West of Tradition with Greg Swartz: American Single Malt Gets Its Close-Up
We’re taking a break from distillers this week and heading behind the camera with filmmaker Greg Swartz, whose new documentary, West of Tradition, looks at American single malt at a particularly auspicious moment in its history.
Greg and his team at Blacksmith & Jones previously explored Scotch through The Water of Life, and has also turned his camera toward beer and fermentation, including a film on the history and culture of beer in Germany. American single malt grew naturally out of his own love of single malt whiskey. Westland was his first real introduction to the category several years ago, and what grabbed him was that it didn’t taste like an American attempt at Scotch. The traditions were recognizable, but the whiskey had developed its own identity.
That became the spine of West of Tradition. Westland is the home base, but the film reaches out to McCarthy’s and Clear Creek, Virginia Distillery Company, St. George Spirits, Whiskey Del Bac - all former Whiskey Ring Podcast guests, by the way - and others who arrived at American single malt from very different directions.
The film runs about 47 minutes and is available on Prime Video, so this is not a three-hour historical epic requiring provisions and an intermission. I say that as I prepare to go see “You Can See Everything”Pour something and you’re set.
Greg opens with Steve McCarthy and Clear Creek. McCarthy was making what we would now recognize as American single malt before anyone had a useful name for it, mostly because he wanted to, in 1995. Almost thirty years would elapse until the category received final recognition in December 2024.
That spirit of independent thinking runs through the rest of the category. Lance Winters and Dave Smith at St. George deliberately avoided looking too closely at what everyone else was doing because they didn’t want to fall into someone else’s rut. I think that episode still has the highest number of “fucks” in 250+ I’ve done.
At the same time, many of these same producers eventually worked together to get American single malt recognized federally, a journey that took the better part of a decade. There were staff and leadership turnovers at nearly every involved distillery, and yet the teams as a consortium kept plugging away.
Perhaps it’s because even the veterans are still relatively young within the category. There’s plenty of room to make weird choices, find out whether they work, and occasionally discover that they very much do not. And while the “original guard” of folks like Steve McCarthy may have sadly passed before this bore fruit, the vast majority are still at it.
American single malt also lives in a funny middle ground between Scotch and bourbon. It borrows techniques and vocabulary from Scotch while existing in an American market where bourbon has spent decades with every spotlight on it. Greg wanted the film to work for people coming from either direction. A Scotch drinker should recognize the tradition without assuming everyone is trying to recreate Scotland, while a bourbon drinker gets an introduction to a style that plays by a different set of rules.
Westland works especially well as the anchor because so much of what they do is tied to the Pacific Northwest, whether that’s Garry oak, different barley varieties, their five-malt recipe, or their relationships with regional agriculture. Greg sees something distinctly Seattle in that approach: taking an existing idea and rebuilding it into something recognizably local. Admittedly, Garry oak isn’t my personal favorite from a flavor perspective, but I can respect the importance without appreciating the flavor.
We get into terroir from there, because apparently I am incapable of interviewing anyone about whiskey without eventually asking what “place” actually means.
The filmmaking side of the conversation was just as interesting, particularly for someone like I who knows little to nothing about it. Greg deliberately keeps himself out of the films and avoids the travelogue setup. He wants something closer to Chef’s Table, an aesthetic that comes across clear as day and makes me want to rewatch that series, too. Instead of steaming dishes and shiny sauces, this film leans on landscapes, stills, warehouses, barley fields, farms, wood, and the people doing the work. Most of the final story comes together in editing, after Greg can see which themes keep appearing and which pieces still need context.
One of these contextualizations revolves around the people. Mark Pruett, who initially reached out to me with the idea for this interview, filled some of that outside-observer role. Greg likes saving that kind of interview until late so he already knows where the holes are. By then, he isn’t guessing what needs explanation. He knows and doesn’t have to hope the person says the right thing.
So, where does Greg go from here, literally and figuratively?
One of his next projects follows the rapid growth of single malt in China, using former Glen Scotia master distiller Iain McAlister’s move to a new Chinese distillery as a way into that story. Greg also has an Irish whiskey project underway, along with Water of Life Legends, a series focused on people such as Charles MacLean and Andrew Symington. Add in the beer and fermentation work and his films are increasingly less about any one spirit and more about the people, places, agriculture, and slightly obsessive decisions that eventually end up in a glass.
West of Tradition catches American single malt at a particularly fun time. The category finally has a name and a legal definition, but nobody can say with much confidence what it’s going to look like twenty years from now. Which, for a filmmaker, is probably a lot more useful than showing up after everyone has already agreed on the ending.
Greg Swartz / West of Tradition
West of Tradition official page
Watch West of Tradition on Prime Video
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