Read widely, travel far, distil a hundred flavours.
01 / FROM SCOTLANDTrained where whisky makers are made
More than a decade ago, there was very little whisky-making knowledge available in Chinese. Driven by our love of whisky, we became the first team from Taiwan this century to go on our own to Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, the cradle of Scotch whisky talent, to study whisky production in full, graduating with master's degrees in brewing and distilling. We opened the door for the Chinese-speaking community to learn whisky making, and built a bridge between the Eastern and Western whisky industries.
02 / RESEARCH200 sites visited, written into books
To understand the whisky industry more deeply, we have visited 200 distilleries, maltings and cooperages around the world, and compiled our research into two of the only Chinese-language whisky industry travel and research books in the world. We are also chapter authors of the English edition, and the Chinese translation team, of the industry's textbook Whisky: Science, Technology and Marketing. Beyond whisky, we study the potential of rum made in Taiwan; a widely shared article on the production and marketing of Taiwan rum came from the Funny team.
03 / CASK & MATURATIONBringing cask research home to Taiwan
Our founding team are members of the Chartered Institute of Brewing and Distilling. One founder was the first from Taiwan and the Chinese-speaking world to receive a joint scholarship from the Worshipful Company of Coopers of London and the Incorporation of Coopers of Glasgow, researching casks and flavour maturation. He brought those research methods back to Taiwan to test the potential of Taiwanese woods for ageing spirits, and worked with a professor at Beijing Forestry University on a Mongolian oak breeding programme whose results we will never see, but future generations will enjoy.
04 / HANDS-ONFour distilleries, two cooperages
Our team has helped design, build and run four distilleries and two cooperages — from home distilling and a craft brew bar to a large craft distillery, a giant malt and grain whisky distillery, cooperages and an STR cask plant. We have been invited to present distillery design concepts at the World Distilled Spirits Conference in the UK and at the Alcohol School in Canada, and have advised distilleries in Taiwan and abroad on production, cask strategy and flavour development. New make from the giant whisky distillery we ran was praised by a well-known Japanese master blender as “impressive — it makes me excited about its future, and I will keep following it.”
05 / NEW FLAVOURSFrom yellow-wine casks to Taiwanese crops
One of our founders invented the world's first yellow-wine-cask whisky, defining a flavour for Chinese whisky and sparking debate across the industry. It caught the attention of the Western whisky world too, leading to an invited article in Brewers and Distillers International on Chinese yellow wine and its flavour links with sherry. Our team also includes award-winning home brewers, whose research has grown from beer into how Taiwan's own crops can be used to brew and distil the whisky and rum the world loves.
