Update on Taiwanese Whiskey 'Kavalan'

choi

Yin Khvat, FEATURE: Kavalan Reaches Into Russia, Keeps an Eye on Taiwan. Taipei Times, Oct 28, 2013 (available now).
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/ ... 13/10/28/2003575526

Quote:

"The first time 'Kavalan' [named after one of Taiwan’s oldest Aboriginal communities, and Taiwan’s first homegrown tipple] was uttered in whiskey’s heartland was at an old Scottish distillery in Leith in 2009. The event was a Times of London-organized blind taste-testing in honor of national poet and hero Robert Burns.

"When Kavalan scooped the International Wine and Spirit Competition Asia-Pacific Spirits 'Producer of the Year' trophy two years ago and the equivalent 'Whiskies of the world' trophy last year, it was the first time it had swiped the highest honor from Japan’s Suntory. The venerable Japanese distiller has been making what is widely considered the best whiskey outside Scotland, in the Scottish way, since 1923.

Note:
(a) כוואַט
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D ... D6%B7%D7%98#Yiddish
(Yiddish noun masculine, whose Romanticized spelling is "khvat": "a plucky, daring person")
(b) Veld-21, "[o]ne of Russia’s largest [whiskey] importers"

veld
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veld
(section 1 Etymology)
(c) "The Water of Leith is the main river flowing through Edinburgh, Scotland, to the port of Leith [on the north of Edinburgh, and on the bank of the Firth] where it flows into the sea via the Firth of Forth [estuary of River Forth]." Wikipedia
(i) firth (n; Middle English, from Old Norse--more at FORD): "ESTUARY"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/firth
(ii) Go to maps.google,com and enter "Water of Leith."
(d) Martha de Lacey, The Taiwanese Whisky That Beat the Scots in a Blind Tasting; Award-winning Far Eastern single malt hits British high street for £40. Daily Mail, Aug 5, 2013http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femai ... -sale-UK-Tesco.html
(a gold award from the Beverage Tasting Institute 2012)

(e) Kavalan's "chemistry laboratory--handmade by Scottish manufacturer Forsyth"

Distillation Equipment. Forsyths Ltg, undated
http://www.forsyths.com/distillation/
("When Alexander Forsyth started working as a coppersmith back in the 1890’s, he would never have imagined that over a century later his family would still be carrying on the trade on such a global scale. Forsyths is one of the world leaders in the supply of distillation equipment")
(f) The last paragraph says that whiskey professionals greeted the Kavalan representative--not just knew his name--in International Spirits Challenge Awards last August.

At international Spirits Challenge, Kavaran won three silvers in three separate categories, and a gold in 2010. See
Awards. Kavalan, undated (official Kavalan whisky blog)
http://kavalanwhisky.blogspot.com/p/awards.html