Peat character is nearly synonymous with distilling in Scotland, where some 20 percent of the country is covered by peat bogs. Unsurprisingly, most Scotch whiskies include at least a hint of smoked malt, while brands like Laphroaig, Ardbeg, and Bruichladdich have upped the ante by releasing a number of “peat bombs” over the last decade or so, each with a bolder profile than the last.
But peat is not exclusive to Scotland. At Westland Distillery in Seattle, a new single malt called Solum plays the card as well, albeit in a slightly different way, distillery manager Tyler Pederson emphasizes, because its peat comes from a bog in the state of Washington.
“We get a noticeably different aroma — I always find it less medicinal across the board, less of the ‘burning hospital’ intensity that you find in some Islay peats,” he says. Instead of the typical notes of campfire and iodine that you might find in an Islay single malt, he describes the peat notes in Solum as “leathery, earthy, light mossy, and floral.”
“It’s because of the bog composition,” he explains. “It’s a different set of flora.”
The Washington peat used to smoke the malt for Westland is partly made of decomposed sphagnum moss, which is also found in Scottish peat. But Pederson says that Westland’s peat also contains other plants, including bog cranberry, Alaskan bunchberry, alpine bog laurel, and Labrador tea, as well as Douglas fir and local cedar.
“All of these are unique to this part of
