Westland Distillery: Thieves steal 12,000 bottles of ‘irreplaceable’ 10-year-old American single malt

Westland Distillery loses nearly $1 million worth of whiskey in a daring heist at the Seattle distillery

When I interviewed Shane Armstrong, head blender at Seattle’s Westland Distillery, in January this year, he revealed his excitement at the craft distillery’s first 10-year-old release in their award-winning Garryanna range. Little did he imagine that the very same release would be hit by a daring heist worthy of an American movie just months later. [Read Shane Armstrong’s interview, How the West Was Won, on thesinglemaltshop.com blog here]

On July 31^st, a truck arrived at the distillery’s rackhouse in Washington State with documents to authorise the release of 12,000 bottles for transportation to New Jersey. The truck was filled and it departed on its 4,500km (2,800-mile) journey by road across the United States. According to reports by the Associated Press, it hasn’t been seen since.   

A week passed before Westland Distillery was alerted and authorities at Skagit County sheriff’s office started investigating. At face value, it must have seemed like a routine theft. Digging deeper, however, the actual value of the loss was revealed. 

12,000 Bottles

In the 12,000-bottle shipment was Westland’s core single malt release, a brand new bottling called Watchpost and 3,000 bottles of this year’s Garryana. This Garrryana bottling is possibly the most significant loss – it represents around 40% of the total allocation of 7,500 bottles of the award-winning single malt. 

As well as the decade of hard work that created this first milestone bottling, it is also the first release of a 10-year-old Garryana since the USA Trade & Tax Bureau (TTB) recognised single malt as an official American whiskey category, alongside bourbon and rye. This combination of factors makes it virtually irreplaceable. 

Westland worked hard to help achieve the recognition of single malt as an official US whiskey style. They campaigned for change while making excellent single malt, while at the same time admitting that “we felt ourselves trapped making whiskey for a category that did not exist”. But they persevered.

Local Flavour

This year’s Garryana was a chance to taste the fruits of the Remy Cointreau-owned distillery’s labour, which has always attempted to stay local, as Shane Armstrong explained earlier this year. “Our flavour influence is pretty local. Washington grows a lot of barley – 95% of the barley we use is grown here. 

“There’s a big brewing culture here, too. Our ideas around yeast come from that – some of the yeasts we use create a lower yield but much more flavour. We sometimes use Washington peat, which is pretty rare. Our wine and beer casks are from local wineries and breweries, too. So we’re trying to be very connected to where we are and taste like where we’re from.” 

Westland operates in a territory that has a long history of beermaking, which directly informs its approach to whiskey and flavour creation. The distillery uses a five-malt mash bill. It starts with two-row barley, like many other whisky producers, but they layer this with a lightly kilned Munich malt, a pale chocolate malt, a brown malt, and a Briess extra-special malt. These five malts combine to create a flavour profile rich in chocolate and coffee aromatics, which persists through to the finish. 

Many single malt distillers, particularly in Scotland, pursue these chocolate, nuts and vanilla notes in the cask, using sherry or port finished to impart additional flavour to their whiskey. Westland set out to do that at the brewing stage of whiskey making.

What Next?

It’s unknown where the 12,000 stolen bottles might end up. It’s notoriously tricky to sell whiskey in the US that doesn’t come through official channels, so it’s expected that they will end up in international markets. 

Before the theft, Garryana was already a popular collector’s item and bottles sold for around €150 each. The remaining allocation of Garryana, which Westland Distillery has said it is offering to its loyal fan base first, now comes with an unwelcome value-added feature. 

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