The Kavalan Whisky Distillery was Taiwan’s first whisky distiller.
Zerose Yang, head of Kavalan’s Spirits Research Institute, says: “If you like our whisky, you’ll really like it.”
The Kavalan Distillery is a frequent winner in international whisky competitions.
Taiwan’s subtropical climate, whiskies mature quickly and acquire layers of distinctive flavors.
Oak barrels, which are infused with the aromas of the sherry they once held, are refreshed by a process of shaving, toasting and re-charring, in preparation for maturing a new batch of whisky.
Kavalan’s Whisky Lab enables visitors to smell and taste various whiskies, and then blend one that perfectly matches their preferences.
Kavalan’s lantern-shaped pot stills produce an alcohol with a perfectly balanced body, neither too heavy nor too light.
The angel seated on the oversized whisky bottle at the entrance to the Nantou Distillery represents the “angel’s share.”
The barrel storehouse at the Nantou Distillery.
Omar Whisky brand ambassador Yu Cheng-yen speaks at roughly 150 tastings per year.
Taiwan’s fruit whiskies bottle elements of our domestic terroir, culture, and history of fruit production.
Participants in a distillery event learn a great deal about whisky.
This wall of Solera-system PX sherry casks is worth NT$200 million, yet is held together by nothing more than wooden supports. Nobody has dared to make any changes since the cask supplier personally ensured that the supports were placed just as they had b
The Nantou Distillery’s four onion-shaped pot stills fill the stillhouse with the scent of sugar cane and of the esters produced by distilling the “wash” (fermented barley wort).
Taiwanese whiskies have become so well known that they are now appearing on US-made TV shows. During an episode of the American TV show Billions, a taste of Kavalan Solist Vinho Barrique whisky elicits a “Wow!” from actress Maggie Siff, prompting co-star Paul Giamatti to respond: “Right? The Taiwanese do it better than the Scots these days.”
We arrive at the Kavalan Distillery in Yilan’s Yuanshan Township on a clear, bright day. There we learn that South Korean tourists have been visiting the distillery in large numbers in recent years, in no small part thanks to RM, leader of the South Korean boyband BTS, recommending Kavalan Solist Oloroso Sherry Single Cask Strength while a guest on Suchwita, a Korean TV talk show that involves chatting while tippling.
Kavalan introduced Taiwan’s first domestically made whisky in 2008 and has gone on to win 798 gold medals at international whisky competitions in the years since. It now produces 10 million bottles of whisky per year, distributes its products to more than 60 countries and territories, and is one of the ten largest single-malt whisky producers in the world.
The company has had great success in convincing the world to taste Taiwanese whiskies. What has it done right?
The right people
King Car Group founder Lee Tien-tsai established Kavalan Whisky in 2005.
The company then hired biochemist Jim Swan, known as the “Einstein of whisky,” in 2006. Once on board, Swan tweaked Kavalan’s production processes to account for Taiwan’s climate and environment.
Zerose Yang, who joined Kavalan on the same day as Swan and serves as its senior blender, says Swan “brought order to chaos.” Yang tells us that these efforts bore fruit in 2010, when a Kavalan single-malt whisky outperformed three Scottish and one English whisky in a blind Burns Night tasting organized by the UK paper The Times. The surprise win turned out to be only the beginning of a long succession of international awards and accolades for Kavalan whiskies.
The right methods
Sold in a bottle meant to suggest Taipei 101, the single malt Kavalan Classic is aged at least four years in oak bourbon and sherry casks and has a fruity flavor with notes of mango, green apple and cherry. The whisky won 29 gold medals in competitions from 2014 to 2020 and has truly become Kavalan’s “classic” single malt.
Zerose Yang, who is also the chair of King Car’s Spirits Research Institute and its chief chemist, says that Kavalan whiskies’ strong fruity aromas and sufficient maturation have made them regular winners in blind testing in the “no age statement” category of international whisky competitions. Taiwan’s subtropical climate causes its whiskies to mature three times as fast as those aged in other regions, giving them their own unique “made in Taiwan” flavor profile.
Kavalan has 30 whiskies on the market, including cask strength and tempered bottles, that target both drinkers and collectors.
“If you like it, you’ll really like it,” says Yang, recommending an unadulterated cask-strength ex-bourbon whisky. Though the spirit clocks in at a potent 58.6% ABV, it has a smooth and round mouthfeel and intense sweetness. Yang says he likes to enjoy a few glasses at home or with a few friends.
He also reveals that when he visited his fiancée’s parents to discuss the wedding arrangements, he brought along a bottle of Kavalan Solist Oloroso Sherry Single Cask Strength. “Taiwanese really enjoy the extravagant flavors of a sherry cask, and our subtropical climate really highlights the toffee and dried fruit flavors of this kind of cask. This whisky makes a great gift. It’s stylish, looks good, and is even red!”
International sales
With domestic and international tourism picking up since the lifting of pandemic restrictions, Kavalan has received more than 10 million visitors since 2019. Its Whisky Lab, where guests can blend whiskies to their own taste and explore the many flavors of Taiwanese whisky, is a particularly popular destination for whisky lovers.
Kavalan is currently constructing a third distillery to meet strong global demand for its products, and especially from duty-free shops in Europe, the US, Korea and China. The company expects to complete the new facility in 2024 and hopes that it will enable still more global citizens to experience Taiwanese whiskies.
The warm sunlight of Central Taiwan sparkles inside the two-story-tall barrel-shaped tasting room, where the sight of an angel representing the “angel’s share” sitting atop a giant bottle brings a smile to visiting whisky fans. Distillery guests can not only taste its unique lychee- and orange-flavored whiskies, but also sample whisky drawn straight from the cask.
Advantageous local conditions
The Nantou Distillery was badly damaged by 1999’s Jiji Earthquake and lost six of its warehouses to fire. These had stored alcohol and blazed so intensely that the fire department had no chance to extinguish the flames, which burned for three days and three nights. Included in the NT$4 billion in losses were brandies that had been cellared at the distillery for 20 to 30 years.
Established to support Taiwanese agriculture, the Nantou Distillery made wines and brandies from excess domestic fruit production.
When the Nantou Distillery launched its own whisky brand in 2008, it chose to name it Omar, from the Scottish Gaelic word for “amber.” Drawing on its 40-plus years of expertise in making fruit liquors, the company introduced the world’s first lychee-liqueur-barrel-finished single-malt whisky in 2015, selling out the first batch on the day of its release.
Omar Whisky brand ambassador Yu Cheng-yen says that this fruity, distinctively Taiwanese whisky uses lychees from Fenyuan Township, Changhua County. These are macerated and fermented to make a 12% ABV lychee liqueur, the ABV of which is further raised by the addition of brandy. The resultant liqueur is matured in oak casks, which the company retains. The distillery creates its lychee whisky by first aging the whisky in a bourbon cask for four years, and then transferring it to a lychee-liqueur-seasoned cask to age for another one to two years. The process adds a fresh lychee flavor to the whisky’s finish.
The distillery also makes cask-strength whiskies finished in plum-, orange- and black-queen-grape-liquor-seasoned casks using plums from Xinyi Township, oranges from Zhongliao Township, and grapes from Erlin Township in Changhua County. Omar has also made the world’s first osmanthus-liqueur-barrel-finished whisky. These whiskies have a distinctly Taiwanese character that has made them popular with both Taiwanese and Japanese whisky aficionados.
Omar has even made a whisky finished in a craft-beer IPA cask developed by the TTL Wurih Brewery. The resultant product has the hoppy nose of a beer, but the palate and finish of a whisky, and brims with Taiwanese flavor.
Rare and collectible
International competitions are a great way for new brands to build a reputation. The Nantou Distillery created in internal team of ten people specifically aimed at winning awards. The team researches each competition’s awards history to identify which products won awards and what the individual judges’ preferences are. It then selects 600 of the 3,000 casks of whisky the distillery produces annually and begins assessing them, eventually winnowing them down to the three that the company will submit to competitions.
Omar has entered its single malt whiskies in many international tasting competitions since 2014, including the International Spirits Challenge, San Francisco World Spirits Competition, Malt Maniacs Awards, International Wine & Spirit Competition, World Whisky Awards and Concours Mondial de Bruxelles. The distillery has distinguished itself by accumulating more than 200 medals to date.
If you happen to visit the Nantou Distillery, be sure to check out the “oak cask wall” while you are there. Believe it or not, the “wall,” which is where the distillery stores the whiskies aged in its Solera system PX sherry casks, is worth more than NT$200 million!
Global competition for sherry casks is intense, but in 2015 TTL managed to outmaneuver Scottish distillers to acquire an entire set of sherry casks from Ximénez-Spínola, a winery in Spain’s famous Jerez wine region with a nearly 300-year history. Rumor has it that TTL was able to arrange the deal because the winery’s owner has a Taiwanese daughter-in-law. “Having connections makes things easier.”
This set of rare sherry casks is filled with whisky made in 2008, the year the Nantou Distillery initiated whisky production. The distillery began selling this special whisky in 2018, bottling it in crystal bottles at a rate of just four casks per year. Initially, each cask produced 250 bottles of whisky that sold for NT$10,000 each, but the angel’s share means that the amount of whisky in the remaining casks declines every year. By 2023, the angel’s share had reduced the volume to just 200 bottles per cask. In that year, the distillery chose to enhance the whisky’s collectability and investability by decorating each of the bottles with one of four of painter Ma Pai-sui works: The Beauty of Taroko, Kenting, Southern Coastline or Meinong Village Home. Sold out before they were even released, a set of four bottles is expected to be priced at more than NT$80,000.
Convinced of the positive outlook for the global whisky market, TTL is investing NT$1.3 billion in building two whisky chateaus with spires at the Nantou Distillery that it expects to finish in 2025. Once complete, these chateaus will house a whisky production facility and small museum, store 30,000 oak casks, and show visiting fans of Taiwanese whisky just how those whiskies are made.
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