Here is a single cask from Westland Distillery in Seattle— a distillery I was fortunate enough to visit and tour right before the COVID pandemic put all those activities on pause for a few years. This cask was finished in Muscat Wine Casks and released by Total Wine in 2022. I assume like many of the 2022 single casks that it began life in new oak, but I have no information to definitively say. Once upon a time Westland had a helpful cask archive on their website, sadly the site is far more minimalist now, and the archive disappeared years back (it had not been updated much since 2018 anyway). 

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Whisky: Westland 7 Year Cask 4857 for Total Wine

Country/Region: United States/Washington

ABV: 52.1%

Cask: Muscat Wine Finish

Age: 7 Years (Bottled 2022)

Notes: Sweet and unctuous, the aroma was a woody affair with plenty of freshly waxed hardwood floors, resins, and ice wine gummies. I imagined a ballroom with polished leather chairs and oak tables loaded with confectionary delights: sweet toffees, fruit punch, fig cakes, and a plum-aniseed liqueur. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, the initial hit was sweet fruits, followed by more savory oak— a classic and clear evolution. Jammy fruits and toffee candies appeared as blondie bars and cherry or blackberry cobbler with hints of green grape jello cups. Baking spices, from cinnamon to aniseed, tickled the palate as more woody tannins asserted themselves with leather, wood polish, and sticky buns. Fruits lingered at the end, more sour cherry jam, caramelized tomatoes, and hints of balsamic. The finish was drying and long with woody tannins and jammy dark fruits.

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Score: 7 (82)

Mental Image: Anastasia’s Phantasmal Ballroom

Conclusion: Woody and sweet, I thought this Westland was a cut above most as the flavors were nicely balanced and structured. There was a clear evolution, which is sometimes lacking in these big cask bombs as they like to throw everything at you at once. That structured development took this up a level from similar 2022 private single cask releases. It was a touch sweet and woody for my taste— and these big cask-driven profiles are generally not my jam. I am sad that they have become a hallmark of American Single Malts to a scale beyond what we see with Scotch and the wood-tech whiskies there. Give me more refill wood! And yet, this was one of the better examples of those heavy cask maturations. Overall, tasty fare.  

PS, this is one of the few times I do not recommend adding water. Water washed out some of the flavors without bringing any quaffable balance to the experience. A net negative.