Kavalan

The Kavalan malt whisky distillery was built by the King Car company in the Yilan county of Taiwan in 2005, with the first spirit running in March 2006. Kavalan’s first master distiller, Ian Chang, was trained by whisky consultant Dr. Jim Swan, who was heavily involved with the distillery’s early development and whose methods and ideas, particularly the STR (Shave, Toast, Rechar) process of cask renewal, deserve much credit for Kavalan’s remarkable success.

That success arrived quickly, with Kavalan’s single malts  - which mature much faster than in Scotland thanks to Taiwan’s climate - soon winning international awards. Kavalan’s greatest triumph arrived in 2015, when one of the distillery’s Kavalan Solist releases was named Best Single Malt Whisky at the World Whisky Awards. Kavalan added a second stillhouse in 2016 and the distillery now has a capacity of 9 million litres per annum.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.