Taiwan, Yilan. Distillery operational. Owner: King Car Group.

Two extraordinary personalities are responsible for Taiwan's first independent distillery, Tien-Tsai Lee (TT Lee), founder of the King Car group and owner of Kavalan, and Dr Jim Swan, the consultant behind a huge number of the distilleries opened across the world over the last 15 years, including Penderyn (Wales), Cotswolds (England), Victoria Caledonian (Canada) and several other projects in Scotland, such as Clydeside (Glasgow) and Lindores Abbey (Cupar). It was in 2006 that Kavalan distilled its malt for the first time. Since then, the distillery has frequently caused a stir with bottlings that reflect its perfect mastery of ageing in ex-bourbon casks and Oloroso and Fino sherry casks below subtropical latitudes. Like new distilleries, Kavalan has released numerous single cask and cask strength bottlings to respond to massive demand around the world.

A whisky distilled at the Kavalan distillery—founded by the King Car group in 2005 in Yilan County, Taiwan—and bottled from a single sherry cask for La Maison du Whisky in 2013. The Solist range is made up entirely of single casks selected by the cellar master from the distillery’’s finest casks and aged in a tropical climate, which increases the interaction between the wood and the spirit, and, of course, the angel’’s share. The result is whiskies with a strong wood influence and a high concentration of aromas, similar to rums aged in similar conditions. Only 497 bottles were released of this edition.