Part 1 - Smoke. The New Terroir of Whisky

This is part one of a five-part series on the concept of "sense of place" within whisky in 2026. 

If you haven't already, start with the opener — it sets up the idea this series of musings runs on: the shifting landscape of whisky production, styles and norms; the concept of sense of place or terroir within whisky (a word usually associated with wine); and why I feel it should be re-discussed in 2026.

Smoke. Cereal. Climate. Casks. Water. First up: smoke.

A few years ago I went on a very well-known whisky experience in Dublin. A tour, a talk through the basics, then a tasting at the end — a Bourbon, a Scotch and an Irish, side by side (surely a joke in there somewhere). No surprises: the bourbon was sweet, the Irish was "triple distilled and super smooth," and the Scotch was smoky.

That's the whole stereotype, poured into one tasting flight and handed to tourists as fact. One region's style becomes shorthand for an entire country's flavour. And one flavour gets pigeonholed to just one country: smoke and Scotland.

But you're here, reading this, because like me you know that's not the case. Or, if you didn't, you're keen to find out why. Over the last ten years we've seen "smoke signals" develop across the world, and most of them have nothing to do with peat, or Scotland, or copying what Scotland does.

Smoke gets into whisky three ways. It can be smoked into the grain before it's mashed, absorbed from a cask that previously held something smoky, or (rarer, and legally restricted to a handful of countries) introduced directly into the finished spirit. If you want the full breakdown of these three, of PPM and some of our favourites to reach for, I've written that up here.

What's interesting in this line of thought, though, is what happens once you stop assuming the fuel for malting has to be peat. Let's start with peat itself, before moving into wood, then herbs, shrubs and the oddities.

Here's a slightly controversial opinion: I'd love to see fewer distilleries shipping Scottish peated barley around the world to build a smoky character, and more reaching for whatever's already smouldering closer to home. 

I stress-tested this on some whisky friends of mine (yes, we have a WhatsApp group called Drambusters). It wasn't met with immediate applause. Instead: about a hundred messages back and forth on the fundamentals of it, which, if I'm honest, is how most of our conversations go.

That's not a knock on anyone doing it right now. Lots of genuinely excellent whisky is built on imported peated malt, and there's nothing wrong with that choice. It's more that I think the industry's still early in trusting drinkers with the alternative. Once most people understand that smoke doesn't have to mean Islay, distillers gain the confidence to reach for what's actually to hand, and trust that people will follow them there.

Peat isn't just one thing. It forms in waterlogged ground over thousands of years, from whatever plant matter happened to decay there. Different bogs and marshes leave a different signature in what eventually gets dug up and burned. Even within Scotland, mainland peat tastes different from Islay peat. Multiply that difference across the peatlands of the world, and you start to see how much territory the supposed singular flavour entity "peaty" is covering.

Enter, Westland. Located in Washington State, Westland wanted to create a peated American Single Malt. Not a copy of Scotch, but a truly Pacific Northwest whisky. So they found a local peat bog on private land on the Olympic Peninsula, more or less by typing "peat bog" into Google Maps, then helped build Skagit Valley Malting to process it. They first malted with this in 2016 and released Solum in 2023, their yearly release highlighting local peat. The result? It was awarded World's Best American Single Malt that same year at the World Whiskies Awards. Washington peat is made of Labrador Tea, ferns, moss, sage. Nothing like Islay's seaweed and land makeup.

We were lucky enough to work with them to bottle the first independently bottled single cask from their local peat programme: #20. Beach bonfire, grilled peaches and creamy peanut butter in a glass.

Westland isn't alone here in sourcing local peat. Akkeshi in Hokkaido, Japan; Lark in Tasmania, Australia; and closer to home, Retribution in Somerset is using peat cut from the Somerset Levels.

New Zealand has its own peat too, on the South Island, used by distilleries like Waiheke Whisky and Thomson. South Island peat gives a sweet, earthy campfire character, worlds away again from anything coastal or medicinal. Which makes sense, given the two are roughly 11,500 miles apart.

There's a parallel I've noticed while writing this, taking a step back from just one producer and looking at wood-smoked whiskies as a whole: the smoking fuels distillers use are usually the same ones woven into that country's food culture. To preserve, to cook, and for flavour.

Take New Zealand. Yes, there's peat on the South Island, as above. But on the North Island, it's Manuka, a wood that grows sustainably and in abundance, with a character totally unique to the country.

Back in 2005, before Thomson Whisky existed, founder Mathew Thomson was smoking barley over Manuka wood fed into a home BBQ, with wet sheets wrapped round the outside to trap the smoke in. Why? He was a home brewer, and he was curious.

The result carries the oiliness of the wood's natural oils, herbaceous notes, a slight pepper edge. Recognisably smoky, recognisably not peat. If you've ever had a bougie spoonful of Manuka honey and picked up on that funky, eucalyptusy, woodsmoke character underneath the sweetness? That's exactly what carries through into the whisky. Berry Bros. & Rudd have recently released a Manuka-smoked single cask from Thomson, and we collaborated with them on #18, one of only 270 bottles, all of the above, with a pineapple-chew tropical edge. A whisky that's entirely within reach for an Islay drinker looking for something new.

Denmark's Thy distillery smokes over beechwood, borrowing from a culinary tradition that runs through smoked fish, bacon, cheese. In the US, cherrywood, mesquite and hickory all show up too, each tied to a different region's barbecue tradition, but built on the same logic: reach for whatever's already smoking the local food. And from our "Friends from the North" (as Woven put it so eloquently), Finland's Kyrö brings a local grain into the mix too: an alder-smoked 100% malted Finnish rye.

Stauning's heather is a wonderful example of a distiller choosing an ingredient for what it says about place, not just what it tastes like. In this case, the rugged west coast of Denmark. 

From Denmark to the Highlands of Scotland. Glenmorangie 'A Tale of the Forest' is a result of the team pondering what Highland distillers might have burned before peat became the default answer. In Dr Bill Lumsden's own words:

Even inside one of Scotland's biggest, most established whisky houses, the question of peat versus smoke versus landscape is still being asked. As the co-founder of a new whisky business, I hugely applaud this. The more the biggies stretch preconceived notions of "the norm," the easier it gets for everyone smaller to do the same - a rising tide, especially for newer producers.

It doesn't stop there, either. Eimverk Distillery's Floki, in Iceland, uses sheep dung, an old fuel source used for centuries to heat homes and cure food. In Namibia, Ondjaba goes a step further, smoking its grain over burning elephant dung instead of peat, for a sweet, cigar-like note.

None of these producers are trying to make Islay whisky elsewhere. Manuka wasn't chosen because there wasn't peat available. It was chosen because it made sense to use. Westland went looking for peat specifically because they liked what Scottish peat does, while wanting something unmistakably from the Pacific Northwest. Stauning is making a 100% Danish whisky, and they knew that with their own maltings and the landscape around them, they had totally new options to choose from.

So next time you buy a whisky, challenge yourself to pick something outside what you'd normally go for. And if you like it (this is the important part), tell a friend about it. Recommendation is the way newer producers earn the spotlight.

Part two, on grain, will be linked here once it's live. Catch up on the series opener here.

Got a whisky question for Georgie? Email georgie@theheartcut.com