Strawberry cream | Raspberry | Floral | Pear | Vanilla custard | Oak

Malt | Toffee | Vanilla | Baking spice | Cinnamon spice | Green apple | Pear

Heavy malt | Dry oak | Floral | Smoke

Westward is not shy about pushing boundaries. So much so they have a whiskey club dedicated to the unexplored regions of American malt whiskey. Lost Lantern continues their mission to highlight distilleries paving their own path and this latest release certainly does just that.

After tasting many of Lost Lantern releases it's worth noting they aren’t trying to simply focus on a distillery’s best of the best. As in the case of this Westward Whiskey release that is finished in Chardonnay casks, sometimes they simply want to send a shock to your system by highlighting something uniquely its own.

A bright and beautiful floral aroma transitions to a big malt palate with a mishmash of fruity flavors backed with a hearty amount of spice. The finish carries the heavy malt barrage to its very end which is punctuated with a dash of smoke. It’s a wild ride that’s big on flavor but a bit messy in its construction. A lot is happening at once, and with the malt, spice, and dry oak hitting as hard as they do, it can come across as unbalanced. That of course doesn’t make it not fun, as this whiskey convinces you to expect the unexpected.