ILAN, Taiwan (AP) — There are palm groves here, not heather on the heath, but that hasn't stopped a company in northeastern Taiwan from trying to produce a whisky that can compete with Scottish brands.

Executives at beverage maker King Car Food Industrial Co., which began to distill whisky just five years ago, were thrilled when their fruity-tasting Kavalan won a blind taste test in Leith, Scotland last month against three brands from Scotland and one from England.

A panellist at the Burns Night dinner — an annual celebration of the life and poetry of 18th century Scottish poet Robert Burns — pronounced Kavalan in a taste test sponsored by the Times of London newspaper as "a little different".

The results delighted executives at King, who recently discussed their surprise award at the company distilleries on a 143-acre (32-hectare) palm-rimmed compound in Ilan, 20 miles (32 kilometres) southeast of Taipei.

"We have not sold Kavalan in Europe nor anywhere else outside of Taiwan yet, and we wonder who brought it to Burns Night," said marketing specialist Richard Ma.

There were sceptics when King Car decided to make whisky, company officials said. Ilan's average temperature of 86 F (30 degrees Celsius) is much warmer than the 59 degrees (15 C) of the Scottish highlands, which is believed to be ideal for whisky production.

And then there is the question of experience: How do you compete with a tradition dating back hundreds of years?

King Car's answer was to hire a British whisky consultant and send officials to Scotland to learn the elaborate distilling process. They also bought equipment from renowned coppersmith and fabricator Forsyths in Rothes, Scotland.

Still, Ma acknowledged, the Scottish whisky making tradition cannot be learned overnight.

"It's a tradition we cannot copy," Ma said. "For example, in storing malt, the Scots use their noses to screen out those oak barrels tainted with sulphur or other undesirable smells." This, he said, was still beyond King Car's abilities.

The company has also had to convince consumers that its young malt is just as good as older ones produced in colder climates. To do this, it makes the case that hotter weather shortens the maturation process.

"The warmer climate speeds up all the chemical reactions from wood to the spirits as specific chemicals come out faster," blender Ian Chang said.

Using imported wood and yeast adds to production costs. A bottle of Kavalan now sells for 2,100 New Taiwan dollars ($65), a price he acknowledged will have to be reduced if the spirit is to be competitive.

But Chang said that King Car also has a number of natural advantages that could help it in the marketplace.

One is its distillery's proximity to a large underground reservoir that gathers clean springs from the nearby mountain ranges.

"The water has gone through layers of natural sand ... so we can use it after only simple, physical filtration," Chang said.

"The water, climate and good air all help with maturation and contribute to the fine quality of the whisky," he added.

Taiwan — with a population of 23 million — consumed some seven billion New Taiwan dollars ($220 million) of whisky in 2008, according to government figures. Most came from Scotland, with a smaller percentage from Japan.

King Car began marketing Kavalan in the Taiwan market last year, but officials declined to reveal sales volumes.

The company says it can turn out nine million bottles a year but is now running at 60 percent of capacity. It says it hopes that growing acceptance for Kavalan both at home and abroad will allow it to raise that to 100 percent within five years.