Miles Munroe Leaves Westward Whiskey After 13 Years, Launches Grimoire Spirits
The American single malt whiskey category lost one of its most consequential architects last week. Miles Munroe, the master blender who spent thirteen years shaping Westward Whiskey's identity from the inside out, has departed the Portland, Oregon distillery to launch his own venture — Grimoire Spirits, alongside the members-only Grimoire Whiskey Society. The announcement landed on June 30, 2026, and it carries weight far beyond a routine personnel change. Munroe wasn't just filling bottles and approving barrels. He helped build the very grammar of what American single malt whiskey can be.
The Making of a Master Blender: A Road Less Traveled
Munroe's path to the top of the American single malt world was anything but conventional. A former musician, bartender, and brewer, Munroe attended the American Brewers Guild, which helped bring a unique approach to whiskey craftsmanship — blending brewing techniques with distillation and emphasizing the distinctive character of Pacific Northwest malted barley. That background — equal parts rock stage and fermentation tank — gave Munroe a sensory fluency most distillers never develop. He understood flavor not as a technical checklist but as an experience built from the ground up.
For Munroe, it started quite a while back. He was working in fine dining while he was a musician — a lot of them ended up in the restaurant business while touring and playing music. It's just part of the lifestyle. That led him to really appreciate food, wine, spirits, and beers — a whole spectrum of flavors. That appreciation deepened into obsession. Before joining Westward, he was a musician working in hospitality, eventually managing a whiskey bar, and slowly but surely became obsessed with whiskey. His plan, at the time, was to get involved in production. He went to brewing school at the American Brewers Guild and started hearing about an ex-brewer making single malt whiskey — who turned out to be Christian Krogstad. So he tracked him down and got his start at Westward.
Munroe joined the company in 2013. By then, Westward was already on an upward arc, but the brand's most ambitious chapter was still ahead. Munroe's brewing background plugged directly into Westward's foundational philosophy. This was around the time the craft boom was in its infancy, and there wasn't a whole lot of experimentation going on. Munroe had brewed professionally in Portland for about five years before having the fortune of meeting Christian, who had just started the whiskey brand as an ex-brewer and was really focused on the beer attributes in single malts. Munroe simply walked right into it.
Westward's World: Brewing, Distilling, and Aging as One
To understand what Munroe built over thirteen years at Westward, it helps to understand what made Westward different in the first place. Founded in 2004 by Christian Krogstad and Thomas Mooney in Portland, Oregon, Westward Whiskey was born out of a desire to combine American creativity with single malt traditions. The brand's philosophy embraces the culture and natural resources of the Pacific Northwest, drawing inspiration from the region's renowned craft brewing scene, and distinguishes itself by combining traditional whiskey-making techniques with elements unique to American whiskey, such as using locally sourced malted barley and brewing the initial mash like a pale ale.
That brewing-first mentality wasn't just a marketing hook. It was baked into every step of production. Westward focuses heavily on its grain-to-glass process, partnering with Great Western Malting to source Pacific Northwest barley. The distillery embraces long, slow fermentation times to deepen flavors before distillation, which takes place in large, custom-built pot stills. Each batch is aged in charred American oak barrels seasoned outdoors in the Northwest's rainy and highly variable weather for additional softness. In contrast to many distilleries that rely heavily on barrel influence, Westward aims to capture sixty to seventy percent of its flavor profile from the spirit itself.
Munroe was the man turning that philosophy into practice, season after season, barrel by barrel. The process at Westward features a four-roller mill dialed in to brewer specs, with the wash system set as a craft brew system using a mash lauter tun with a screened floor for siphoning off liquid and leaving the grain behind — avoiding extraction of astringency, tannins, and bitterness that would otherwise come through in the whiskey. Because charred new oak barrels are used, the tannins are meant to come from the wood, not the grain. The wort is also boiled as a brewer would — essential for the sweet mash — which caramelizes it and generates nutty, biscuity, caramelized flavors before fermentation even begins.
Chasing Flavor at Every Stage
One of Munroe's core convictions was that flavor in a whiskey is earned — not just extracted from wood. Whiskey has five elements: grain, water, yeast, wood, and time. Alter one of those even slightly and wildly different results follow. As a spirit ages longer, those elements oxidize and change — that's not necessarily better or worse. Great young and old whiskeys both exist. That kind of nuanced thinking translated into a willingness to experiment that went far beyond what most American single malt producers dared to try.
The experimentation at Westward included trying other yeast strains — wine yeast strains, a Belgian Ardennes Farmhouse Ale strain, even a sourdough starter from a James Beard award-winning Portland baker used to ferment the wash. That kind of thing became an annual production run of sourdough single malt. Munroe also championed Pacific Northwest wine cask finishes at a time when the industry's default finishing vessels were sherry and port. In Westward's core lineup, the Pinot Noir Cask Finished whiskey became a signature expression, while years ago most producers using red wine casks treated them as a rarity rather than a staple.
The results earned real hardware. All of the Westward core expressions earned Gold or better at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, with the Cask Strength crowned Whisky Advocate's number five whiskey in the world. Those aren't participation trophies. In a field increasingly crowded with craft contenders, Westward's consistency at the top of the ratings reflected a coherent, disciplined blending philosophy that Munroe had been cultivating for over a decade.
The Milestone Editions and a Legacy in the Glass
During his thirteen-year tenure at Westward, Munroe oversaw the brand's flagship releases, cask experiments, and special editions, including Milestone and Double Dark. The Milestone series, in particular, showcased what he could do when given room to push further. Inspired by a visit to Taiwan and a transformative street food pairing he experienced with each of Westward's flagship expressions, Munroe embarked on an expedition to take the American single malt producer's signature spice notes to unparalleled heights by incorporating new, exotic woods to amplify the characteristics from iconic and innovative cask finishes — including Stout, Pinot Noir, and Rum. The result was a whiskey that struck a distinct balance between Westward's signature style and previously undiscovered aromas and flavors. That kind of globe-trotting curiosity, tying a meal in Taipei to a cask experiment in Oregon, was the hallmark of a blender who never stopped looking for the next dimension of flavor.
A House in Turmoil: The Bankruptcy Chapter
Munroe's departure doesn't happen in a vacuum. His exit comes after a challenging period for the company, as Westward Whiskey filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2025. The filing was a gut punch for fans of the brand and a sobering signal about the broader pressures facing mid-sized craft distilleries. In April, House Spirits Distillery — trading as Westward Whiskey — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to restructure the business after facing significant liquidity challenges. On October 1, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware approved the sale of most of Westward's assets to a group of private investors called Aqua Ardens.
The trigger was the sudden withdrawal of Westward's biggest institutional backer. In 2018, Westward had received an investment from Diageo-backed Distill Ventures, but in March 2025 the conglomerate announced it would no longer bring any new brands into the program and the number of existing investments would be reduced. Just three weeks after the announcement, House Spirits Distillery filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy citing significant liquidity challenges. The speed of the collapse illustrated just how exposed Westward had become to a single institutional funding source.
Explaining the decision to file, CEO Thomas Mooney cited a decline in demand for bottled spirits in general, the rising cost of goods and services due to inflation, market access constraints that make it difficult for independent craft spirits producers to reach consumers, large obligations entered into under different circumstances, and significant investment toward increasing production and inventory. The House Spirits bankruptcy reflected broader pressures facing mid-sized craft distilleries across America — financial distress led five spirits distillers to file for Chapter 11 in the first half of 2025 alone, as the industry faced post-COVID demand decline, oversupply, and distribution constraints.
The controversy didn't end at the filing. Founder Christian Krogstad and Diageo's investment arm both filed objections challenging the proposed plan of reorganization, disputing asset valuations and alleging that insider financing arrangements would strip existing equity holders of their interests. Despite the friction, the restructuring moved forward. On October 1, 2025, the court approved the sale of substantially all assets to the Aqua Ardens group for approximately $2.7 million. The transaction eliminated Diageo's ownership stake entirely, transitioning Westward to 100% independent ownership with Mooney continuing as CEO.
And remarkably, even through the legal turmoil, the whiskey kept selling. For the nine months to September 30, 2025, Westward's sales soared 53% year over year, surpassing the company's total revenue for all of 2024. That paradox — bankruptcy proceedings running alongside record sales growth — underscores how distribution structure and capital obligations, rather than consumer appetite, drove the distillery to the edge.
A group of private investors rescued it from bankruptcy last October, allowing the business to restructure. Westward emerged leaner and fully independent, a company that survived one of the harder financial passages any beloved American craft distillery has faced in recent memory. But one of its most defining voices would not be making the trip forward with it.
Enter Grimoire: A New Conjuring from an Old Hand
For Munroe, the departure from Westward wasn't a retreat — it was a launch. He announced the launch of his new brand, Grimoire Spirits, along with the Grimoire Whiskey Society, a members-only whiskey club. He will continue to develop unique, one-of-a-kind blends and plans to release small-batch products globally, further contributing to the evolution and innovation of American whiskey.
The name Grimoire — a term for a book of magic spells and arcane knowledge — signals exactly where Munroe's head is at: mysterious, precise, learned, and willing to conjure something new from old sources. In his own words, the idea has been gestating for a long time. "Grimoire Spirits is a notion that has been slowly forming for quite a while, maybe longer than I've realized. Years of restyling how flavors come together, with a reverence for balance and depth, have led me to conjure up this new venture. This gives me the chance to blend with complete freedom and to explore an unlimited world of cask combinations uncovered from some of my favorite places."
The freedom element in that quote is no throwaway line. At Westward, Munroe operated within a defined brand architecture — a flagship to protect, a production philosophy to uphold, a club membership to curate. With Grimoire, those guardrails disappear. Grimoire will begin with a tailor-made whiskey club curated for those who appreciate going beyond the cursory glance at whiskey blends, with releases that gain richer insights into why we love this spirit and what casks still lie undiscovered, waiting for their moment. That language — undiscovered casks, waiting for their moment — reads like a blender finally given the keys to his own laboratory.
The Grimoire Whiskey Society: A Club Built for the Curious
The members-only structure of the Grimoire Whiskey Society mirrors the format that Munroe helped build at Westward, where the whiskey club became one of the brand's most resilient direct-to-consumer channels even through the bankruptcy period. But Grimoire's society isn't designed as a simple subscription box. It's pitched as a vehicle for education and discovery, built around Munroe's specific obsession with cask influence and blend architecture.
According to Munroe, Grimoire debuts with a customized whiskey club designed for enthusiasts who want to explore whiskey blends in depth. The club will offer releases that aim to provide deeper insights into spirits. He explained: "Grimoire Whiskey Club wants its members to come along for the journey, digging deeper and having a great time along the way." It's the kind of positioning that separates serious craft clubs — where the story and the production detail matter as much as what's in the glass — from marketing-driven bottle subscriptions that simply ship whatever is in inventory.
Munroe also made clear that whiskey is only the beginning. Further down the line, Grimoire Spirits will also trek into a range of other Old World spirits to exhume more casks and apply his blending style there as well. The use of the word "exhume" is characteristic Munroe — equal parts macabre and romantic, suggesting he's hunting for things buried and overlooked rather than simply shopping from the same well-stocked warehouses everyone else is visiting. His known fascination with spirits beyond whiskey — he spent considerable time exploring mezcal and the palenques of Oaxaca — suggests Grimoire's eventual Old World excursions could span multiple categories and continents.
What Thirteen Years of Pioneering Actually Built
To gauge the significance of Munroe's exit, it's worth stepping back and appreciating the category he helped create. When Westward was founded, there were only three dozen craft distilleries in the entire United States. Now there are 2,200 and counting. American single malt barely registered as a category in those early years — it was a niche curiosity that sat awkwardly between Scotch tradition and American bourbon identity. Westward, and blenders like Munroe, changed that.
Distillery founders Thomas Mooney and Christian Krogstad also cofounded the American Single Malt Whiskey Commission, the official industry organization actively pushing for TTB standing for the product category. That regulatory legitimacy — the TTB's official recognition of American single malt as a distinct category — was years in the making, and Westward's commercial credibility was part of what gave the effort weight. American single malt is now one of the fastest-growing categories in the U.S., and Westward deserves real credit for helping to build both the demand and the conversation around it.
Munroe reflected on his role in that story with genuine pride. He commented: "Looking back on 13 years with Westward, I'm proud of my accomplishments there. Helping to pioneer a new category of American whiskey meant the world to me, and the innovation I brought to the Whiskey Club there helped push the whiskey category into a new era."
That's not boasting. It's a fair accounting. The Westward expressions Munroe shepherded — the Cask Strength, the Pinot Noir Cask, the Stout Cask, the Milestone series — collectively represent some of the most technically adventurous and critically lauded American single malts ever produced. If Westward could be summed up in one sentence, it's that they are brewers making whiskey — that is the approach, using a lot of brewing techniques inspired by beer, which is how they stand out. Munroe embodied that identity more completely than anyone else at the distillery.
The Blender Who Broke the Mold
What distinguished Munroe from many of his contemporaries in the American whiskey world was a refusal to default to the familiar. Where most distillers stay in their lane — bourbon stays bourbon, single malt stays single malt — Munroe always seemed most alive at the intersections. A rock musician who studied brewing to make whiskey. A distiller who traveled to Taiwan and came home with ideas about Brazilian oak. An American single malt maker who immersed himself in Oaxacan mezcal culture to sharpen his understanding of spirit production.
Munroe expressed that Westward doesn't see Scottish distilleries as competition. As much as he loves single malt whiskey and has reverence and respect for its traditions, he's always been very forward-thinking — focused on where the category can go and what more can be done. The mission was never to emulate a style or order grain peated in Scotland and shipped to Portland. The mission is to put out a distinctive single malt that has a sense of place and can speak of its origins. That sense-of-place philosophy — whiskey as an expression of Pacific Northwest terroir — is precisely what made Westward a reference point for the category, and it's the intellectual framework Munroe will carry into Grimoire.
Industry Implications: What Happens to Westward Now?
The departure of a master blender of Munroe's stature always raises uncomfortable questions about what follows. Westward has already navigated a bankruptcy and a full ownership transition; now it faces a significant creative transition as well. The brand's core portfolio — the expressions Munroe developed and refined over thirteen years — will continue to exist. But whoever fills the master blender role at Westward carries a significant inheritance and an equally significant creative challenge.
Westward does still have the bones of an exceptional distillery. A perennial medalist in international spirit competitions, it's well-known for producing flavorful whiskeys that reflect the brewing traditions and innovative spirit of the Pacific Northwest. The production infrastructure Munroe helped design and optimize — the grain sourcing relationships, the custom pot stills, the lightly charred barrel program — doesn't disappear with him. And CEO Thomas Mooney, who has remained at the helm through the bankruptcy, has demonstrated that Westward's commercial instincts remain sharp even under duress.
But the whiskey world has seen this movie before. When a visionary blender or distiller departs a craft brand for an independent venture, the brand's identity often enters a period of uncertainty, however brief. It happened when key figures departed from Scotch distilleries and small bourbon operations. The question for Westward isn't whether its whiskey will remain good — it almost certainly will. The question is whether it will retain the spirit of creative restlessness that Munroe's presence guaranteed.
For Whiskey Enthusiasts: What Grimoire Means to You
For the whiskey drinker who has followed Westward's special releases, bought into the Westward Whiskey Club, or hunted down bottles of the Milestone series, the emergence of Grimoire Spirits is not a consolation prize — it's a compelling next chapter from a blender now operating without constraints.
Munroe's departure marks a significant milestone in the American whiskey landscape, ushering in a new era of innovation and exploration. The Grimoire Whiskey Society's structure — small-batch releases, a members-only format, deep dives into cask combinations — mirrors the kind of exclusive whiskey club programming that has proven most resilient in a challenging direct-to-consumer spirits market. Munroe's announcement that Grimoire will eventually range into Old World spirits suggests this isn't a project designed to stay inside comfortable lines.
His closing note to the whiskey-drinking public was vintage Munroe: "Further down the line, Grimoire Spirits will also trek into a range of other Old World spirits to exhume more casks and apply my blending style there as well. Stay tuned, stay intrigued, and join us for the ride." That invitation — to stay intrigued — is a pretty good summary of what Munroe has always asked of the people drinking his whiskey. Now, for the first time in thirteen years, he's asking it for himself.
The American single malt category that Munroe helped build from a Portland garage-scale dream into a globally recognized style of whiskey is about to get a new entry from one of its most experienced practitioners. Whatever Grimoire Spirits puts in the bottle, it will arrive from a man who has spent the better part of two decades thinking about nothing but how to make the liquid inside it more interesting. In a market crowded with new brands and retreaded ideas, that kind of track record is worth paying attention to.
