Distillation

Kavalan's stills don't come from Taiwan. They come from Forsyths in Rothes, Scotland, the same coppersmith that supplies many Speyside distilleries. The distillery began in 2005 with a single pair. Today, ten pairs stand in Yuanshan, twenty stills in total, on the grounds at the edge of the Lanyang Plain.

Each pair consists of a larger wash still with a capacity of twelve thousand liters and a smaller spirit still holding seven thousand liters. Both are linked via the classic two-stage method of Scottish craftsmanship. In the wash still, the fermented mash is distilled into a weak raw spirit of about twenty percent alcohol. This is known as low wines.

The low wines move to the spirit still and are distilled a second time. At the spirit safe, the still master sits and watches the run of the distillate. The heads and tails contain unwanted fusel oils and light compounds and are cut away. Only the middle cut, the heart of the run, goes into the cask later.

With its expanded stills, Kavalan now reaches a capacity of several million liters of pure alcohol per year. This puts the distillery among the largest single malt producers in the world, a scale the founders in 2005 could hardly have imagined.

Two additional pairs of stills were added only in recent years, once worldwide demand for Kavalan exceeded the capacity of the original setup. Each new pair follows the exact dimensions of the original Forsyths stills. This way, the character of the distillate doesn't shift over the years.