A Single Cask From Washington That Changes the Conversation on American Single Malt
There are whiskeys that show up and quietly take their place on a shelf, and then there are whiskeys that make people in the industry stop and pay attention. Copperworks Distilling Co.'s newest release — Single Cask No. 160-2 — falls firmly into the second category. This is not just another limited bottle from a Pacific Northwest craft distillery. This is the first whiskey ever made from Lyon Malt barley, a variety grown specifically for Eastern Washington's soil and climate, bottled at cask strength after five years of aging. For anyone who takes American whiskey seriously, that matters.
Copperworks is based out of Seattle, Washington, with a tasting room right on Alaskan Way along the waterfront. Over the years the distillery has built a reputation for pushing the craft of American Single Malt in directions most distilleries haven't bothered to explore. Their Farmsmith series is the clearest example of that. The idea behind Farmsmith is straightforward but demanding: single variety barley, from a single farm, grown in a single year. No blending across harvests, no mixing varietals to smooth out inconsistencies. Whatever character the land puts into that grain, the whiskey is going to show it.
Image credit: Copperworks
Single Cask No. 160-2 is the newest entry in that series, and it represents a genuine first. Not a first for Copperworks alone — a first, period.
The Barley Behind the Bottle
Lyon Malt is not a barley most people have heard of, and that is part of what makes this release worth paying attention to. The varietal was developed by the Agricultural Research Center at Washington State University, created specifically to thrive in the growing conditions of Eastern Washington. That region — sitting east of the Cascades, with its dry summers and volcanic soil — produces grain with a character that simply does not exist anywhere else. WSU developed Lyon to take advantage of those conditions rather than fight against them, resulting in a two-row barley built for that particular land.
Copperworks sourced their Lyon Malt from Horlacher Farm in Latah, Washington. By working directly with a single farm and a single growing year's harvest, the distillery locked in a specific snapshot of place and time. This approach is the backbone of the Farmsmith philosophy — the belief that where barley grows, and how it grows, has a direct and measurable impact on what ends up in the glass. It is the same conversation the wine world has been having for decades with terroir, now being applied to whiskey with genuine rigor.
Jason Parker, President and Co-Founder of Copperworks, spoke directly to what this release means for the distillery. "Single Cask No. 160-2 showcases Washington's agricultural excellence and the unique character that comes from working with local farmers," Parker said. "This is our first Lyon Malt expression, and it's already an instant favorite among our team. The nuance and complexity are remarkable."
That is not marketing language from a founder reading off a press release. Parker has been at this long enough to know the difference between a whiskey that is interesting and a whiskey that is genuinely good. His team's reaction to this one says something.
Five Years in a Peated Cask
The Lyon Malt barley is the foundation, but the story of this whiskey does not end in the field. After distillation, the spirit went into a refilled American oak cask — one that had previously held Copperworks' Peated American Single Malt Whiskey. That detail is not a footnote. It is a defining feature of what Single Cask No. 160-2 became over five years of maturation.
Refilled casks interact with spirit differently than first-fill barrels do. The wood has already given up a significant portion of its most aggressive tannins and sugars in the previous fill. What remains is a mellower, more integrated influence — one that lets the character of the spirit itself come forward rather than being dominated by the barrel. In this case, the previous occupant being a peated whiskey adds another layer. Peat smoke residue in the wood does not disappear completely between fills. It lingers, faintly, weaving itself into whatever comes next.
The result is a whiskey that carries the identity of the Lyon barley and the terroir of Horlacher Farm while also picking up layers of complexity from five years against that particular wood.
What It Actually Tastes Like
Copperworks describes the nose of Single Cask No. 160-2 as crème brûlée and sweet orange sorbet marrying patchouli, pine, and damp earth as it opens up. That combination — dessert sweetness sitting next to something herbal and grounded — reflects exactly what you would expect from a whiskey that started in an interesting piece of American farmland and aged in a cask with a past.
The palate moves into sarsaparilla and smoked cherry, alongside cedar and bubble gum. The smokiness is there but not heavy-handed. It reads as a background note rather than a dominant character, which makes sense given the indirect route peat took to get into this whiskey.
The finish is where things get genuinely interesting. It opens with menthol, pork belly, and peppercorn before traveling through dark chocolate raspberry reduction, spiced apple, sweet tobacco, toffee, and ash. That is a long finish by any measure, and the range of what shows up across it speaks to the complexity Parker referenced. A finish that starts savory and ends with sweetness layered over char and tobacco is the kind of thing that keeps a drinker going back for another sip just to trace it again.
The whiskey is bottled at cask strength — 61.6% ABV, or 123.2 proof. At that level, water is a tool worth using. Adding a small amount will open up the aromatics and soften the proof without losing what makes the whiskey distinctive. For those who prefer their single malts as the distillery intended them, straight from the cask and undiluted, there is plenty to work with as poured.
197 Bottles. That Is It.
Limited releases get called rare all the time in the spirits world, sometimes loosely. In this case the number is specific and worth taking literally. Single Cask No. 160-2 was drawn from a single cask, which means the total production was determined the moment the barrel was sealed five years ago. That cask yielded 197 bottles. When those are gone, this particular expression of Lyon Malt barley from Horlacher Farm's harvest, matured in that particular peated oak, is finished.
There will presumably be future expressions of Lyon Malt from Copperworks — this being the first suggests it will not be the last. But this specific whiskey, Single Cask No. 160-2, exists in a fixed quantity. The 197 bottles are spread across online sales, and two physical locations: the original Copperworks tasting room at 1250 Alaskan Way in Seattle, and Copperworks Kenmore at 7324 NE 175th St in Kenmore, Washington.
Pricing sits at $89.99 before tax and shipping. For a five-year cask strength American Single Malt from a distillery doing work at this level, and particularly for what is a genuinely historic first expression of a varietal, that price is reasonable. Collectors and serious whiskey drinkers who move on bottles like this tend to do so quickly, and the 197-bottle ceiling means there is no restocking option.
It should be noted that Copperworks cannot ship to every state. Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, and Virginia are excluded from direct shipping. Customers in Arkansas, Illinois, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, or Rhode Island can access the whiskey through online retailer Shots Box.
Why This Release Is Worth Watching
The American Single Malt category has been growing steadily, and more distilleries every year are making credible, interesting whiskey under that label. What separates the distilleries doing genuinely important work from those simply filling a market gap is a willingness to ask harder questions about what whiskey can express.
Copperworks has been asking those questions for years through the Farmsmith series. The premise — that the specific farm, the specific barley variety, and the specific growing year all leave fingerprints on the final whiskey — demands sourcing discipline, production discipline, and the patience to wait out the maturation period before learning whether the hypothesis holds. Single Cask No. 160-2 is evidence that the discipline pays off.
Lyon Malt barley has now produced its first whiskey. It took a university research program developing a varietal for Eastern Washington's specific conditions, a farm in Latah willing to grow it, and a distillery in Seattle with the philosophy and patience to let it develop for five years before sharing it. The result is 197 bottles of something that did not exist before.
For the American whiskey drinker who has worked through the major categories and is looking for what the next chapter of the craft looks like, this is a concrete answer to that question.
