BURLINGTON, Wash. (BN24) — Thieves who stole nearly 12,000 bottles of craft whiskey from a Washington state warehouse this summer not only made off with close to $1 million in liquor but also stripped away nearly half the stock of a rare release that distillers had spent more than a decade crafting.
The heist targeted Westland Distillery’s Burlington warehouse on July 31, when someone driving a freight truck arrived with paperwork that appeared to authorize the pickup of shipments bound for New Jersey. The cargo included Westland single malt, Watchpost blended whiskey, and the coveted 10-year Garryana edition. The shipment never reached its destination, and the scheme was exposed a week later.
Jason Moore, managing director of the Seattle-based distillery, called the theft a “sophisticated, fraudulent carrier scheme” and said the 10th anniversary Garryana bottles are irreplaceable. “This is an unfortunate and pretty extraordinary situation,” Moore said.
The Skagit County Sheriff’s Office has opened an investigation but has not commented publicly.
The stolen whiskey is considered so rare that it may prove difficult for thieves to resell. Mark Gillespie, host of the WhiskyCast podcast, said, “It’s going to be really hard for whoever took this to actually get this onto the market, because what they took was so rare that everybody knows about it.” He noted that while such thefts occasionally occur in Scotland, moving thousands of bottles across U.S. borders or through its regulated alcohol system would be particularly challenging.
The Garryana release holds special significance for Westland. Made from barley and aged in casks of Quercus garryana, an oak tree native to the Pacific Northwest, the single malt whiskey reflects the distillery’s emphasis on local terroir. The 2023 edition was named the third-best whiskey in the world by Whisky Advocate magazine, and its limited supply sells out annually.
Whiskey expert Gillespie said that of the 7,500 bottles produced this year, about 3,000 were stolen in the heist. That scarcity will likely drive up secondary-market prices, though reselling alcohol outside legal channels is illegal in the U.S. “If somebody tries to offer you a case of Westland whiskey right now, I’d call the cops,” he said.
Moore said the company has tightened its supply chain following the theft and remains focused on serving customers. “This is an extremely rare thing, and while it’s a setback, we’re confident that we’re going to get to share this whiskey,” he said.
While the financial loss is significant, Westland is expected to weather the blow in part because it has been owned since 2016 by the Paris-based Rémy Cointreau Group.
