WASHINGTON, USA — A daring theft saw criminals make off with 12,000 bottles of craft whiskey in a rare heist on U.S. soil this summer. The culprits didn’t just escape with nearly $1 million worth of spirits; they also seized almost half of what had taken expert distillers over ten years to produce.

The Skagit Valley Sheriff’s Office has launched an investigation, while whiskey enthusiasts are left speculating about whether — and where — the treasured bottles of Westland Distillery’s debut 10-year Garryana whiskey might surface.

The disappearance of the bottles occurred on July 31 when an individual in a freight truck presented paperwork authorizing the pickup of a shipment at Westland Distillery’s warehouse in Burlington, Washington. The collection included Westland single malt, Watchpost blended, and Garryana whiskies on route to New Jersey.

Yet, the bottles never made it to their planned location, and it was only a week later that the “sophisticated, fraudulent carrier scheme” was uncovered, according to Jason Moore, the managing director of the Seattle-based distillery.

The 10th anniversary edition bottles of Garryana are irreplaceable, said Moore.

“This is an unfortunate and pretty extraordinary situation,” said Moore.

The Skagit County Sheriff’s Office didn’t immediately respond to a phone message left by The Associated Press.

Offloading the stolen whiskey might present a challenge, suggested Mark Gillespie, host of the WhiskyCast podcast, who has reviewed over 3,800 whiskey varieties through tasting notes.

“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,” Gillespie said. “We see these thefts occasionally in Scotland, where thieves will steal a trailer full of whiskey — and it usually ends up in Russia.”

But getting 12,000 bottles out of the U.S. could be difficult because the bottles are rare and recognizable, and flipping them in the U.S. may be tough because of the nation’s three-tier system for alcohol sales. Distilleries generally have to sell liquor to distributors or wholesalers, who then sell to retailers and restaurants and bars. Selling alcohol on the secondary market — such as when individuals buy up popular bottles and then resell them for a profit — is generally illegal.

That’s not true in much of Europe, where auction houses and other businesses specialize in secondary market sales.

“The providence of the Garryana is important because it’s their first 10-year-old whiskey,” Gillespie said. “Basically, age statements state how old the whiskey is, and in this country you have a lot of craft distilleries that aren’t quite 10 years old. So for a craft distillery to be able to release a 10-year-old is an accomplishment.”

Westland focuses on single-malt whiskeys, a style of liquor made from barley, similar to a Scotch whiskey. But Moore says Westland has worked hard to capture the terroir of the Pacific Northwest inside each bottle, using locally produced grains, peat harvested from an Olympic peninsula bog and a specific type of yeast selected to bring out the regional flavors.

That’s what makes the Garryana special, he said — it’s aged in casks made from the Quercus garryana oak tree, which grows primarily in the Pacific Northwest.

The limited-edition whiskey regularly wins awards, said Gillespie, and the 2023 edition was named the third best whiskey in the world by Whisky Advocate magazine. The Garryana sells out every year, Gillespie said, and with 3,000 of this year’s 7,500-bottle release gone, the price on the secondary market will be driven up.

Moore said the company has taken additional steps to protect its supply chain, and right now they are focusing on serving customers instead of the investigation.

“What happens from there is outside of our control, and we get excited about sharing our whiskey and engaging with the supporters we have,” Moore said. “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. We’re proud to make something people enjoy.”

Losing $1 million in stock would put a lot of distilleries out of business, but Gillespie said he expects Westland to make it through the loss, in part because it was acquired by the Paris-based Remy Cointreau Group in 2016. Still, he has some advice for people eager to get a taste of Westland’s products: Stick to the legal supply chains.

“If somebody tries to offer you a case of Westland whiskey right now, I’d call the cops,” Gillespie said.

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