Inbox | The Week's Whisky News | February 16, 2024

Welcome to Inbox - our weekly round up of whisky news and PR material that has found its way in to the WFE email. We started Inbox several years ago as we cannot write full articles or do justice to every piece received. It features items from around the world of whisky and is published by us each Friday. Within Inbox we aim to write a few lines detailing each press release/ piece of news/ PR event that we have received and provide links, where possible, for you to find out further information. 

Review - Westland Garryana 2018 Edition 3/1

This whiskey is the third in a series of an annual special release from the American distillery of Westland. This series uses casks made from Quercus Garryana, a regional species of oak that grows in the Pacific NorthWest coastal states of America. The series are believed to be the first whiskeys matured using this type of oak for nearly a century.

This third edition has used Westland's classic style spirit (made using their 5-Malt combination of different barleys) and a small percentage of their peated malt spirit. As well as using the Garryana oak casks this whiskey also uses pockets of spirit matured in virgin oak, first-fill ex-bourbon, first-fill ex-Port and refill ex-Westland whiskey casks. These are then marreid together to create the final whiskey.

Review - Balcones Texas Rye 100 Proof

The Texas Rye 100 Proof is the first ever rye whisky to be released by the Texan distillery of Balcones. It was launched to celebrate their 10th anniversary year. The 100 Proof is bottled at 15 months of age and will be a permanent product in the core range. The spirit used has been made using 100% rye grains, all of which are grown in Texas - this is unusual as the legal minimum is 51% rye - and has been double distilled through copper pot stills.  As the name suggests, it is bottled at 100 Proof (50% ABV). This core bottling was joined by the limited Cask Strength Straight Rye, which contained some of the first rye spirit distilled in 2015 and was bottled at 62.5% ABV. This has now sold out.

Distillery Visit - Westland

The Westland distillery is located in the SoDo district of Seattle in the west coast American state of Washington. It was established by Matt Hoffman in 2010, who wanted to set up a craft distillery near to his home town of Tacoma following a period of studying brewing and distilling at Herriott Watt University in Edinburgh. Westland has recently been taken over by drinks company Remy Cointreau.

Washington has a vibrant craft brewing and distilling community. Washington and neighbouring Oregon are two of the major barley and hop growing areas in the world, which has driven this growth and vibrancy. The state also has a temperate climate and this is perfect for whiskey maturation.