For #ASMWAdvent2023 Days 11-12. (I’m still a little late of course but I’m catching up.)

My apologies in advance for the length of this review; this pair of reviews took me on quite an adventure through queries to the producer, some personal experiments, optimization efforts for the quality of this side-by-side and the removal of bias, and a trip through my years-old notes about the old Flagship sample. See note at the end about the reason I’m calling the old bottling a 2020 bottling.

I tasted my fresh bottle of 2023 Westland Flagship ASMW yesterday (Dec. 12) for a video review and realized that it didn’t quite taste entirely the way I remembered the Westland Flagship from 2020 to taste (which I reviewed in ASMW Advent 2021, Review #36). So today (Dec. 13), I decided to re-taste Westland Flagship 2020, of which I still had 0.5oz of in a 2oz sample bottle.

Admittedly any flavor drift in the last 2 years could be “open bottle” effect for the 2020 (or “neck pour” effect for 2023). Therefore, I’m attempting a mitigation for both factors. Regarding “open bottle effect,” note first that my sense of there being a difference came from my memory of the Flagship 2021, not from tasting the sample itself. I won’t review my previous review notes until after I’m done with notes on these glasses, but I’m curious to see how they’ll compare, and if they align we can call that a mitigation of the effect. If not… well, bottles change. It’s an interesting sensory analysis all the same.

For the “neck pour” effect, I’ve given my pour from the 2023 bottle plenty of air time (about 20 minutes uncapped, and then loosely capped with a watchglass for a few more hours afterwards). I’ve also poured off a sample of the brand-new 2023 bottle so that I can stave off some “open bottle effect” and later compare the new bottle sample to the last quarter of the 2023 bottle. This shall be an ongoing experiment.

To check any a priori bias, I’m going to attempt a “triangle blind” — I’ll pour a third glass from the new bottle, mark the bottom of the glasses and scramble them blindfolded, then nose and taste each, and see if I can correctly guess which two are the same bottle.

Also of note, I’m also seeing a slight difference in color between the two. I’ll include pictures in the album for that but it’s very subtle and lighting could very well be a factor. I swapped the positions of the samples for a couple of extra pictures and see that the shades moved closer together (the lighter 2020 became a little darker, darker 2023 became a little lighter) and just about equalized. That seems to reinforce the idea that there’s a slight difference. The reason I noticed in the first place is that the liquid in the full bottle seemed darker than I thought it would be because before this I’ve never had a whole bottle of the Flagship in my home, only the 2oz sample, though I’ve seen the full bottle a number of times at the distillery itself.

For the color comparison, see the captioned pictures in this album.

I reached out to the distillery to find out if there was any major difference in the batch proportions of different barrel types and the answer was effectively along the lines of that there is likely to be a bit of batch-to-batch variance but there’s no major intentional change in profile. The representative also referenced the open bottle vs neck pour effect being a possible explanation for some of the perceived difference. I’m not particularly hung up on color; it’s just very interesting to me in this case!

On a note of flavor drift between open and closed bottles, I’ve previously reviewed (Review #74: Linkwood 11 Year Single Cask Nation) two bottles of the same Linkwood (exactly the same single cask, just different bottles) 3 different ways (open bottle, fresh bottle, blind sample) and came to roughly similar tasting notes, and uncannily similar ratings despite a clear opinion on which I thought was my favorite. To be fair the drift between the open and the closed bottle in that case was about half the bottle missing for around 6 months.

However you happen to take all those factors into account, the sensory analysis between bottles of the same whiskey from 3 years apart is still an interesting exercise! The notes below are taken comparatively. They’re more apparently different than I expected but they’re still in the ballpark of the same whiskey.

Common Information

• Bottling Name: Westland Flagship American Single Malt
• Distillery: Westland
• Bottler: Westland
• Region/Style: American Single Malt Whiskey (Washington)
• ABV: 46% | NCF Non-chillfiltered
• Age: 3 years
• Cask type: the whole portfolio that corresponds to the triumvirate of previous core releases, American Oak, Sherry Oak, and Peated, plus an extra proportion of refill casks: Cooper’s Reserve New American Oak, Cooper’s Reserve Used American Oak, First Fill Ex-Bourbon, First Fill Ex-Oloroso Hogsheads and Butts, Second Fill Ex-Oloroso Hogsheads and Butts
• Malt Bill: 6 types of malt total: Five-Malt Recipe (Washington Select Pale Malt, Munich Malt, Extra Special Malt, Pale Chocolate Malt, Brown Malt), plus Bairds Heavily Peated Malt

ASMW Advent 2023 Day 11: Westland 3 Year (bottled 2020) Flagship American Single Malt

• Price: About $65 plus taxes from the distillery, includes a tasting flight.
• Color: 1.0 deep copper | NCA No Color Added
• Nose: Coffee grounds, dark caramel, molasses. Dark Oloroso sherry — I’m glad I went out of my way to try a bottle of Oloroso sherry itself so this flavor profile is more readily apparent. Hints of prunes and dates. There’s a darker floral note here but nothing really acidic to tie it together. Something feinty appears later. Ironically, with more time uncapped even this pour from a low sample is getting more floral and a bit acidic.
• Palate: Nice viscosity, but a bit hot. Hints of “Westland barrel-char” note. Espresso. Bitter apple skin. Chewing it reveals sun-dried apricot. American Smarties candy (basically flavored pressed powdered sugar).
• Finish: Medium finish, warming. Big “Westland barrel-char” note, astringent, quickly turning bitter. More bitter apple skin and cinnamon. Bitter apple and coffee grounds linger.
• Conclusion: Before we get into my criticisms, I want to say that this is still a really solid whiskey with a lot of interesting stuff going for it. I think I liked the nose on this one just a hint better, initially. But overall, between the two, I find this one a bit bitter, astringent, and a little unbalanced. It could be the case that as Westland bottles get low this “Westland barrel-char” note I tend not to love becomes more prevalent. I also objected to this note in particular in a rather low bottle of the Westland Sherry Oak expression which was shared with me (Review #38). On the other hand, I don’t think that note is exclusive to low bottles because I confidently identified the Westland in the Judgement of Westland blind tasting event, purely on this “Westland barrel-char” note. There’s more to the distillery profile than this note, but when it’s out of balance, it’s unpleasant for me. For this one, I want to ask “where’s the peat?” — perhaps the darker coffee flavors. I remember during the first tasting of this that the peaty notes didn’t outweigh the barrel char note the first tasting; in fact, I misread the “grilled pineapple” note of Colere Ed 1 during that same 2020 tasting as being a peat-driven note, when, in fact, Colere is unpeated.
• Final Score: 79/100 (6/10) – low end of “very good”; worth tasting. I suspect “old bottle” effect dragged this down just a bit.

ASMW Advent 2023 Day 12: Westland 3 Year (bottled 2023) Flagship American Single Malt

• Price: Paid $45.99 at Costco Wholesale Price plus WA state taxes. Can be purchased for about $60 plus taxes with a tasting flight included at the distillery. Or $75.00 inclusive of taxes, from the Distillery website, for delivery within WA. Believe it or not, this means the price actually came down from the original $65 before taxes to about $60 before taxes. (WA liquor taxes are just wild.)
• Color: 1.0 deep copper but just the barest shade darker | NCA
• Nose: Sherry, toasted bits of marshmallow, a little hot on the nose. Hint of molasses and caramel. Warm wood: freshly cut wood in the sun, not quite fireplace. Impression of almond-filled croissant: marzipan and toasted pastry dough. Faintly, spring flowers. Dried medjool dates, but not too sweet. Compared to 2020, the nose is more balanced with a richer floral profile and less obvious sherry. (An unrested pour has an even more prevalent floral profile, but lacking some complexity, and pretty quickly equalizes to the rested one.) There’s something in the way of “toasted vanilla” here that makes me think Garryana oak may be in play as well.
• Palate: Nice viscosity, warming. Warm and woody and not entirely unlike a bourbon finished in fortified wine casks.
• Finish: Medium, warming. Just a bit of smoke creeps in at the end. Just a hint of “Westland barrel-char” note here, which reads as coffee grounds and pepper, which is nicely balanced for me so as to add to the complexity and not reaching the objectionable level I mentioned earlier. Pleasantly bitter smoke lingers a while.
• Conclusion: I think I like this one a bit better. It’s overall more balanced, less bitter, and has a bit of floral and acidity to balance the profile. I tend to like ex-Bourbon and refill cask Westland better as a result of that “Westland barrel-char” note which isn’t as prominent in refill casks. Since Westland has said that Flagship would incorporate more refill casks than the original triumvirate of core products, I wouldn’t be surprised if Flagship gradually incorporates a higher proportion of refill over time. I have felt that Westland Flagship has tended to get better over time as I taste it on distillery visits. This tasting makes me think that fact is not simply a matter of “I got used to it.”
• Final Score: 83/100 (7-/10) – great. Regardless of “old bottle” and “neck pour” I’m pretty confident this one is overall better.

Final Thoughts

Per my “triangle blind” bias-elimination strategy, I scrambled the glasses twice, and 2/2 times, with reasonable certainty that I was not guessing, I could tell which two were the same (both from the new 2023 bottle). The well-rested 2023 glass was a little harder to identify without a comparison and I was only about 70% sure on its own, but as soon as I nosed the 2020 on the second round, the pair of 2023s were easy to lock in.

I’m sure there’s an element of low-bottle vs fresh-bottle happening here, but I’m also pretty well convinced through a memory of tasting Flagship through the years, combined with this side-by-side, that Westland Flagship ASMW has changed at least a little for the noticeably better. And since the price has recently dropped (and there’s a potential wholesale option available), now’s a great time to give it a try if you haven’t already.

Reflecting

I’ve now looked back over my previous review of Flagship (Review #36). Apparently that release was launched in Spring 2021, and the late-2020 tasting was a preview of that release. I do remember that now, but they did tell us the blend we had a sample of was finalized. During that tasting I was overly focused on the fact that Colere Ed 1 was brand new and unreleased; I didn’t realize the Flagship was also unreleased at that time.

In any case, I was clearly more excited about this sample 2 years ago, even a year after I’d had the first half ounce of it at the late-2020 tasting. I’ll leave the “(bottled 2020)” part of my review titles alone, since that does seem to be the case at any rate, regardless of release date. To be fair, I’ve had a lot more ASMW (and everything else) since then to add to my breadth of experience with whiskey; high marks have gotten a little harder to get from me I guess. I’m sure my palate and preferences have shifted as well.

My tasting notes in 2021 were quite a bit more elaborate. I was getting a lot more complexity on that occasion, but the broad strokes are still there: sherry, apple, cinnamon, oxidized, fruity, dark, and clean feinty funk (which I called yeasty and cheese). Also, apparently I was mistaken about the prices coming down (unless they had gone up for a brief time). The price then and now are the same, except for the availability of a wholesale price from Costco.

(DemiTastes Reviews #92-93, ASMW #43-44.)

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Scoring Legend:

• 95-100: As good as it gets. Jaw-dropping, eye-widening, unforgettable whisky.
• 90-94: Sublime, a personal favorite in its category.
• 85-89: Excellent, a standout dram.
• 80-84: Quite good. Quality stuff.
• 75-79: Decent whisky worth tasting.
• 70-74: Meh. It’s definitely drinkable, but it can do better.
• 60-69: Not so good. I might not turn down a glass if I needed a drink.
• 50-59: Save it for mixing.
• 0-49: Blech.