KAVALAN IN THE MAKING

PART 1 FERMENTATION & DISTILLATION

Capturing the Spirit

It is described by the people who work there as a nature park, rather than a distillery. The setting of one of the world’s rarest whisky makers is lush, green, and in the foothills of the Snow Mountain range. Welcome to Taiwan’s first whisky distillery.

Kavalan makes alcohol, but applies food safety regulations to its distillery, which are more stringent than that required.

This is one example of the company ethos, “Quality First,” laid out by CEO Mr YT Lee – a “gentleman who doesn’t compromise when it comes to quality,” his staff say.

The malted barley whistles down metal chutes from the airy top floor of Kavalan’s mountain-facing distillery. The ‘grist,’ or ground malt, is filtered three times for impurities and then conveyed into 25-ton ‘mashtuns.’ Three rounds of increasingly hot water are poured into these huge, copper-topped domes, sunken into the plant’s floor.

The water from Snow Mountain is so pure, it acts to ensure the quality of the whisky. Combined with the grist, it makes a mixture known as ‘wort.’ Inside the mash tun, blades rotating 24/7 around a central axis, will help turn the starches into sugars.

It is this thick gruel that will convert to alcohol. When devoured by Kavalan’s high performing yeast, the sugars and mineral mix from Snow Mountain’s water enhance the fermentation. They also create another byproduct: the magical flavour-producing compounds known as ‘congeners.’

These congeners create the subtle aromas of the ‘new make’ -- the spirit that is put to sleep in barrels to age and transform into whisky -- and give Kavalan whisky its distinct and complex layers of fruitiness. When the door of a 20-ton washback is opened, an intoxicating fragrance of apple and cherry wafts upwards from the depths of the frothy brew.

The alcohol now needs to be purified and concentrated through double distillation. The 6-8% alcohol by volume (ABV) mixture, known as ‘wash,’ is carefully vaporised in Kavalan’s pot stills, which are lantern-shaped and come with peculiar angled necks. The wash rises up and then hits the neck of the still, where it condenses.

The stills impact the taste of Kavalan whisky, from their craftsmanship to their shape and size. In 2004, Mr YT Lee and Master Blender Ian Chang customized their design with still maker Forsyths to create a rich body for Kavalan whisky.

With the water now removed, the 20% ABV distillate will be evaporated again to separate out only the middle part of the distillation that Kavalan desires: the 68% ABV pure centre cut, known as the ‘heart.’ It is this essence of spirit, the ‘new make’ that will next be matured in casks and eventually emerge as award-winning whisky.

Kavalan is able to take a very precise cut of the heart and insists on it being narrow, meaning the new make is of the highest quality. Kavalan achieves its richness and fragrance from a very high quality heart, specially selected yeast, the finest barley and the pure, sweet water from Snow Mountain.

*Kavalan whisky has been pioneering the art RI VLQJOH PDOW ZKLVN\ VLQFH %HQHÀWLQJ from the world’s highest quality oak casks and the unique combination of intense heat and cool winter breezes, Kavalan is made using the purest water source on the island. Taiwan’s premier whisky is named after both the old name for Yilan County where it is based and the indigenous people who settled the land. *