Getting creative with single malt
Making American single malt whiskey in the land of microbreweries
Portland is known as the place where young people go to retire, but it’s worth noting that the relative ease of living there allows people to explore a lot of creative pursuits. This has long been a hotbed for craft breweries, and distilleries are a natural extension of that already strong sector of the economy. When people have the opportunity to be creative and make things with their hands, innovation follows. American Whiskey Magazine recently spent a few days in Portland getting to know the folks at Westward Whiskey, producers of fine American single malt whiskeys.
“I’m from Seattle,” says Westward cofounder, Christian Krogstad. “Throughout my life my parents had always given me a little cup of beer or wine with meals. It’s no surprise that once craft beer came along I was pretty enamoured. I started homebrewing when I was 19 back home, but even before that Seattle was one of the hotbeds of craft brewing. I have this long relationship with good beer and good whiskey. Every brewer I know loves whiskey because it’s really just concentrated beer. I moved to Portland in 1991 to become a brewer and back then there were more breweries than anywhere. I knocked on doors and within a week I got a job. About a year later I started a brewery in Bellingham, Washington. Then I moved back to Portland and got a job with a brewery that also had a distillery. I was managing the brewery at that point, so I would make the washes and then truck them up to the distiller and just spend a lot of time hanging around in the distillery and I realized hey, I can do this.”
The craft beer culture is prevalent in Portland’s culture and it carries through to the distilled spirits produced in the region. The Pacific Northwest has become known for producing some of the best American single malt whiskeys around thanks to the abundance of barley, malting houses and brewing and distilling talent.
“If I had done this in Louisville I probably would have made Bourbon,” Krogstad says. “But we’re in the Pacific Northwest. This is where we grow all the two-row malting barley. We don’t grow corn here. We grow barley malt. This is where the epicentre of craft brewing was and is; those things say malt whiskey to me.”
Krogstad notes that even if he wanted to make Bourbon he would have to truck in corn from the Midwest, which would make it cost-prohibitive. Malt whiskey is authentic to the Pacific Northwest because in the early history of distilling people used it as a means to preserve crops, so regional style cropped up out of necessity rather than popularity. In short, different styles were popular because they were being made; they weren’t being made because they were popular.
“Our process, which we call minimalist distilling, starts with the best possible ingredients and focuses on building flavor each step of the way, all in an effort to create a bold and robust single malt,” says Miles Munroe, head distiller and blender at Westward Whiskey.
“As brewers-turned-distillers, I think
people are surprised at the amount of effort we put into the fermentation of wash and how much of that character is preserved in the whiskey.”
“Our focus is on fermentation and preserving those flavors,” says Krogstad.
“We are very fruity, rich and full-bodied, but drinkable. The way we achieve that is by focusing on fermentation and having a clean, aseptic fermentation with ale yeast and a clean, cool-temperature ferment. We start by creating a really great beer and then just gently distilling it with very little reflux. One thing that we are adding is a focus on fermentation and on the white dog. We have no interest in making Scotch or Bourbon – I love those and I drink a lot of them. What we’re trying to do is something that really
didn’t exist until now: this really fruity, rich, robust, but balanced and drinkable whiskey.”
“For me, my end goal has always been clear: to make whiskey,” Munroe says. “I studied brewing to become a single malt maker and being a brewer was an important step along the way toward distilling. That path is an instinctive one in the craft world because the approach to creating flavor with quality raw ingredients is the same. And great whiskey comes from great beer.”
According to Krogstad, whiskey to the rest of the world is malt whiskey. As far as American single malts go, they can be further divided by philosophies rather than regions. He divides them into philosophies of different kinds of smoke, Scotch-style whiskey made in America, those who are most interested in talking about terroir and then those who focus on fermentation and beer. Both he and Munroe count themselves in the latter camp.
“If there was a style emerging it would be that, in general, American single malt whiskey is sweeter, richer and more aggressive,” says Krogstad. “It follows the American craft brewing traditions. Pale ale didn’t come from the US. The term comes from Burton-on-trent. It’s low carbonation and an American would consider it warm and flat, even though it’s not actually warm or flat. It was really Sierra Nevada back in 1985 that articulated that they were making an American pale ale. They made it with American grain and American hops, but really the difference was that they were making it for an American palate. Americans were used to cold and carbonated beer, but the American palate was also looking for something that was a little more malty and strong. With American pale ale you can trace its roots to Burton-on-trent, but you take that profile and you turn it up. Similarly with American single malt, the Scots and the Japanese do a really great job of making some incredibly delicate and pretty distillates. They tend to age them in fairly neutral barrels for a long time in order to create these really subtle whiskeys, and we’re like well screw that, we’re going to make it all about a really big mouthful of whiskey.”
While American single malts are gaining traction in the United States, they are also equally being explored by people in other parts of the world. Wherever Bourbon goes, American single malt will follow.
“We’re making it for the American palate,” says Krogstad. “Americans have been drinking Bourbon for a really long time. Bourbon is sweet and from a new barrel, so we’re using a new barrel. Whereas corn spirit is really light and the flavor is dominated by the barrel,
because our spirit is so rich and robust, even though we similarly use a new barrel, the barrel doesn’t actually dominate the spirit like it does with Bourbon. It’s incredibly robust but it’s not a chore or an acquired taste.”
American single malt whiskey has yet to be formally defined by the TTB’S Standards of Identity. But the American Single Malt Whiskey Commission, of which Westward is a member, has made it one of their primary aims to change that, mainly because they want consumers to know and fully understand what they are getting when they purchase a bottle labelled as an American single malt whiskey.
Until then, Westward will continue to make the most authentic American single malt whiskey they know how to.