seattle’s Westland Distillery is already noted as one of the standard bearers in American malt whiskey,  and the distillery makes much of the value of its Pacific Northwest climate and its use of local peat in its whiskey-making. In my April conversation with Westland Master Distiller Matt Hoffman, their use of coopering timber drawn from an oak species particular to the region, Quercus Garryana, came up. Now the first whiskey drawing on stock aged in Garryana oak is ready for release.

Westland Native Oak #1 will be initially released at a distillery event on July 14th before going into distribution, and will consist of a production run of just 2,500 bottles. As stated above, the whiskey draws on some Garryana oak-aged stock as a blending component, and is not 100% Garryana-aged. Westland Native Oak #1 is bottled at 56.2% ABV (112.4 Proof), and will retail for $125 a bottle.