On the morning of July 31, 2025, a meticulously orchestrated heist unfolded at a quiet warehouse in Burlington, Washington, leaving the American craft whiskey world reeling. Thieves, equipped with a freight truck and convincing paperwork, managed to steal 12,000 bottles of whiskey from Westland Distillery—one of the Pacific Northwest’s most celebrated producers. The haul, valued at nearly $1 million, included the distillery’s flagship single malt, the newly released Watchpost blend, and, most notably, 3,000 bottles of the highly coveted 10th anniversary Garryana whiskey. For Westland, the loss wasn’t just financial; it was the disappearance of years of artistry and regional heritage, bottled and now vanished.
According to the Associated Press, the theft was anything but amateurish. The perpetrators arrived at the warehouse before 1 p.m., presented what appeared to be legitimate freight documents, and loaded up the whiskey—bound, ostensibly, for a warehouse in New Jersey. But the shipment never arrived. The “sophisticated, fraudulent carrier scheme,” as Westland’s managing director Jason Moore described it, wasn’t discovered until a week later, when the bottles failed to turn up at their destination.
By August 6, Mecca Worldwide Logistics, a Jersey City-based freight company, had filed an incident report with the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office, alerting authorities to the theft at the Burlington address. As of late September, the sheriff’s office confirmed to The Seattle Times that the investigation remains open and active, though details are being kept under tight wraps.
For the whiskey community, the loss is particularly painful. The Garryana whiskey, a limited-edition single malt aged in casks made from the Pacific Northwest’s native Quercus garryana oak, has become something of a legend among aficionados. In 2023, Whisky Advocate magazine named the Garryana the third best whiskey in the world—a testament to Westland’s innovative approach to American single malt. Only 7,500 bottles of the 2023 release existed, and with 3,000 already sold before the theft, the heist claimed nearly half of what remained.
“This is an unfortunate and pretty extraordinary situation,” Moore told the Associated Press. “The 10th anniversary edition bottles of Garryana are irreplaceable.” The sentiment echoes throughout the company, which has spent more than a decade developing the unique terroir-driven profile of its whiskeys. Westland’s process is painstaking: using locally grown barley, peat harvested from the Olympic peninsula, and a proprietary yeast strain, they aim to distill the very essence of the Pacific Northwest into every bottle. The Garryana, in particular, is a triumph of regional identity, matured in casks from a tree found almost nowhere else on earth.
But the loss is more than just sentimental. The Garryana retails for $150 a bottle, and on the secondary market—where rare and collectible spirits are often resold at a premium—prices can soar much higher. Yet, as Mark Gillespie, host of the WhiskyCast podcast, pointed out to the Associated Press, fencing the stolen whiskey won’t be easy. “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.”
Unlike Europe, where auction houses and specialty shops facilitate a robust secondary market for rare spirits, the United States enforces a strict three-tier system for alcohol sales. Distilleries must sell to distributors, who in turn sell to retailers, bars, and restaurants. Private resale of liquor is generally illegal, making it risky for anyone to move such a high-profile haul. “If somebody tries to offer you a case of Westland whiskey right now, I’d call the cops,” Gillespie advised.
Westland’s own response has been a mix of disappointment and resilience. Moore noted that while the company has taken additional steps to secure its supply chain, the focus remains on their customers and community. “What happens from there is outside of our control, and we get excited about sharing our whiskey and engaging with the supporters we have,” he 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.”
The rarity of the Garryana only adds to the drama. As Gillespie explained, “The providence of the Garryana is important because it’s their first 10-year-old whiskey. 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.” The theft, then, is not just of bottles, but of a milestone in American whiskey-making—a moment years in the making, now cast into uncertainty.
Yet, there’s a silver lining for Westland. The distillery, based in Seattle, was acquired in 2016 by the Paris-based Rémy Cointreau Group, a global spirits powerhouse. That backing likely gives Westland more financial stability than many smaller craft producers, who might not survive the loss of $1 million in stock. Still, the incident has sent ripples throughout the industry, raising questions about supply chain security and the growing black market for rare spirits.
For now, the Skagit Valley Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate, with the case drawing attention from both law enforcement and whiskey enthusiasts nationwide. The hope is that the distinctive nature of the stolen bottles—each marked by their unique provenance and scarcity—will make them difficult, if not impossible, to sell without detection.
As the investigation unfolds, Westland remains focused on its core mission: crafting exceptional whiskey that captures the spirit of its home region. The Garryana’s story, marked by both triumph and tribulation, is far from over. For those lucky enough to have secured a bottle before the heist, the whiskey’s value—both sentimental and monetary—has only grown. For the rest, the hope lingers that the missing bottles might someday resurface, and that justice, like a well-aged malt, will be served in due time.
