Yuan Shan Distillery
The Yuan Shan distillery, located in Yilan county, Tailand was founded by the King Car Group in 2005. The group itself was founded in 1979 and owns a number of international brands including Buckskin beer and Mr Brown canned coffee. In 2002 it attempted to move into the alcoholic beverage market but was ultimately unsuccessful due to the Taiwanese government’s monopoly on alcohol production. However, following the de-monopolization of the alcohol market in 2002, the company saw its chance to construct a distillery.
The first spirit ran off its stills in March 2006 under the watchful eye of head distiller Yu-Lan ‘Ian’ Chang, who has subsequently left the distillery and the first bottling was released in December 2008. Since then, the distillery has won numerous awards including the worlds best single malt at the 2015 World Whisky Awards for its Vinho Barrique.
The site of the distillery was chosen primarily because of Shue-Shan Mountains’ natural reservoir of spring water, which lies beneath the distillery itself. Another reason for choosing the site was that around 75% of the land in Yilan is mountainous, thus the air is pure and clean. The idea of harnessing the terroir of the area in the spirit was at the forefront of Chang’s thinking when he envisioned the type of spirit that Kavalan should be producing. So, to add more Taiwanese character to the spirit he started with the fermentation yeast. Here they use a combination of commercial yeast and wild yeast strains that are fund growing around the distillery.
After double pot still distillation this gives rise to a fruity new make featuring notes of mango, green apple and cherry. Some of that can be sort of found in the final whisky, but as the distillery loves it’s oak and from tasting their range, I would say predominantly first fill casks. Taking advice from the late Dr Jim Swan the distillery matures in ex-Bourbon casks along with casks that once held red and white wine, ex-Oloroso, Manzanilla, Fino and Pedro Ximinex sherry casks as well as ex-Brandy, Moscatel and Port casks.
The distillery showcases all of these different casks throughout its range. The ‘entry’ level bottlings the Distillers Select No1 and No2 features a combination of refill, and first fill sherry and wine casks as does the Kavalan Single Malt. On paper, this is a whisky that really shouldn’t work as one would think that the vatting together of spirit aged in red and white wine along with various sherry casks would create a homogenous end product, but it is testament to Yu Lan Chang that the blending of these casks is wonderfully harmonious, and one can pick out the spirit character along with the various wood notes.
Their top range, the single cask bottlings called Solist are for my tastes far too heavy on the cask and lack the harmony and complexity of the single malt bottling, but the Solist Vinho Barrique didn’t win the Worlds best single malt award for nothing!
The first spirit ran off its stills in March 2006 under the watchful eye of head distiller Yu-Lan ‘Ian’ Chang, who has subsequently left the distillery and the first bottling was released in December 2008. Since then, the distillery has won numerous awards including the worlds best single malt at the 2015 World Whisky Awards for its Vinho Barrique.
The site of the distillery was chosen primarily because of Shue-Shan Mountains’ natural reservoir of spring water, which lies beneath the distillery itself. Another reason for choosing the site was that around 75% of the land in Yilan is mountainous, thus the air is pure and clean. The idea of harnessing the terroir of the area in the spirit was at the forefront of Chang’s thinking when he envisioned the type of spirit that Kavalan should be producing. So, to add more Taiwanese character to the spirit he started with the fermentation yeast. Here they use a combination of commercial yeast and wild yeast strains that are fund growing around the distillery.
After double pot still distillation this gives rise to a fruity new make featuring notes of mango, green apple and cherry. Some of that can be sort of found in the final whisky, but as the distillery loves it’s oak and from tasting their range, I would say predominantly first fill casks. Taking advice from the late Dr Jim Swan the distillery matures in ex-Bourbon casks along with casks that once held red and white wine, ex-Oloroso, Manzanilla, Fino and Pedro Ximinex sherry casks as well as ex-Brandy, Moscatel and Port casks.
The distillery showcases all of these different casks throughout its range. The ‘entry’ level bottlings the Distillers Select No1 and No2 features a combination of refill, and first fill sherry and wine casks as does the Kavalan Single Malt. On paper, this is a whisky that really shouldn’t work as one would think that the vatting together of spirit aged in red and white wine along with various sherry casks would create a homogenous end product, but it is testament to Yu Lan Chang that the blending of these casks is wonderfully harmonious, and one can pick out the spirit character along with the various wood notes.
Their top range, the single cask bottlings called Solist are for my tastes far too heavy on the cask and lack the harmony and complexity of the single malt bottling, but the Solist Vinho Barrique didn’t win the Worlds best single malt award for nothing!
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