A Perfect Summer Drink | The Westland Paper Seaplane

There is a world of inspiration in whiskey. We’ve made it our life’s work, and have found multitudes of depth in just water, yeast, barley, and oak. We looked around and saw long held practices from those who came before us. Distillers both in Scotland and in the United States have long held traditions. And we set out to create something entirely new, rooted in the heart of the Pacific Northwest.

Beyond whiskey, cocktails are a true creative expression of the artisans we call bartenders. Cocktails can tell a story of flavor, place, time, they can become the center of a gathering or a marker of specific memories. Cocktails have been created and enjoyed for centuries with a wide array of spirits and combinations. Bartenders have a special role, they are invited to take care of people via the medium of hospitality, and they also have been given the responsibility to leave an impression of taste.

At Westland, we are flavor people. We dive into ingredients and processes, looking into chemical breakdowns and phenolic compounds that impact overall flavor, both in smell and taste. The landscape acts as our guide, flavor leading us on the path forward. But even on a surface level, there is much to explore. Whether it is a blind tasting of cask samples or a breezy cocktail, we always set out to uncover flavor with its innumerable outcomes. Of course, in our ingredients we prioritize flavor over everything else. This can easily transfer to the world of mixology and cocktail creation.

Beyond the ingredients themselves, we find that the seasons are also a simple and direct source of inspiration. Warmer months beg for citrus, autumn invites spice and cinnamon, winter can become a perfect conduit for herbal tones to enter the scene. And right now, with summer season in full stride, we can’t get the Paper Seaplane out of our minds. This cocktail, predictably a riff on the famed Paper Plane, is our version of the bright orange-hued whiskey drink. Find the recipe below.

The Paper Seaplane Recipe

Ingredients
• 1 oz Westland Flagship Single Malt Whiskey
• ¾ oz Wilderton Bittersweet Aperitivo
• ¾ oz Letterpress Amaro Amorino
• ¾ oz fresh lemon juice
• 5 dashes Scrappy’s Orange Bitters

Method
Combine all ingredients and ice into a cocktail shaker. Shake thoroughly to dilute and chill. Strain into chilled coupe glass. Garnish with dehydrated orange wheel or citrus peel of your choice.

We’re a whiskey distillery in Seattle. And at our Seattle distillery, we also operate a tasting room that acts as a visitor center, offering distillery tours, whiskey flights, and cocktails. Our Brand Education Ambassador and in-house cocktail menu developer Jenna Sagmoen takes the same ethos we have carried from day one of exploring the unknown in whiskey and actively applies it to cocktail expressions. Jenna Sagmoen also looks to the seasons for drink inspiration on our tasting room menu. Jenna carries the approach that “nothing is off limits,” incorporating ingredients like pink peppercorn and pineapple skin.

Jenna knows that with American Single Malt as a category doesn’t have the same history or cocktails as other spirits like bourbon and scotch, which can become pigeon-holed. Scotch likens to a Penicillin cocktail more often than anything else. But, using our single malts offers more of a blank canvas, with a notably flavorful base spirit to work from.

Jenna’s breakdown of the Paper Seaplane shows a slightly different combination than the typical build of the Paper Plane. Her version is built entirely from Pacific Northwest ingredients. By substituting bourbon for Westland Flagship in a Paper Plane, depth is created from the chocolatey and cherry tones of our signature whiskey. The Wilderton alcohol-free bitter paired with a healthy amount of orange bitters create a similar complexity that you could find in a bottle of Aperol. The Letterpress distilling Amaro Amorino is distilled just one mile away from our facility and creates the perfect baking spice background note. Overall, this is proof that the cocktail is adaptable and versatile, but the use of Westland Flagship makes it a true original, full of flavor.

The Paper Seaplane is a very simple refreshment to accompany warmer days. This cocktail offers a satisfying brightness alongside a perfect layering of sweet, bitter, warming, and refreshing flavors. For this very reason, we suggest pairing it with a sweet dessert: lemon bars. You can follow your favorite recipe or choose one of our favorites, the Kitchn Lemon Bars, which uses only six ingredients. Lemons, flour, butter, sugar, and salt come together to create something beautiful. We suggest lemon bars because they are a meeting of rich and bright, buttery and tangy. Plus, if you’re enjoying the Paper Seaplane cocktail, why not add a little extra treat to your tablescape? The Paper Seaplane is, in our minds, a perfect drink that needs no supplements, other than maybe a perfect long-drawn summer sunset.