Matt Hofmann is Leading an American Single Malt Revolution
Jul. 25, 2017
Do you know what the distance is from the Scottish Highlands to the shores of Istanbul? Matt Hofmann does. The reason he knows this trivial fact is because he regularly uses it to explain why he is producing single malt whiskey in Seattle, Washington, instead of tried-and-true American bourbon.
“People ask me that all the time, ‘Why don’t you make bourbon?’ The little fact that I like to bring out with everybody is the distance between Seattle and Kentucky is the same distance as Scotland to Istanbul. So why would we make the same spirit as they do in the south when everything from the climate to the soil are worlds apart.”
Hofmann is the co-founder and master distiller at Westland Distillery, where he and his team are producing some of the most exceptional and innovative single malt whiskies in the market. The only problem is, much of that same market doesn’t even know that American-made single malt whiskies exist.
Hofmann and Westland are slowing changing that, first by winning over consumers and customers, then by winning over the TTB. Hofmann has big plans for Westland and the American single malt category, and they all started with a few grains of barely.
Breakthru: What led you to create an American single malt whiskey, and to do so in Seattle of all places?
Matt Hofmann: The reason why we make single malt whiskey is because the Pacific Northwest is one of the best barley growing regions in the world. It's not just the best in the country, but in the world.
That is why we exist as a single malt distillery, and we believe that we should be making single malt. Not only that we can, but that we should be, and that America can make single malt whiskey that is every bit as authentic as the single malt in Scotland, and it's every bit as authentic as the bourbon that comes from Kentucky, because it's rooted in a sense of place.
So barley is a big part of Westland's identity as a distillery and brand, correct?
Very much so. Many of the distilleries in Scotland deny that malt flavor makes any difference. Coming from a big craft brewing town in Seattle, we know that malt flavor makes a difference in dark beers versus light beers. That thought process is what led to the creation of what we call our five malt recipe.
In that recipe we have a pale malt, which is a standard malt of barley that you'd see in any Scottish whiskey that's not peated. Then we add four roasted malts. When you add those five together, you get a huge amount of nutty, chocolatey notes, and a kind of savory leather, tobacco sort of things. It’s basically a porter, pre-distillation, and it is a flavor that is expressed in all three of our core range: American Oak, Peated, and Sherry Wood.
Outside of using roasted malts in you whiskeys, you’re also starting to work with different malt varietals, correct?
Yes. You basically have two main sources of innovation in malt. One is roasted malts, the other is varietals of barley. Barley varietals are something that, again, most of the Scottish whiskey industry just denies, like it makes no difference. But, we know in the world of wine that Merlot tastes different from Cabernet Sauvignon, which tastes different from Cabernet Franc, which tastes different from Pinot Noir. So, why would that be the same whiskey? So, we've explored a lot of these different varietals of barley as well.
That's what Westland is all about. At the very top-line level, Westland is about the pursuit of the exploration of what single malt whiskey can be. Not just for the sake of innovation, but because we believe genuinely in a better product out of it.
Being so dependent on the land and resources of the Pacific Northwest, is climate change a concern for you?
Absolutely. Barley used to be grown in a much bigger part of the country than it is now. We used to grow 30 million tons of malting grade barley every year, and now we grow about 2 million tons. For kind of the opposite reason you have corn, which is able to grow in colder and colder climates, but barley is that grain that thrives in cooler climates. If things warm up, then it pushes it further and further into the Northwest. So we’re always keeping an eye on it, and right now we work with people from Washington State University and they are looking at varietals that will be ideally suited to the climate of Washington State projecting into the future.
Do you plan to start experimenting with different casks as well?
That’s where the Garry oak and Garryana bottling comes in. Within that, there is a world of possibilities. We see a lot more potential there, because no one has ever aged whiskey in a Garry oak cask before. That is a part of what the Garryana risk is about. Nobody knows what this oak does when you put peated spirit in it, or in the case of this year, you put a really fruity whiskey in there and you're blending it with these Garry oak casks. What happens when you have these kind of lemon and orange peel notes, and sherry notes with saison yeast? What happens when you add the flavor notes from the Garry oak to that? That's never been explored, and that's, to me, that's a ton of fun and that’s really prudent in where we are.
How was the American single malt category evolved since Westland opened in 2010?
There were producers of American single malt whiskey at that point, but it hadn't been organized into a coherent package. Most people don't know this, but there's no definition for not only American single malt, there's no definition for single malt whiskey period, in the U.S. What we have today, however, is a critical mass of producers who are coming together with the goal of putting together enough of a frame work where you can say, to everybody in the world, what American single malt means. As a result, we formed the American Single Malt Whiskey Commission and now there are more than 60 producers attached to it. This category is still brand new and very small compared to others, but it's the fastest growing category within single malts. I think a lot of people are eager to see and explore the diversity that American single malt whiskey has to offer.