{"id":6531,"date":"2020-11-09T08:24:18","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T13:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/?p=6531"},"modified":"2020-11-09T08:26:08","modified_gmt":"2020-11-09T13:26:08","slug":"kavalan-solist-port-cask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/09\/kavalan-solist-port-cask\/","title":{"rendered":"Kavalan Solist Port Cask"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kavalan is the best known whisky distillery in Taiwan.\u00a0 It makes a number of relatively entry-level single malts (like Kavalan Single Malt<\/a>, Podium<\/a>, Conductor<\/a> and Concertmaster<\/a>), but is best known for higher-end single cask whiskies sold under the Solist label (detecting a theme there?). I’ve previously reviewed a number of most popular Solist series (e.g., ex-Bourbon<\/a>, Manzanilla Cask<\/a> and Sherry Cask<\/a>) and now add the Solist Port Cask.<\/p>\n

I am typically a big fan of port-finished whiskies, even more so than sherry-finished – which is not surprisingly, since I typically prefer Port over Sherry (see my Port <\/a>primer here). I’ve actually had this Kavalan bottle for awhile now, which I picked up at a Hong Kong duty free in November 2018. I figured it was about time I reviewed it.<\/p>\n

As always, these single cask Solist series whiskies have a lot of information on their labels. On the front, my bottle identifies Cask O110112009A and Bottle 055\/144. The latter is self-explanatory, but the former provides a lot of cask information; specifically, O is for Port cask, 11<\/span> is the distilling year (2011), 01 is January, 12 is the 12th of the month, and 009 is the 9th barrel of that day’s dumping run. On the back is a sticker with ” 2018.09.20 11:37 HK (1 L)”, which is the date and time it was bottled, plus for what market and the bottle size (travel retail often offers larger bottles). That makes this single cask over 7 and half years old, which seems slightly above-average for a Kavalan Solist.<\/p>\n

Don’t be fooled by that apparent young age though – Taiwan has a marine tropical climate, which means whiskies mature more quickly there than in more temperate northerly climes like Scotland and Ireland.<\/p>\n

Bottled at cask-strength, 58.6% ABV in this case. I paid $175 CAD for the 1L bottle (with fancy presentation case with metallic closing clasp) at the time in 2018, which was a very good price compared to other markets.<\/p>\n

Here are how some of the major Kavalan expressions compare in my database.<\/p>\n

Kavalan Concertmaster Port Cask: 8.31 \u00b1 0.54 on 25 reviews ($$$$)
\nKavalan ex-Bourbon Oak: 8.89 \u00b1 0.25 on 7 reviews ($$$$)
\nKavalan King Car Conductor: 8.47 \u00b1 0.31 on 11 reviews ($$$$)
\nKavalan Podium: 8.66 \u00b1 0.27 on 11 reviews ($$$$)
\nKavalan Sherry Oak: 8.50 \u00b1 0.51 on 11 reviews ($$$$$)
\nKavalan Single Malt: 8.42 \u00b1 0.44 on 19 reviews ($$$$)
\nKavalan Solist Amontillado Cask: 9.02 \u00b1 0.24 on 8 reviews ($$$$$+)
\nKavalan Solist Ex-Bourbon Cask: 8.84 \u00b1 0.25 on 25 reviews ($$$$$)
\nKavalan Solist Fino Sherry Cask: 8.83 \u00b1 0.51 on 16 reviews ($$$$$+)
\nKavalan Solist Manzanilla Cask: 9.02 \u00b1 0.20 on 10 reviews ($$$$$+)
\nKavalan Solist Port Cask: 8.92 \u00b1 0.32 on 17 reviews ($$$$$)<\/strong>
\nKavalan Solist PX Cask: 9.04 \u00b1 0.51 on 8 reviews ($$$$$+)
\nKavalan Solist Sherry Cask: 8.97 \u00b1 0.31 on 26 reviews ($$$$$)
\nKavalan Solist Vinho Barrique Cask: 9.05 \u00b1 0.21 on 20 reviews ($$$$$)<\/p>\n

Let’s see what I find in the glass.<\/p>\n

Nose<\/strong>: Brown sugar and molasses. Vanilla and milk chocolate. Raisins, grapes, currants and dark plums. Red licorice and swedish berries. A bit of orange zest. No real off notes, but some nose prickle from the high ethanol heat comes though. Otherwise you could almost mistake this for a Port, give how strongly those characteristics are really coming through. Water accentuates the candied fruit notes.<\/p>\n

Palate<\/strong>: Sweet, with the candied fruit notes amplified, along with the grapey and plumy characteristics. Has a luscious mouthfeel, thick and syrupy. The oaky backbone asserts itself mid-palate, with wet oak, vanilla, nutmeg, and touch of pepper. Burnt brown sugar, with a bit of ginger and coffee showing up as well (plus the chocolate is still there). Great complexity here, with the base spirit poking through on the swallow. With water, the sweetness increases, as do to the fruity notes initially – it can handle a lot of water before feeling diluted, but the simple sugar goes up and the fruitiness goes down if you add too much.<\/p>\n

Finish<\/strong>: Long. The fruity, candied characteristics return initially, and then fade into the more oaky elements (love that burnt sugar note). And that classic Kavalan astringency shows up now on the finish – glad to see it wasn’t lost under all that Port. Water actually accentuates the astringency, and increases the ginger notes.<\/p>\n

\"\"It’s not surprising that I enjoyed this expression – it is clear to me that a good quality Port cask was used.\u00a0 And as I observed on the entry-level Concertmaster, Port seems to combine well with the astringent base Kavalan spirit. But the quality and complexity is hugely amped up here\u00a0 – this is a great example of what good Port casks can do with a distinctive base spirit, accentuating rather than masking.<\/p>\n

For a second opinion, you might want to check out Jason of In Search of Elegance<\/a> and The_Muskok <\/a>on Reddit – both actually reviewed from this bottle. Other reviewers with similarly very high scores are Serge of Whisky Fun<\/a>, Thomas of Whisky Saga<\/a> and Jim Murray. Most Reddit reviewers were consistently moderately positive – like Devoz<\/a>, strasse007<\/a>, TOModera<\/a>, , and Unclimbability<\/a>, washeewashee<\/a> and xile_<\/a>, among others) Lower scores (but still favourable reviews) from Jonny of Whisky Advocate<\/a>, and Josh the Whiskey Jug<\/a>.

Kavalan is the best known whisky distillery in Taiwan.\u00a0 It makes a number of relatively entry-level single malts (like Kavalan Single Malt, Podium, Conductor and Concertmaster), but is best known for higher-end single cask whiskies sold under the Solist label (detecting a theme there?). I’ve previously reviewed a number of most popular Solist series (e.g., ex-Bourbon, Manzanilla Cask and Sherry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[55,39,18,52,105,17,51],"class_list":["post-6531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whiskies","tag-cask-strength","tag-kavalan","tag-nas","tag-port","tag-single-cask","tag-single-malt","tag-taiwan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6531"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6547,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6531\/revisions\/6547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiskyanalysis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}