Westland

Westland Distillery is the Seattle-based American Single Malt producer that essentially defined what the modern American Single Malt category looks like — and the distillery whose multi-year campaign to formalize the American Single Malt Whiskey legal standard (enacted by the U.S. Tax and Trade Bureau on January 19, 2025) put the category on equal regulatory footing with Scotch Single Malt and Irish Single Malt for the first time in American distilling history. Founded in 2010 by Matt Hofmann and Emerson Lamb in Seattle, Washington, Westland built itself as a deliberate American answer to the Scotch Single Malt tradition — using 100% malted barley, double pot-still distillation, and aging in a mix of new American oak and used Scotch and bourbon casks. The Westland production philosophy is built around a deliberate "sense of place" framing tied to Pacific Northwest agricultural and forestry inputs. The brand sources malted barley from Pacific Northwest farms, uses native Garryana oak (Quercus garryana, the Oregon oak species that grows wild across the broader Pacific Northwest) for the brand's distinctive Garryana single-barrel program, and produces a peated American single malt that uses Washington-state peat rather than the standard imported Scottish peat. The result is an American single malt with a flavor identity distinct from any Scotch or Irish reference point — heavier on PNW agricultural character, lighter on the maritime-peat character that anchors most Scotch singl…