Kowloon Spirits has debuted two whiskies, and new technology developed by the company means they took less than two months to make. Joyce Yip reports.
Far from a whisky’s oft poetic founding story detailing its pristine water source, small copper stills and ambitious forefathers, Hong Kong-based Kowloon Spirits – which produces a gin and two whiskies – began as a project four years ago with the city’s government to make a piece of technology that accelerates ageing.
The result, on 1 June, less than two months after the company was officially established, were 1,000 bottles of 750ml, ageless single malt whisky featuring “a bold and smoky profile that pays homage to traditional whisky crafting, redefined through innovation”, as per its website.
And all bottles have already sold out.
Made exclusively with specialty malt imported from the UK and New Zealand as well as local water that has undergone reverse osmosis filtration, Kowloon Spirits’ whisky goes through similar processes of malting, mashing, fermentation and distillation found in traditional whisky making.
What’s different is that instead of maturing the new-make spirit in casks – a challenge for land-strapped Hong Kong – the liquid is placed into a stainless steel chamber with a Port-seasoned cask from Quinta De La Rosa for accelerated ageing.
All this takes place at its distillery and bonded warehouse in Hong Kong’s Fo Tan, a newly gentrified industrial area, with a maximum production capacity of 50,000 litres per month.
Max Rybinski, Kowloon Spirits master distiller and co-founder, said his whisky contains similar “essential chemical compounds” to those found in 12-year-old single malts of Balvenie and Glenfiddich.
The first batch of his 40% ABV whisky retailed for HK$698. His 50% ABV in an exclusive-release bottling retailed for HK$2,500. Aside from its own website, the Kowloon Spirits portfolio is also sold at online and bricks-and-mortar shop Caskells, which, for comparison, retails a 15-year-old Glenfiddich for HK$550 and Balvenie Double Wood 12-year-old for HK$750.
Kowloon Spirits’ co-founder and marketing director Lawrence Lau said comparing the distillery’s accelerated ageing method with traditional methods of ageing is akin to comparing “Tesla to combustion engine cars”.
“There’s no artificial processes in our methods. Traditional whisky ageing is composed of air, alcohol and time. We have not introduced a single extra element that’s not in the original maturation process; what we’ve done is use pressure, energy and temperature to speed up the ageing process,” he says.
Official whisky production rules vary by country but generally require maturation in oak casks for a minimum period (e.g., three years for Scotch whisky), use of specific grains, water, and yeast, and adherence to bottling strength and additive regulations. However, there are no specific, official Hong Kong regulations dictating the production of any whisky, meaning Kowloon Spirits isn’t breaking any rules.
Rybinski added that the shortened production time allows them to play with different variants more easily, though he understands this new technology might “piss off spirits aficionados and traditional distilleries”.
“You can never please everyone,” he said. “The best approach to whisky-making is it has to taste good. It’s about what people like.”
Lau said both he and Rybinski “do not drink”, nor did they come from spirits-making backgrounds. Lau is a self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur”, having backed fashion and nightlife brands in the city in the past. Rybinski’s expertise, meanwhile, was in finance.
They hope to eventually expand Kowloon Spirits’ portfolio to include vodka, ready-to-drink cocktails and private-label bottlings serving the entire Asia Pacific market.
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