Kavalan

The history

In 2005, T.T. Lee, founder and president of the Taiwanese food corporation King Car Group, fulfilled his biggest wish: his own whiskey distillery. As an avid whiskey lover, he dreamed for a long time of the idea to produce a high-quality whiskey for Taiwan. However, it was only with the WTO accession of Taiwan in 2002 and the dissolution of the state monopoly on spirits that this idea moved into the realm of the possible.

At the center of this project was the chemist Ian Chang, who completed his Master Blender training in Scotland with flying colors. The most important adviser in the construction of the distillery and the production adaptation to the climatic conditions was the British chemist and whiskey expert Dr. Ing. Jim Swan, who actively supports the company until today. In April 2005, the construction of the King Car KAVALAN distillery began.

KAVALAN is the traditional name of the Yilan region and its aboriginal people. The KAVALAN distillery is located approximately one hour southeast of the capital Taipei in exactly this region. One of the most important reasons for choosing this location is the excellent water quality. Yilan is known far beyond Taiwan's borders for its abundance of natural springs that provide light and sweet water.

In honor of this uniquely beautiful landscape and its indigenous people, T.T. Lee decided to name his whiskey after the traditional name of his home region: KAVALAN.

The production

The distillery features four Pot-Still stills produced by the well-known coppersmiths of Forsyts in Scotland, including two 12,000-liter Wash Stills and two 7,000-liter Spirit Stills. Overall, the capacity of the distillery is 9 million bottles per year.

High humidity and temperatures of 15 degrees above the Scottish average a year ago presented the team with challenges. It uses high-quality barley from Scotland and Finland, which is imported to Taiwan as an untapped malt. All other processes such as crushing, mashing, fermenting and distilling take place on site in the distillery in Yilan. For KAVALAN only spring water from the region is used, which with its soft and sweet taste contributes to the fruity character of the whiskey.

The storage

To maturation, the barrels are brought into the connected 5-storey warehouse, where they remain until bottling. In the summer months, the upper floor temperatures can reach over 40 Celsius, while the lower floors have moderate temperatures of around 24 degrees Celsius.

It quickly became clear that storage periods of 12 years or more in Taiwan would not be possible. With Angels' share of 15-18% per annum KAVALAN is well above the Scottish and Irish share of 2-3%.

The barrels are mostly stored standing upright on pallets and tied up. This form of storage has two advantages. In contrast to horizontal storage, this system saves space and allows the storage of more barrels per square meter. As studies have shown, the vertical storage has no negative effect on the quality of the whiskey compared to horizontal storage. The most important reason, however, is the better security of the barrels against earthquakes, which are unfortunately not uncommon in Taiwan.