web link…beware the music!
I’ve always been warned never to drink whiskey that is less than 7 years old. Unless you like headaches.
That was exactly what I thought when I read this. 3 year old tequila is fine, but Scotch?!? Plus, for NTD 2000+ you can get a very good single malt that is several times that age. I agree that this supposed taste test was probably a set up. I would imagine that the competitors cost about 1/4 as much.
They probably OEM for other whiskey manufacturers or use it for their lower tier whiskeys. They might also claim to have it, but be incapable of using 100% capacity due to bottlenecks in their distilling process or be exagerating. The $2,000NT a bottle stuff is probably their top of the line award winning whiskey. I’m sure some of the lower tier local brands we see here are made by them. I would assume the hardest part is getting the barrels to age it in.
Well, I’m not going to knock it until I’ve good & well sampled it.
However I have learned the hard way to never ever drink anything with the words ‘Cabernet’ and ‘Taiwan’ appearing on the label.
HA, although i did like the 90nt bottles of white wine made and sold by the monopoly bureau. Pretty good, especially for the bucks? They still around?
There was also this TAiwanese company that went to fRance and bought a winery and then sell the wine back to taiwan.
Mr. Brown Coffee is now selling gift packs.
Hey, I’m not an expert on tasting the stuff, just drinking it. Considering that I go through four bottles a week, it’s not really expedient for me to splash out on anything much fancier than Famous Grouse. A friend once bought me a 5L bottle of Chivas Regal for my birthday. It lasted a few days. On another occasion someone gave me a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label. I’m not sure, but I think it goes for around 5000NT$. It tasted like a nice Scotch so I drank it in one night.
SCMP ran a feature piece on this. It didn’t actually say it was an advertisement, but morals, ethics, it’s HK iinnit.
Sorry for the length, but it’s subscription only.
[quote]Spirit leveller: A world-beating Taiwanese whisky has plenty of detractors at home By Jonathan Adams
Almost 10,000 kilometres from the chill of Scotland, a bold company is attempting what some consider the impossible: producing a top-shelf, 100 per cent distilled-and-aged-in-Taiwan single-malt whisky.
After the success of Japanese whiskies, Taiwan is hoping to follow in its footsteps and prove that it, too, can produce a world-class tipple.
The whisky is named Kavalan after an indigenous tribe that once roamed the mountains of Yilan county on Taiwan’s eastern coast, where it is made. Produced by the King Car Group, a Taiwanese food and beverage company best known for its Mister Brown coffee brand, it faces plenty of critics at home.
It’s too expensive, gripe the naysayers. Locals will never go for it. And Taiwan’s climate is all wrong.
Ryan Lin, a project manager at research company Synovate Taiwan, says Taiwanese buy whiskies to “show status” and would shun local products in favour of Johnny Walker and Macallan.
“This is the key driver,” says Lin. “Taiwanese people who drink whisky will choose a famous brand, to show their taste. So few will choose Taiwanese whisky.”
But detractors may have to swallow their words. The Kavalan single malt has confounded expectations by topping a connoisseurs’ blind taste test in Scotland. Kavalan scored 27.5 out of a maximum 40 points.
Author and whisky connoisseur Charles McLean, who chaired the judging panel, compared the Kavalan to “tropical fruit jam”. That’s perhaps not surprising. King Car spokesman Richard Ma Ming-hao says: “Its flavour is a mixture of honey, mango, green apple, vanilla, pear, coconut and chocolate.”
Kavalan beat Langs, a three-year-old Scottish premium blend with 22 points, King Robert, another Scotch blend with 20 points and St George’s, an English three-year-old malt on 15.5.
A two-year-old whisky, Kavalan is made at King Car’s distillery in Yuan Shan, a town in Yilan county, using spring water from the nearby Snow Mountains and Scottish technology.
The Central News Agency in Taiwan quoted Ma as saying King Car chairman Lee Tien-tsai is gratified by the recognition.
“The honour proves the correctness of our decision to build a distillery in Yilan, which boasts beautiful natural scenery with green mountains, clean water and fresh air,” Ma was quoted as saying.
“Liquor contains not just alcohol but also extracts of the premium ingredients of crops and takes a long period of preservation. Producing a good spirit reflects good taste and cultural roots.”
Taiwan’s drinking habits have changed, with many people increasingly trying Western spirits. Cognac was all the rage in the 1990s, followed by single-malt whiskies.
Market researcher TNS Taiwan says whisky is now the second-most popular category of spirits in Taiwan. Twelve per cent of those surveyed had imbibed whisky in the previous three months, compared to 12.4 per cent who drank spirits, including sorghum-based kaoliang and “yellow spirits” or huangjiu.
Although the number of whisky drinkers in Taiwan has been increasing, Ma knows Kavalan has had a tough time breaking into a market long dominated by imported brands or those produced by state-controlled Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp.
“We still have a long way to go to gain a firm foothold in our domestic spirits market,” he says.
Andrew Do, an associate director at TNS Taiwan, says Taiwan’s whisky drinkers will baulk at Kavalan’s price tag, about US$68 per bottle. “For a non-aged whisky, to me, that’s kind of ridiculous,” says Do. “For that price you can buy a really good Scotch, even a single-malt Scotch.”
Single-malt whisky snobs insist a product must be aged for at least three years.
During a tour of Kavalan’s distillery, blender Ian Chang defended his product against that and other criticisms. Taiwan’s climate is several degrees warmer than Scotland’s, says Chang.
“The hotter climate means you can make a good whisky in a shorter time,” he says. “To smell like Scotch and taste like Scotch, it takes only two to three years in Taiwan.”
Chang has also been doing road shows on the mainland.
Ben Chuang, editor of the Chinese-language Wine & Spirits Digest, is bullish on Kavalan’s chances in China.
“The mainland is so near, so if they need whisky quickly and easily, Taiwan is the best choice,” says Chuang. “And in China, they don’t know much about whisky. Kavalan has a very, very big opportunity.”
But he also says it is too expensive for Taiwanese.
Ma suggests the company may sell lower-priced whiskies in the future, but says the price reflects the company’s faith in its product.
“We’re in this for the long term - not just five or 10 years, but 100,” says Ma. “By insisting in our belief in our whisky, consumers will realise it’s worth it.”
King Car began building its Yuan Shan distillery in 2005. It began distilling in 2006, and sold its first bottles a year ago.
Chang says Kavalan is tweaked for Taiwanese tastes. While Westerners prefer a dry, “not so sweet” taste, Taiwanese like an oily, smooth texture with some sweetness, the blender says.
Kavalan is chemically engineered to boast hints of mango and green apple, with a cinnamon note that’s “unique to Taiwan whisky”, says Chang.
Kavalan gets its malt barley from Scotland because Taiwan is too humid to grow and dry the grain. The water comes from a natural underground spring 61 metres below the distillery.
Kavalan’s warehouses hold 30,000 barrels for ageing. About 40 per cent are recycled. Oak Kentucky bourbon barrels are preferred over European oak barrels because they have less tannin, says Chang. (More tannin makes for a more bitter, drier whisky.)
The spirit has won a number of honours, including a silver medal in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition last March and another silver in the International Wine and Spirit Competition (IWSC) last year. Kavalan has also earned Taiwan a place for the first time in the 2010 edition of the Malt Whisky Yearbook among the list of emerging whisky production areas.
Chang hopes Kavalan will go on to pick up two gold medals at the IWSC in London in July.
“These are still early days for Kavalan - we have a long way to go,” says Chang. "We want to convince consumers that whisky doesn’t have to be foreign to be good.
“Taiwan can make a good whisky. We just need to have a little faith and confidence in ourselves.”[/quote]
HG
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]
However I have learned the hard way to never ever drink anything with the words ‘Cabernet’ and ‘Taiwan’ appearing on the label.[/quote]
Oh yes. Ohhhh yes. ‘I still can’t feel my tongue!’
In a world with Talisker I just can’t see the point of a NT$2k a bottle 3 year old whisky no matter where it’s from…
As an aside since a fair few whisky drinkers may read this thread, I came across some unusually satisfactory Bourbon called Makers Mark recently, does anyone know if it’s available in TW?..
:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
Tagline: “HEY! Our shite tastes better than the crap that alkies on the street won’t touch!” :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
Man! That is just SAD!
“Taiwan Touch Our Patheticness!”
:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
Tagline: “HEY! Our shite tastes better than the crap that alkies on the street won’t touch!” :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
Man! That is just SAD!
“Taiwan Touch Our Patheticness!”[/quote]
That’s a tad harsh. Not sure what street bum alkies drink where you’re from, but where I’m from they have no such reservations. They even filter methylated spirits through white bread and drink that…
That said, never even heard of Scottish premium blend, King Robert and St George’s…
Isn’t Kavalan that stuff that Wang Chien Ming and his baseball buddies flog on TV ads? Not sure I’d drink anything being flogged by baseball players.
Would be better if they did a test of 8 year old whiskey (at least 8) rather then 3 year old which people dont usually drink anyway.
bourbon is usually not that old tho
Harsh? MOI? Shirley you jest!
[quote=“plasmatron”]
As an aside since a fair few whisky drinkers may read this thread, I came across some unusually satisfactory Bourbon called Makers Mark recently, does anyone know if it’s available in TW?..[/quote]
Yeah, I’m sure I’ve seen it at Drinks and such. At the bar I was at tonight for sure.
Maker’s Mark is one of the best bourbons made, and is a bit more expensive than most. I just mentioned it in another thread. They only make one product. They refuse to make a “super-premium” version because they are not a really big distillery, so that would mean that the quality of their regular product would go down if they selected the best barrels of each batch for an even higher end version.
To be called “straight bourbon,” it has to be aged at least 4 years. Most of the better ones are aged 6 - 8 years.
It’s not harsh at all. They’re gloating over their “award,” all the while failing to point out the bleeding obvious – its a DOMESTIC NT$2,000+ booze coming out on top in a contest with IMPORTED booze that costs as much as 10 times less. Those other “whiskies” are under NT$300 a bottle! Its better? Well, no SHIT, Sherlock! :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
Thing is how do they convince people to buy that 2200nt a bottle “scotch” ? I guess they want to claw back their US 30 million investment in the whiskey production as soon as possible.
Plus, the whole thing was set up as a joke in the first place – they had a cheap-ass English whisky and set it up with a couple of even cheaper-ass Scottish ones, the idea being that the English one would win, ha! ha! how droll. They put the Taiwanese one in in the same spirit.
As I said, I’ve had a taste and its not that bad – could easily stand with the lower-end blended Grouse. However, its four times the price of the basic Grouse! A joke, pure and simple.