Region / Grade: Taiwan
Alcohol content: 40%
Volume: 700ml
Kavalan’s Distillery Select series showcases the fine art of blending and the exquisite cask selection of Taiwan’s premier distillery. This expression No. 2 is an enticingly smooth drop, deeply aromatic with an irresistible floral and herbal complexity that delivers the delicious tranquility of the forest.
Colour: Golden dawn
Flavour: Begins powerfully with charming floral, grassy aromas and gentle vanilla blending with hints of delightfully woody and spicy notes in rich layers.
Palate: Smooth, rounded mouthfeel, and with rich character, suitable for daily drinking with excellent palatability. A long and fragrant finish.
Tasting: Suitable for drinking alone or in a cocktail.
Speaking of whisky being produced in Taiwan, the island has won numerous awards in just a few short years of the distillery's existence. This comes as a surprise not only to the beginner whisky drinker, but also to the veteran whisky drinker with years of tasting experience.
Kavalan is the old name for the Taiwanese province of Yilan, which gives the whisky its name. The founder of Taiwan's famous Golden Car Corporation (also the head office of Buran Coffee), Li Tien-Tsai, often came across whisky on his travels and fell in love with this ‘foreign spirit’, with the idea of building his own whisky distillery. He took his own team to visit major distilleries in Japan and Scotland, and hired the legendary whisky distiller, Dr Jim Swan, to help him.
Believing that there is no place in the world where whisky can't be produced, Jim learnt when he first arrived in Taiwan that you shouldn't fight against the natural environment, and that everything you create is a resource. Heat is the enemy of whisky production. When high temperatures hit Scotland last summer, the first distillate from one of the Islay distilleries was ten degrees hotter than normal. Taiwan, in the subtropical zone, suffers even more. But here the water comes from the ground and is at a steady 13-15 degrees Celsius, which, once condensed, gives us the temperature we need for cooling. Even if the environment is very hot, production will not be affected.
In the summer heat, no amount of heat dissipation can cool the air, resulting in a 12-15 per cent loss of angel share. So it's better to keep the windows closed so that no heat is lost, making the air even hotter - over 50 degrees, according to visitors. The barrels expand internally as they heat up, binding more tightly to the wine and allowing the flavours to meld with it more quickly. Harnessing this power can also lead to great things.
The original disadvantage of dry heat was transformed into an advantage of eating deeper barrels. In response, Kavalan redesigned its storage methods to maximise this advantage. By placing the largest sherry casks at the top of the warehouse and storing smaller port casks at the bottom, the heat expansion and contraction effect becomes more pronounced. This is the reason why drinkers say Kavalan has a ‘strong flavour’. After overcoming all these difficulties, we finally have a whisky distillery that is fully capable of milling, saccharifying, fermenting, distilling, maturing and blending whisky on its own.
When Golden Car Group established its whisky distillery in Kavalan, the pure and sweet water from the snow-capped mountains became one of the greatest advantages of the Kavalan distillery. The high quality of the soft water, the high quality of the Scotch barley, and the second distillation, resulted in a more delicate flavour of the original whisky. The Kavalan distillery's inherent advantage over the earlier whisky distilleries is obvious.
One of the most distinctive features of Kavalan is that they have their own barrel-making process, which is relatively rare in other distilleries. While most of the oak barrels in Scotland come from Spain and the USA, and the Japanese distillery relies on imports for all its oak barrels except for mizuno, only Kavalan continues to make its own barrels.
The Kavalan distillery was completed at the end of 2005, the first batch of whisky was distilled in March 2006 and in 2008 the first whisky was released.
The Kavalan distillery produces 4 ranges of whisky, including Classic Kavalan, Kavalan Select, All Original Classic Solo and Distillery Reserve. Among them, Kavalan's first whisky, Kavalan Classic Single Malt Whisky, has won numerous awards.
Winning the World Whisky Competition's Single Malt Championship in 2015 and 2016 consecutively has made Taiwanese whisky the newest name in the whisky world.
The Kavalan distillery now produces 10 million bottles a year, making it one of the top 10 whisky distilleries in the world. In the ten years since its launch, it has won more than 310 gold medals and five world distillery championships. Kavalan was also the first Asian whisky distillery to win the IWSC (International Wine and Spirit Competition) Distiller of the Year. The SFWSC (San Francisco World Sprits Competition), the world's favourite competition for distillers, has also seen Kavalan win: two double gold medals and eight gold medals in 2017, followed by nine double gold medals and four gold medals the following year, as well as Best Other Single Malt Whiskey's Competition Unit Award.
With 800,000 visits to the Kavalan distillery each year, it is the most visited whisky distillery in the world. If you visit the Kavalan distillery one day, you can create your own whisky with a unique and personal touch. For example, choose a floral, fruity spirit with a marshmallowy sweetness, add some green apple flavour, decide on the perfect proportions and take it away in a sealed bottle.
