How a Seattle Distillery Bottled History Across Two Continents
There are whiskeys, and then there are whiskeys with a story worth sitting down for. The latest release from Copperworks Distilling Co. out of Seattle falls firmly in the second category — and it might just be one of the more interesting American single malts to come along in a while.
Copperworks has announced the newest addition to its Whiskey Club lineup: the Copperworks Scotch Cask American Single Malt Whiskey. The release brings together Pacific Northwest grain, Scottish malting traditions, and a cask with more history behind it than most whiskeys ever get to claim.
Where It All Started
The story of this whiskey goes back to 2019, starting at Joseph’s Grainery in Colfax, Washington — the same farm that supplied the grain for Copperworks’ acclaimed Farmsmith release. From that starting point, the distillery worked with single varietal Baronesse barley, pale malted at LINC Malting, before distilling it and putting it to rest in a very particular kind of wood.
The cask in question didn’t come from just anywhere. It came from Auchroisk, a Speyside distillery in the Banffshire region of Scotland with a serious reputation. Auchroisk was built in 1972 and didn’t release its first single malt bottles until 1986 — forty years ago — and in the decades since, it’s built a name for itself producing non-peated Scotch in the Speyside style, a region known for smooth, fruit-forward, approachable whisky…