Is Halfway Around the Globe Too Far to Travel for Whisky?
Is Halfway Around the Globe Too Far to Travel for Whisky?
Whisky in Taiwan
It’s 5 pm in Yilan, Taiwan, an hour’s drive southeast of Taipei along the island’s northeastern coast. My body thinks it’s 5 am. Either way, it’s June 2nd, that much is certain. There was a journey to get here; there was the 15-hour and 50-minute flight from JFK to Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport, which came after the four-hour layover, which itself followed the flight from Dulles. That was on May 31st.
But it’s June 2nd now and we’ve arrived at our destination, the Kavalan Distillery. A walk through the distillery’s expansive grounds, past its shimmering copper-pot stills, through the warehouses and visitor’s center, has all led to this. A tasting flight of four new Kavalan whiskies is lined up on the table. They have each been aged in a different type of sherry cask, and none are yet available in the U.S. market.
Before me lies the whisky, to my right is Ian Chang, Kavalan’s master blender and head distiller. He takes a highly scientific approach to the creation of whisky, with little left to chance. It’s a craft born of both perfectionism and passion. A testament to, “how crazy I am about whisky,” as he says during the tasting.
Sherry-cask aging is one of the trademarks of Kavalan, which in a decade has taken the global whisky world by storm. Taiwan’s subtropical climate enables them to age their whisky quite rapidly, the heat helping them accomplish feats of maturation in a few years which the folks in Scotland need decades to equal. This does not make their Scottish competitors very happy. Temperatures in the top floor of Kavalan’s warehouse exceed 110 degrees, which means that even excitable whisky nerds such as myself can’t wander its halls for long.
The new additions to the Kavalan lineup have been aged in Amontillado, Manzanilla, Pedro Ximenez, and Moscatel casks, and will be released in the U.S. this fall. One sip and then another and 30 hours of travel is slowly cleansed from my soul.
A quiet, formal tasting soon evolves into a lively dinner. Heaping mounds of fresh seafood are passed around a large circular table as rows of mini shots are filled three at a time and knocked back in succession. One by one, Ian raises a glass in each of our honors, while we gratefully return the favor.
Is halfway around the globe too far to travel simply to taste whisky? Contemplating the question on the 14-hour and 50-minute flight back to JFK, there were no regrets.