The Roots of Pacific Northwest Terroir

For over a century, the language of whiskey has belonged to distant isles and highland glens. Barley from Scotland, peat from Islay, oak and corn from Kentucky — each has shaped how we imagine what a whiskey should be. But the Pacific Northwest has always been a place that refuses to fit inside anyone else’s borders. Our weather, our forests, our farmlands, our very sense of place all conspire to create something distinctly their own. To distill whiskey here is to revere tradition, but to stand confidently rooted in the land itself.

At Westland, terroir is a living concept we’ve spent more than a decade exploring. It is the taste of barley grown on Skagit Valley soils, the smoke of peat harvested from a bog outside of Shelton, the tannins of oak trees that sprouted centuries ago in our coastal rainforests. To speak of Pacific Northwest terroir is to tell the story of how the land itself becomes the whiskey.

The Pacific Northwest is one of the most fertile barley-growing regions in the world, though its grains were once destined mostly for beer. In the Skagit Valley, just an hour north of Seattle, farmers partnered with researchers at Washington State University’s Bread Lab to cultivate new varieties — barleys bred not for industrial yield, but for flavor.

These grains bring a remarkable diversity to our whiskey making. Sweetness in one strain, nuttiness in another, a rustic earthiness in a third. From day one here, with the Westland five-malt mash bill as our original recipe, we have seen a notable impact that grain has on the flavor of the final whiskey. In most places, barley is a commodity, but here, we hold it proudly as the first building blocks of terroir that ground our whiskey.

When most whiskey drinkers hear “peat,” they think of Scotland’s windswept islands. But in the misty woods of Western Washington lies a lesser-known source — a 2,000-year-old bog where ancient plants decomposed in waterlogged silence. This is the peat of the Pacific Northwest. Peat is no rarity, and covers up to two percent of the world’s surface. These waterlogged marshes are where the preserved soil and biodiverse microorganisms and flora live underneath.

Our peat is different than that of Scotland, which was no surprise to us, some four thousand miles away. The Northwestern peat shows itself as milder, more herbaceous, laced with forest notes of pine and moss. When burned to dry malted barley, it imparts not the briny iodine of Islay, but the scent of a damp cedar fire after autumn rain. It is smoke that feels at home here, anchoring Westland’s whiskey in a sense of place no less distinctive than any old-world source.

If barley is the foundation and peat the shadow, Garryana oak is the voice that makes Westland unmistakable. Known to botanists as quercus garryana, this rare species of white oak grows only in pockets of the Pacific Northwest, its groves stretching from British Columbia down into Northern California. For centuries, the oak has stood as a keystone species, sheltering ecosystems of plants and animals. For our whiskey, it has become the defining expression of this exploration we’ve been traversing for the past fourteen years.

Unlike the more familiar American white oak (quercus alba), Garryana is bold, untamed, almost unruly. It yields flavors of intense spice and dark fruit, roasted coffee and smoke. Each cask holds significantly more tannin than quercus alba, and is a force of nature, less predictable than its Kentucky cousin, but more rewarding for its wildness.

Over a decade ago, Westland set out to see what this oak could mean for whiskey. The experiment became a journey, a series of limited releases known simply as Garryana. Each edition has explored new dimensions of this wood: how it interacts with peated malt, with wine casks, with time itself. Together, these releases chart a map of discovery, a decade spent listening to what the forest has to say.

Now enter Garryana 10 Year. Our first age-stated whiskey, slated to drop on shelves October 20th this year. Here at this very point, we arrive at a milestone. Not an ending, but a vantage point. A chance to pause and look back at the decade of exploring this singular oak species, while gazing forward to what the next decade might hold.

Beyond the individual ingredients, it is the wider landscape that defines terroir. The Pacific Northwest is a place of contrasts: coastal rains and mountain snows, fertile valleys and stalwart cliffs, evergreen forests and windswept grasslands. These environments nurture barley, peat, and oak — they shape the way we see whiskey.

To make whiskey here is to accept that nature is a partner. Seasons are pronounced and variable. Rain falls frequently; growth is lush. The spirit we draw from our stills reflects this tension — between abundance and austerity, wildness and refinement.

In 2016, when we released the first Garryana single malt whiskey. It was a product launch, but for us a step forward and a declaration that the Pacific Northwest had something to say in the global conversation about whiskey.

Garryana 10 Year is a celebration and a reminder that there is still much to discover. We pause and remember that terroir is not static. We remember that oak trees live centuries, and many of the young Garry Oaks across our region will become casks long after we’re gone, something for the future generations to discover.

Our roots are here — in the barley fields of Skagit, the bogs of Shelton, the oak savannahs of Garryana. To taste this whiskey is to taste the Pacific Northwest itself. And as we look back at a decade of discovery, we know we are only just beginning.