By Christopher McCollum

Taiwanese company Kavalan has made shockwaves around the world amongst whiskey/whisky connoisseurs, as a blind taste test among experts in Scotland resulted in them beating out three Scottish blends and an English.

Yesterday was Burns Night in Scotland, which is the annual celebration of the birthday of Scottish Poet Robert  Burns. To mark the celebration, the taste test went on to see which was the best Scotch. The two foreign bottles were sneaked into the test, and surprise surprise when the results were declared. “Oh. My. God.” were the words out of expert Charles MacLean’s mouth when the results were declared, as the Kavalan whisky won 27.5 points out of a possible 40, beating second place Langs by 5.5 points. The taste was described as fruity, and one can be sure that there will soon be a run on Kavalan whisky, as more and more people want to experience this New Kid On The Block.

Unfortunately, the Taiwanese brand is not readily available, as worldwide distribution hasn’t gone into full effect. The company is marketing itself as “The 1st step to a hundred-year distillery” and has been working through trial and error to create Taiwan’s first whisky. The name comes from the name of the first people to settle the Lan-Yan plain in Taiwan, and the company chose Kavalan because it represents sincerity, honesty, and step-by-step cultivation.

Right now, the pricing research that I can find puts it at about $68 for a 750ML bottle, putting it on the rather expensive side. However, with the reviews that have been given it, we are definitely not looking at a low quality whisky. In their efforts to create Taiwan’s first whisky, they have produced a work of art that may become a masterpiece, as their process continues to grow and evolve. They are taking the right steps, putting incredible effort into the research and design process; They have imported copper stills from Scotland, as well as the services of Scottish master distillers. Combining these efforts with King Car, their parent company’s thirty years of food and beverage experience, the sky appears to be the limit for the Taiwanese upstart.

Here’s hoping we can get a bottle on hand to do our own taste test, in the near future.

By Christopher McCollum

Two evenings ago, Culture of Spirits writer Micah Hanks and I were tromping about around the Linville Gorge area, being recorded by a rather popular broadcasting network. This may end up being talked about more in the future, but for now, let’s just say that it was pretty fun. On the way up to the Gorge, we made a stop at the local liquor store in preparation for what would surely be an enjoyable evening. First things first, we made our way to the Bourbon section and spent several minutes pondering between Woodford Reserve, Jim Beam Black, Bulleit, Knob Creek, and Maker’s Mark.

In my opinion, Woodford tastes the finest, but that comes at a much steeper cost. So as the minutes ticked by, we debated cost versus enjoyment. Considering we were going to be spending our time at a hotel and obviously away from our personal bars, we would not be able to fully enjoy the cocktail experience. We were lacking bitters, garnishes, liqueurs, and even glasses. We knew were going to have to rely upon complimentary plastic cups and hotel ice. That meant we were going to be drinking it straight, unless we were able to grab a bottle of some rough mixer out of a vending machine.

We eventually settled upon the wax sealed bottle of Maker’s, and made our way to the register. My eye was caught by a promotional display at the end of the Liqueur aisle, and I immediately halted. I called Micah over, and showed him my wondrous discovery.

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Every well-learned journalist prescribes and adheres to some manual of style. In fact, many major media outlets have their own guides to proper style for their writers, like the Associated Press Stylebook (which I use), The Economist Style Guide, and of course, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage. I bring this up because, as I understand it, the latter of these three, used by the astute newspaper of the same name hailing from the heart of the Big Apple, recently modified it’s guidelines regarding the use of the words whiskey versus whisky.

Blogger Eric Asimov of the Times‘ excellent blog The Pour recently used the spelling whisky in reference to single-malt scotch, to which Times readers scolded him profoundly, asking whether or not he knew better that to omit the “e” when referring to Scotch and Canadian whisky.

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