Westland Garryana 2017, Edition 2|1, Native Oak Series, 50% abv.

For the second in Westland's Native Oak Series, five malts: Washington Select Pale, Munich, Extra Special, Pale Chocolate, and Brown malt; were matured for a minimum of 38 months in 52% first-fill ex-bourbon (Quercus alba), 27% virgin oak (Quercus alba), and 21% virgin Garryana oak (Quercus garryana). This Native Oak Series is based on Garryana oak, native to the pacific northwest and western US.

Nose: coco puffs, light mint, light herbal, very strange.

Palate: initial palate is marshmallows, honey which gets stronger with time, and smoke, mid palate is white sugar, some vanilla, some sort of smoothness, back palate is white sugar and some smoke. After some time, the mid palate has exposure to old wet steamed lotus leaves. Damn... it was doing so well.

Finish: medium, the spice and smoke increases.

Wow what a pleasant surprise! This one is really good, a sugary sweetness up front which transforms to smoke on the back palate and only increases with intensity on the finish. One of the few where the nose is not too good, but the flavors are really good.

Grade: B+

Whiskyanalysis.com, 8.7 ± 0.24 on 8 reviews, doesn't say which vintage
Thewhiskeywash, Joshua St. John, 87-89/100
Whisky advocate, Jeffery Lindenmuth, 86 points

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

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