Back in March we announced that Joy Tan was joining our Board of Directors. Recently, our beloved, extremely handsome, and not even remotely tipsy editor, Phill (who’s currently writing this), had the opportunity to sit down and chat with her about her background, why she joined the Nine Rivers project, and her own ambitions for the distillery. […]
Read MoreBack in March we announced that Joy Tan was joining our Board of Directors. Recently, our beloved, extremely handsome, and not even remotely tipsy editor, Phill (who’s currently writing this), had the opportunity to sit down and chat with her about her background, why she joined the Nine Rivers project, and her own ambitions for the distillery.
Here’s what she had to say.
I’ll condense the introduction. Most of it was spent with me having Zoom issues and strategically adjusting my camera to hide how much I may or may not have been drinking at the time. Joy Tan
How would you introduce yourself to the world?
Joy Tan: I grew up in Beijing and studied biology at Tsing Hua University. I first came to the US for graduate school and just stayed here in Texas after school. Over the years, I’ve worked with several large technology companies, including Verizon and Huawei. I had the opportunity to live in Shenzhen for several years when I was the head of Global Media and Communications for Huawei.
Last year, after more than two decades in tech, I decided to start my public affairs consulting firm to help companies improve their reputations and expand their businesses globally. I also do venture capital investment, especially startups led by female founders. I’m very passionate about initiatives that help empower women and girls around the world.
That’s quite the journey. From China to the US, from biology to digital tech. There’s a lot of big jumps in your life. What would say is the thread that connects all of these experiences?
Joy: I think that, at the time, fundamental science research wasn’t nearly as technically advanced as it is now. So a lot of the work was manual, tedious, and SLOW. The amount of time it took to do basic things was really frustrating. Today, thanks to advances in technology, we can sequence an entire genome in about an hour for US$500. That’s about a 100 million-fold increase in efficiency compared to when I was in school.
That frustration is what first pulled me into the world of technology. I knew technology was poised to create exciting advancements in medical technology. But I didn’t want to wait for it to happen – I wanted to be part of it! The practical application of science has a much more immediate and tangible impact on the world. So halfway through my PhD, I had a good opportunity to jump ship, so I did. I got an MBA in marketing and jumped headfirst into the tech sector.
At first glance it may seem like I’ve quite a few seemingly unrelated branches in my career, but the connecting thread is really my passion for using technology to make life better. Joy Tan
So why whisky? Why did you end up getting involved in Nine Rivers Distillery?
Joy Tan: First and foremost, I love whisky. And I can see you do too.
[Editor’s note: Oops. Got caught trying to sneak a drink between questions.]
I especially love a good scotch, although I’ve got a foot in both camps because I love bourbon too. Second, it’s a very vibrant and burgeoning industry. Whisky has seen massive growth over the past few years.
We’re seeing all kinds of new startups popping up around the world. Truly artisanal shops that are doing some groundbreaking stuff with flavor and experience. At the same time, we’re seeing larger, more traditional Scotch distilleries start to reinvent themselves. Distilleries Brora and Rosebank are opening up their doors for business again, and of course we have Port Ellen due to reopen next year.
The demand is there, and China especially is an untapped, eager market for whisky. Chinese consumers are growing more sophisticated by the day. So when Jay approached me about bringing some of my experience to the project, I jumped at the opportunity.
I’m glad you mentioned Jay. Because, seriously, why Jay of all people? I can’t join the dots. How on earth did you end up in his mad, mad world?
Joy Tan: (Laughs) Yeah, craaaaazy Jay. I originally met him years ago, back when Nine Rivers was still a concept and very much in the early stages. We were introduced by an old colleague of mine in Shenzhen. One night we were chatting over drinks and Jay started talking about this project he was working on.
He said he was working with a group of whisky lovers across China to start their own distillery. It was a grassroots approach. At the time, he was building up this whisky community across China through one of his other projects, Oak and Barley. It brings whisky enthusiasts together in different cities, combining their love of whisky with professional networking.
These whisky networking events always had a ton of diversity. Men, women, people from China, North and South America, Africa, Europe. Everywhere. There were older people and younger people, and people from all walks of life: engineers, teachers, architects, writers, designers, even shoemakers. All brought together by a common love for whisky. It sounded like an awesome group.
Jay’s dream was to put China on the international whisky map, and he wanted to do it together with this community by making them co-founders, investors, and ambassadors. There was no shortage of talent; they all brought their expertise to the table through focusing on one thing: making incredible whisky.
The idea of a grassroots distillery in China was interesting, but what really stood out to me was his ideas on technology in the whisky industry.
A lot of people might not know this, but prior to his alcohol import business in China, and his adventures in Africa, Jay was a real nerd. We’re talking old-school computer programming, networks, infrastructure – that kind of nerd. Even in Africa he was out there helping remote villages get internet access through satellite, so technology has always been a part of what he has done over the years.
When we met, he was throwing around ideas about using technology to revamp areas ranging from production and brand protection to customer engagement. Not only to create better whisky, but also to create a better overall whisky experience. It was right up my alley.
Needless to say, we stayed in touch. And last year, when Jay noticed that I’d moved on from my previous role to do consulting work, he reached out. We started talking formally at the start of 2022, and well, here I am.
Can you talk a little about what the public can expect regarding technology and Nine Rivers Distillery?
Joy Tan: Absolutely. I can’t share all of our secrets just yet, but there are a few things that make this project uniquely awesome.
Currently, whisky is a relatively untouched industry when it comes to tech. In terms of distilling itself, nothing has really changed for the past 200 years except the tendency to lean towards profitability over consumer experience.
Don’t get me wrong, that’s a good thing. In a lot of ways, whisky is about tradition. There’s a reason why traditions become traditions in the first place, and that’s because they produce good results.
At Nine Rivers, we want to use technology to build on those traditions. We can protect the good parts and see if we can do better in other parts, such as environmental impact, production quality (like flavors and aromas), and customer engagement.
That’s where technology really shines. For example, you know those big copper onion or lantern-shaped stills you see in distilleries? They are quite wasteful when it comes to energy use. You need to heat them up super hot, and then cool them back down for emptying and cleaning. All of that energy is just lost in between. There is some partial energy recovery that happens with heat exchangers, but most distilleries still end up wasting most of that energy.
Nine Rivers Distillery is going to use it. To start with, we’re using renewable energy as our primary heat source. We will use air source heat pumps. Additionally, we have designed and patented a more efficient way to use heat exchangers on our stills. Current projections show that we can meet about 70% to 80% of our energy needs with renewable and recovered energy. This is huge. So much so that we patented it and the patent has been granted.
That all sounds great. Obviously we need to protect the natural environment because, well, if you don’t have good natural resources, you can’t have good whisky. But if we take a step back, what about me as a consumer? You mentioned product quality, and you mentioned customer engagement. What is Nine Rivers doing with technology that will directly benefit me as a consumer of whisky?
Joy Tan: Essentially three things: We will use digital technology to make whisky in a more sustainable way, to make whisky better, and to improve the overall “whisky experience.”
For example, we are setting up connected systems to monitor all aspects of the mashing and fermenting process. Sure, these exist in general terms, but not to the precision and accuracy that we will use. I’m talking about three-second time slices on data sampling.
We will be taking a “big data” approach to every single aspect of production and then modelling this against all of the environmental data so we can leverage renewable energies – not just at the most optimal time to harvest energy, but also in consideration of the tradeoffs that we have to accommodate. For example, a hot day might give us more renewable energy from air source heat pumps, but we would then also have challenges with chillers on fermentors and condensers on stills.
That’s the sustainability aspect. As a consumer, you probably won’t really “feel” that directly, but to tech nerds like me and Jay, this gets us excited. And like you said, protecting the environment also protects our product.
We can also use this big data approach and create data models that will help us maintain strict consistency in the production of our milling, mashing, and fermenting, which means reliable consistency in the quality of the final product. For example, wood management, like everything about our casks, can be managed with the same technology-driven approaches.
That means better whisky. And you will definitely be able to taste and feel that.
As for the better overall experience you asked about, we have several plans in the works. Joy Tan
Take that whisky glass you keep trying to hide from me. I don’t know how you got your hands on one of the prototypes before I did. That’s totally not cool, and I’m definitely going to yell at Jay for that. (Laughs)
As someone who was part of the team that designed those, though, you know first hand how much technology went into creating what I can only describe as a work of whisky art. We are making a very conscious effort to provide people with a product and experience that make the most of technology to amplify tradition.
For example, we have plans to incorporate augmented reality in the distillery itself. When people visit, they will be able to engage more closely with what we’re doing, understand our end-to-end processes, why we do things the way we do, and interact with the distillery around them in a more immersive way.
We also have our own “grain to glass” technology that tracks the entire product lifecycle. Every bottle will have its own NFC chip, which means that when someone taps their phone on our product they can see everything about that bottle. This includes the farm where the barley was grown, the specific production process, the aging of the whisky, and everywhere the bottle has physically been.
Of course, technology will play a role even when we aren’t producing. We’ve got a lot in the works. Over the next few months, we’ll be releasing some really interesting technology-driven experiences. Joy Tan
Right now we’re working on something called “Project X.” We think it’s going to be a first for the whisky industry, and we’re pretty confident it will make all players take note of what Nine Rivers is doing. I dropped a little hint in there if you’re paying attention!
If you enjoyed reading this, and you would like to catch up with some of our past articles, then please CLICK HERE and go to our News Section, where most of our other content is published.
If you have enjoyed reading this and want to learn more about Nine Rivers Distillery, then use the QR Code below to follow our WeChat Official Account.
Alternatively, if you prefer Linked In then you can CLICK HERE to follow us.
Facebook users, you can CLICK HERE.
Shenyang, the flagship city of Liaoning province, is not typically a destination that travellers or expatriates first think about when pondering Chinese cities. Nonetheless, Shenyang has its own culture points and attractions that boost its fame among those of us who live in China and are “in the know.” We’re here to give Shenyang some […]
Read MoreShenyang, the flagship city of Liaoning province, is not typically a destination that travellers or expatriates first think about when pondering Chinese cities. Nonetheless, Shenyang has its own culture points and attractions that boost its fame among those of us who live in China and are “in the know.” We’re here to give Shenyang some well-deserved love and encourage more travellers and expatriates to give this charming city a visit. So, what is Shenyang famous for?
With a population of over 9 million people just within the main city, this megalopolis is actually home to a staggering 23 million people when counting the full suburban and rural areas. Even though the five inner urban districts are likely to have given Shenyang most of its fame, owing to rich contributions in science and industry Shenyang is also famous for how far its rich history extends into suburbs and rural areas where some interesting things have been discovered: 8,000 year old human remains, for example, as well as artifacts belonging to the neolithic Xinle people. It was only more recently (well, 2300 years go) that Shenyang was born out of Hou City, which was home to several dynasties, earning it the honorable title of Shengjing or “rising capital.”
Today, Shenyang is famous for its many museums, attractions, shopping areas and food. For those more active, Shenyang’s people have an obsession with football, basketball and many other sports. As you might have guessed, we’re not focusing on any of that. If you ask the whisky lovers in Shenyang “hey, what is Shenyang famous for?” you’re only going to get one answer:
Now into its fourth year, Whisky Networking Shenyang is a regular event that has been hosted since its inception by Mudy G. Don’t worry, we aren’t being disrespectful by clipping his name; Mudy G. has a name that’s as long and culturally rich as Shenyang’s! His full name includes a first name of 9 syllables, 17 middle names and a triple barrelled family name – made up from no less than 4 different languages. Also, don’t let the name fool you; he’s not “moody” at all, despite that being how you pronounce it.
Whisky Networking Shenyang first started in April 2018 when Mudy G. decided that Shenyang needed more of a whisky culture. Sure, of course Shenyang had whisky, but anything you might see at a bar was placed high on a shelf and gathering dust because nobody bought it; there was simply not enough demand for the “good stuff.” So, leveraging the collective wisdom of those in the Oak and Barley WeChat groups, alongside other Whisky Networking events, Mudy G strove to make those bottles less ornamental and more practical (as in, drinking them instead of looking at them). is Shenyang Famous For?
While those of us in Shenzhen treat whisky nights more like opportunities to glug expensive bottles, Mudy G took a more educative approach. His whisky networking nights included sharing whiskies that were previously unseen in Shenyang as well as helping people understand more about whisky in order to describe and judge them.
“Whisky can actually be quite intimidating for most people. There are so many different types, styles, aromas and flavours. More often than not, a first whisky experience (typically a cheap blend) can be so disappointing that people simply avoid whisky unless its flavour is overpowered with a sugary soft drink.
I’d been lucky to have been able to try many different styles of whisky so I understood that there is always a style that people will like – they just need help discovering that style. That’s what I wanted to share with people. The opportunity to find a style that suits them. Building knowledge within our Shenyang whisky community to give people the confidence to explore whiskies was my mission.”
It’s fair to say that while Mikey’s is the spiritual home of Shenyang Whisky Networking, other venues such as Milo’s German Restaurant, Taverna Vigna Italian Restaurant, and Suerte have all taken turns playing as host. Yet, there’s a special kind of magic that always brings the whisky loving community back to Mikey’s. While Shenyang is famous for its own local cuisines, Mikey’s makes fantastic burgers served by friendly staff. The owners are also warm and generous: ¥15 Asahi pints, or their happy hour where for ¥50 you can have unlimited refills on Asahi! This is why, across all photos taken at whisky networking events here, there are plenty of bottles and glasses present. While we would never want to call the attendees at Shenyang’s event unsophisticated, we will give them the benefit of the doubt and imagine those beers are for palate cleansing purposes only.
Sophie’s World Bar also deserves a special shout-out for hosting some of the whisky networking events. In the expatriate community, Shenyang is famous for Sophie’s, having been a dedicated hangout for as long as expats have called Shenyang their home.
Sophie’s actually opened in 1996 and has been a Shenyang staple ever since, making it an obvious choice for a networking event.
Shenyang’s whisky enthusiasts arrive at the venue starting from 7 P.M. and go until late. Some arrive earlier to eat at the venue while getting a head start sipping/chugging their whiskies (and maybe beer).
Ticket prices are typically between ¥158 to ¥198 for a flight of whiskies, depending on the night’s theme. Pretty good deal, yeah? So…
There’s a bit of rivalry between different Whisky Networking events, and the rivalry between Shenyang and Wuhan is pretty fierce. So fierce in fact that Mudy G. has committed to shave his head at Mikey’s bar, at the next Shenyang Whisky Networking event – if this article can achieve more page views on our WeChat Official account than the Wuhan article achieved.
We’re counting the first 3 days of the article being live, which would equate to 3227 page views on the English language version, and 613 on the Chinese language version.
So if you’d like to see Mudy G, balded into a Lucas clone, then get sharing the WeChat official article with everyone you know. We’ll post an update at the bottom of this article on Saturday 23rd July at 6pm, 3 days after this is published, and if a balding is going to happen, we’ll add some snaps of that too, when they are available.
If you’re in or near Shenyang and your interest is piqued, you are welcome to reach out to Mudy G. to sign up for the next Whisky Networking China Shenyang Chapter!
There is a fixed number of tickets available for each event so they normally sell out within a couple of days. The August meet up has yet to be announced, so feel free to use the QR code below to add Mudy G. on WeChat. He’ll add you to his group so you can know when events are taking place and how to get a ticket. See you there!
If you enjoyed reading this, and you would like to catch up with some of our past articles, then please CLICK HERE and go to our News Section, where most of our other content is published.
If you have enjoyed reading this and want to learn more about Nine Rivers Distillery, then use the QR Code below to follow our WeChat Official Account.
Alternatively, if you prefer Linked In then you can CLICK HERE to follow us. What is Shenyang Famous For?
Facebook users, you can CLICK HERE.
As a proper, born-and-bred Chinese person, I wouldn’t feel comfortable starting this article without a formal, primary school-style introduction. So before I get onto working with the Mayor, here’s a little about me. My name is Hayden Zou. I’m originally from Hengyang in Hunan Province, and I moved to Shenzhen back in 1992 to be […]
Read MoreAs a proper, born-and-bred Chinese person, I wouldn’t feel comfortable starting this article without a formal, primary school-style introduction. So before I get onto working with the Mayor, here’s a little about me.
My name is Hayden Zou. I’m originally from Hengyang in Hunan Province, and I moved to Shenzhen back in 1992 to be part of what was – and still is – the most exciting city in the world.
During my time here, I’ve worked as a GM and COO for companies making metal, digital displays, and… snowboards. Needless to say, that last one was a relatively short endeavour, given the lack of demand for winter sporting equipment in a subtropical region where snow is about as common as standard Mandarin. working with the mayor
Eventually I got tired of the corporate life, so I decided to retire and open a hotel. The tourism industry had always interested me, so I bought a fix-me-up hotel, some power tools, rolled up my sleeves, and put together a team to help me renovate. I would have been content to live out the rest of my days in the comfort of my inn, but one fateful day, the phone rang.
In 2019, I answered a call from Jeff Olyniec. Jeff was the former boss at one of the companies I used to work for. He had recently invested in another company I was working with, so I answered thinking he wanted to talk about his new investment.
“Hey Jeff, how are y—”
“Yeah, Hi, Hayden, listen. I’ve got a job for you. Stop whatever you’re doing, get in your car, and drive to the address I’m sending you now. Gotta go.” *click*
This was pretty typical Jeff. A briefing would have been nice, but sometimes a little mystery is enough to make you get in your car and just go. And that’s what I did, leaving behind my unfinished tea and half-eaten youtiao (that’s a fried dough stick for you non-Chinese).
I drove to the office of Jay Robertson, who was known in expat circles as the “Mayor of Liquor Town” – a reference to his sprawling empire of importing western booze into China . True to his namesake, his office had shelves with hundreds of bottles on display. Most of them were whisky, and I didn’t recognise a single one.
We sat at his desk, and he walked me through a slide show about building a distillery in Fujian. I smiled and patiently let him get through it.
You see, I knew a distillery would do well in China, and if Jeff was involved, I was willing to invest too. But Jay surprised me when he said he wasn’t asking for me to invest. He was asking me to work for him. I remember laughing and saying that I didn’t know anything about whisky, but he grinned back and said I’d learn on the job, starting Monday.
I went home, baffled and confused. I was retired! I was a hotelier now! I had no intention of going back into full-time employment… but somehow, the idea of working in an entirely new industry stuck with me. Jay has a “big” personality, to put it politely, and the ridiculousness of working with the self-proclaimed Mayor of Liquor Town also had an odd if not grim sort of appeal.
I’ll admit, I was more than a little intrigued about the project, so I wrote up a list of questions and decided to follow up.
On Monday morning, I went back to Mr. Mayor’s office for a chat. Right as I arrived, he was on his way out. He ushered me back to the carpark, asked where my car was, then took my keys, told me to get in, and started to drive.
This was all in the span of about a minute. What the hell is wrong with all these foreign guys, I thought. He said we were going to Dongguan, about 90 minutes away, to meet a couple of other board members.
I used the drive to go through all my questions. I wanted assurance that this guy knew what he was doing. He answered every single question without any pause for thought, demonstrating that this distillery wasn’t some half-baked idea; he had an eerily encyclopaedic response for everything I threw at him. Some might think that that’s normal for a CEO, but a lot of CEOs I’ve met don’t tend to deal in the finer details. If Jay had any gaps, aside from those in his sanity, I couldn’t find them.
Between my questions, he was also juggling a few dozen conversations on WeChat using the voice message feature (safer while driving but still a bit nerve racking). I distinctly remember the audio messages he was sending. They ranged in topics from customs issues at a nearby port, an argument with an architect to correct another architect, two arguments with two different lawyers to correct some contract wording, lecturing someone on how to correct the chemical composition of a type of fertilizer, and something to do with software development that went completely over my head.
Not for the first time, I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into.
Despite being borderline hostile when arguing with his colleagues about technical details, every single question I asked about the distillery seemed to flip a mental switch and bring out something different in him. The “asshole personality” was replaced with one that was much warmer, engaged, and – I hate to admit it – fascinating.
Those 90 minutes were more interesting than anything that happened to me in the previous few years combined. Hotel work isn’t all that exciting I suppose. I realized that either this guy was an absolute nutter and we were going to die in a car crash on the way to meeting these other board directors (who might not have even existed, for all I knew) or he was something of a mad genius.
Either way, I was intrigued.
(PS – We didn’t die on the way to Dongguan.)
At the end of that day, Jay and I were sharing a top-shelf whisky together.
“So are you in?” he asked. I quickly learned that Jay wasn’t much for transitions. “I need someone to manage day-to-day operations. I want that person to be you.”
It occurred to me then that I had no idea how much he knew about me or why he was offering to me, just an Average Zou, an important job without so much as a formal interview. So I asked. Jay laughed and said I wouldn’t believe him, so I knew this was going to be a good story.
It went like this: Jeff and I had known each other for years. When Jay was in the market for a Managing Director, Jeff forwarded him my CV. As is standard practice in China, it included my birthday.
Jay being Jay, he’d given my date of birth to the distillery’s Feng Shui master (you can read about him here) and told him to read my fortune – or “Suan Ming” (算命). He used a traditional method known as “Zi Wei Dou Shu” (紫微斗數) or calculating destiny based on the positions of stellar objects relative to the North Star. It’s basically a metaphysical mashup of zodiac signs and astrology with a dash of Feng Shui.
Apparently – and I took this with a huge grain of salt, as I hope you do too as you read this – despite the fact that we were both stubborn and pedantic asshats who would fight like cats and dogs, we were predicted to have a perfect partnership and could achieve great things together.
Yeah, right. I was absolutely sure Jay was bullshitting me. I nodded, smiled and didn’t ruin our nice moment. But the moment I got back to my hotel room, I looked it up online, the source of all reliable information. I found this:
“属马和属蛇之人组为伙伴多可有互补之势，其二人一人多有莽撞，一人则多有沉稳，一人性格内敛，一人则多有张扬，分工之搭配得当，多可有成，属马和属蛇事业合作顺成。
属马之人其人多有善言辞，尚且可善应酬之事，为人之喜冒险，未有胆怯之心，尚且多有为人之坦诚，多可相处之无碍，然亦有急躁冒失之症，故多有犯错之时。
属蛇之人其人不喜言语，多有默默无闻于工作之时，尚且多可能力之佳，多可自行决断处事，不喜言辞之症多有疲于应酬之事，故与人交往之事尚有费心之时。属马之人和属蛇之人搭配恰到好处尚可事业无忧，长久之合作多可有合作之成果，少有波折”
[Editor’s note: I tried to convince Hayden not to include what some people might consider to be a load of hogwash. It’s cheesy, but he insisted, so… enjoy, I guess. I’m just the editor, what do I know?]
It more or less says the following about Jay (the snake) and I (the horse):
The horse and the snake have complimentary characteristics. If two people, one more reckless (guess who) and one much calmer (me) come together, the division of labor flows smoothly.
This next part might be a little harder for some people to accept.
The snake is usually introverted, hates public speaking and is fiercely independent when making decisions.
Many will say that only one of these accurately describes Jay. You can guess which one. But after years of working with the Mayor of Liquor Town, I have learned that there’s a kernel of truth in his horoscope here. Although he runs his mouth online like an angry streetside preacher, I know for a fact that he hates public speaking and likes to keep to himself outside the demands of his profession.
And this is why we make such a great team, because I’m good at what he hates.
Besides, a good friend once told me that I was smart as a horse and hung like Einstein, so perhaps there’s even greater truth to this horse-snake fortune telling after all.
[Editor’s note: I included this last bit out of revenge for making me translate all that obscure Chinese. You’re welcome Hayden.]
Just a few weeks after accepting the role as GM for the distillery, I relocated to Longyan in Fujian Province, the future site of Nine Rivers Distillery.
Relationships with local stake holders are absolutely critical to the success of any serious project in China. Many people are familiar with the concept of guanxi or relationships, and it’s true that meeting professional contacts face to face, at any time, is absolutely necessary.
Many people wrongly think that things in China happen naturally fast. And that if you grease a few palms, things go even faster. This, quite simply isn’t true for any serious business.This is how we build things quickly in China – with just a little bit of magic.
While you might scoff at me saying that China is one of the strictest countries in the world concerning construction and safety, it’s true. Many Western countries have rules that govern the aesthetics and general “feel” of a building, but China’s rules are heavily biased towards the safety of staff and the general public. working with the mayor
This is doubly true for a distillery where fires and explosions are a distinct possibility. There have been several instances where we wanted a specific design, but fire regulations wouldn’t allow it or the Feng Shui master would veto it (also an important part of doing business in China), so all in all, we’ve been patient and creative, especially concerning the design of our roofs.
Fortunately, through concerted effort and nonstop meetings, PowerPoint presentations, and local engagement, we have been able to build lasting relationships with important stakeholders in Fujian, which has gone a long way towards accelerating the progress of our project. We were able to secure a perfect plot of land, better and more sprawling than any organization that isn’t a Fortune 500 company could ever hope to have.
It was a mammoth task, but we did it.
As we continue to move forward with construction and interest in the project grows, the single question I get asked the most is: “What’s it like working with the Mayor of Liquor Town?”
A lot of people ask this because they only know Jay from his abrasive online persona hawking goods online. If you are in any of his whisky, liquor, food, or townie groups, you know how he is. How many of us have laughed at how he handles people that annoy him or disrespect his staff? He’s a legendary troll, the one who treats online communities like a playground, all for entertainment while giving out pretty good deals on food and drink.
I might ruin a few people’s perceptions of Jay here, but here it goes.
Very few people know Jay outside of these online personas. Having worked with him since 2019, interacting with him multiple times a day and working alongside him to bring our project to life, I’m probably the person with the most insight into his character. I can confidently say that I know him better than anyone else in China.
When I first met him, I could have sworn he had multiple personality disorder. But I’ve come to realise that it’s not so much a disorder as it is a superpower. Depending on who he’s talking to and the subject matter, he blends in like a chameleon and brings out the best in people. That’s why our project has been able to grow as a truly grassroots endeavour and why everyone who gets involved is more than eager to lend their talents and abilities. Working with the mayor.
In a way, he’s the glue that holds us together. Jay has always said that the Nine Rivers Distillery project will always be about the people involved and not about him. But the fact of the matter is, his vision and insane passion for the distillery are the reason we all got involved and invested in the first place. Anyone can invest money, but to inspire someone to invest money and talent? That’s exactly why our project will be successful.
I won’t pretend Jay is easy to work with. He’s really not. He’s the most difficult person I’ve ever worked with. But he also happens to be the most talented person I’ve ever worked with. Working with the mayor
He’s a taskmaster perfectionist. He’s impatient and has the bedside manner of a feral cat with rabies. Yet, beneath all that, when someone asks for advice or help, he will drop everything and give you his undivided attention.
It’s a bit of a roller-coaster at times, but that’s just Jay.
So what’s it like to work with the infamous Mayor of Liquor Town? It’s fast-paced. It’s fun. Its educating. In short there’s method to his madness and knowing that helps me get past his thousands of character flaws to see him for what he truly is: a leader with vision, a nerd with a broad range of passions, and a good man who I trust with the future of this project.
[Editor’s note: The official line is “hundreds” of character flaws, not thousands.] Working with the Mayor
I’m going to close my story with a huge thanks to Phill, my fellow Nine Rivers investor, for helping me put this together. English isn’t my native language and while I can communicate decently in professional contexts, I didn’t want this article to sound like it came from a Business English textbook.
Phill surprised me with his Chinese skills; he understood much more than I expected and was able to expertly capture all the little nuances I hoped to convey.
[Editor’s note: Aw, thanks Hayden.]
If you enjoyed reading this, and you would like to catch up with some of our past articles, then please CLICK HERE and go to our News Section, where most of our other content is published.
If you have enjoyed reading this and want to learn more about Nine Rivers Distillery, then use the QR Code below to follow our WeChat Official Account.
Alternatively, if you prefer Linked In then you can CLICK HERE to follow us.
Facebook users, you can CLICK HERE.
Continuing our story of the whisky communities all over China that are the foundation to Nine Rivers Distillery, it’s time for us to pay a bit of an homage to Whisky Networking China Wuhan Chapter and its leader, Lucas “Cardigan” Driggers. Kicking off in the early part of 2018, Whisky Networking China Wuhan Chapter was […]
Read MoreContinuing our story of the whisky communities all over China that are the foundation to Nine Rivers Distillery, it’s time for us to pay a bit of an homage to Whisky Networking China Wuhan Chapter and its leader, Lucas “Cardigan” Driggers.
Kicking off in the early part of 2018, Whisky Networking China Wuhan Chapter was born out of some whisky-fuelled conversation between Lucas Driggers and his friends. (Sound familiar? It’s pretty much how Nine Rivers got started too!) Unfortunately, whisky just hadn’t taken off in Wuhan, and excluding a few of the “usual suspects” that bars are always obligated to stock, there was nothing that would interest or excite any whisky lover. Indeed, the bar was pretty low for the expat community.
The sad truth is simply this: bars are almost always cash flow intensive and locking money up in stock that won’t sell is bad business. Without a demand for whisky, bars simply don’t bother to stock anything more than “mixing whisky.” You know the type. ‘Nuff said. Without any real whisky knowledge within the city, demand never starts or grows. And thus, the hero of Wuhan Whisky emerged!
Lucas reached out to Oak and Barley to learn more about what was going on down south in Shenzhen and to understand how Whisky Networking China Shenzhen Chapter made things happen. We covered the Shenzhen events a couple of weeks ago, but in case you missed it, you can CLICK HERE and catch up.
“Wuhan was far too sophisticated for the off the cuff style of Shenzhen’s early whisky nights. I needed something more to attract a classy crowd. Educational, hosted whisky nights were the answer to the needs of Wuhan. Themed flights of whisky to explore styles, flavors, textures and to also understand that globally, whisky really is so much more than just Johnnie Walker and Jamesons.”
…seriously? Did he just call Shenzhen unsophisticated? Does he not know I, the editor, live in Shenzhen? It’s ok. I can let this go.
“With a combination of teaching newcomers how to nose (smell) and taste whisky, preparing printed sheets to help people explore aromas, flavors, and give their own reviews on whisky, and throwing in just enough facts and anecdotes about whiskies to keep it interesting, Wuhan was officially on the whisky map in China.”
Whisky Networking China Wuhan Chapter has had a few different homes over the years, rotating around a number of different bars around the city. For a while, everyone’s home was where the tasting events happened due to pandemic lockdowns. That’s right, the whisky tasting moved online. We’ll get back to that in a moment.
Its current home (with no likelihood of moving) is The Devil’s Brewery in Jianghan District, in Wuhan, where Taylor, May and the rest of the team at Devil’s have been a real asset to helping to grow a whisky community in Wuhan. Devils’ has been around for quite a few years and Taylor has a pretty strong reputation in the brewpub and craft beer community in China.
There were some challenges in Wuhan for a few months, as I’m sure we all know. But, that wasn’t going to stop the need for whisky nights in Wuhan. Lucas took a crash course in computer-me-bobs, and worked out how to do virtual tastings.
For those unaware, virtual whisky tastings have become more popular globally over the years during various times of lockdown across the world.
After distilleries and brand owners woke up to the fact that making hand sanitizer as a marketing and brand building “strategy” was an expensive and epic fail, some of them realised it might be a good chance to actually engage with customers in their homes by shipping sample sized bottles of product and hosting live tasting sessions. As it may or may not surprise you, people sometimes like drinking at home just as much as going out to a bar.
Lucas jumped on that bandwagon, swapped the cardigan out for an eye gouger of a shirt (sophisticated? ha!) and got all hi-tech.
Hand filling 25ml bottles and shipping them far and wide, all over Wuhan, Lucas showed just a sample of the level of dedication that he has put in over the last 4 years and more.
The efforts of Lucas didn’t go unnoticed in Wuhan. In fact, in 2019, Lucas won the Wuhan Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Whisky Networking China Wuhan Chapter. He was officially recognised for creating something new, interesting, and above all popular on the Wuhan social scene. Voted for by the people of Wuhan, it recognised the efforts that Lucas had made in building a whisky culture in Wuhan.
Through a number of whisky groups and a group specifically for those people taking up the challenge of building whisky culture in their cities, Lucas logically got involved at the very start of the Nine Rivers Distillery, bringing along some of the other whisky lovers in Wuhan. Simon, Mischa, Steve, Luke, Mark, Travis, and Aztlano all got involved as investors and ambassadors for the project.
Lucas continues to be a leading figure in the project with active involvement in some of our steering groups, with Simon being involved in a lot of our social media activity. We’re just waiting for Mischa to get over his Magic: The Gathering obsession (which he has been playing non-stop since 1993) so he can roll his sleeves up and get involved a bit more. [Editor’s note: I had a joke here but I’m all tapped out.]
If you’re in or near Wuhan and your interest is piqued, you are welcome to reach out to Lucas to sign up for the next Whisky Networking China Wuhan Chapter!
There is a fixed number of tickets available for each event so they normally sell out within a couple of days. The July meetup has yet to be announced, so feel free to use the QR code below to add Lucas on WeChat. He’ll add you to the group so you can know when events are taking place and how to get a ticket. See you there!
If you enjoyed reading this, and you would like to catch up with some of our past articles, then please CLICK HERE and go to our News Section, where most of our other content is published.
If you have enjoyed reading this and want to learn more about Nine Rivers Distillery, then use the QR Code below to follow our WeChat Official Account.
Alternatively, if you prefer Linked In then you can CLICK HERE to follow us.
Facebook users, you can CLICK HERE.
Everyone involved in the Nine Rivers Distillery project is taking turns to introduce themselves to the world. Finally it’s my time to shine and tell you all a little about me and how I got involved in this project, and also to tell the world that simply, the days of artists and Absinthe are long […]
Read MoreEveryone involved in the Nine Rivers Distillery project is taking turns to introduce themselves to the world. Finally it’s my time to shine and tell you all a little about me and how I got involved in this project, and also to tell the world that simply, the days of artists and Absinthe are long gone – artists actually prefer whisky!
Why have we artists switched to whisky? Perhaps it’s the fact that whisky is such a broad and diverse category of drink. Perhaps it’s because we can relate to the creativity needed to craft what are essentially very basic things (grains, water and yeast) into something rich and meaningful. Then again, perhaps it’s simply because in the modern world, artists have generally agreed that we’re less likely to hack off our own ear if we avoid absinthe to fuel our creative passions. All I know is that whisky is something I really enjoy and I’m squeamish at the sight of blood!
I’m Yusan and I’m an artist. Not one of those fluffy types that finger paint blotches on canvas and then challenge people to “see the feelings I’m demonstrating with my art” and then cursing those that don’t have enough of a fluffy imagination to make up some nonsense to sound “artsy”. I actually do a mashup between technology and art, so I’m kind of a half nerd, and only half fluffy. Not even my dog is fluffy. More on her later.
I’ve always been intrigued by art. My interest started when my mom sent me to an art camp (that’s A-R-T and not F-A-T – I only got fat as I got older). She claimed she sent me because she wanted to me to have fun and learn new skills, but I suspect it’s because I was probably too loud and annoying. Regardless, or in spite of her, I had a great time and it laid the foundation for my career which ironically also kinda annoyed my parents (they wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer, or anything else that a traditional Chinese family can brag about). But hey, I’m not unsuccessful! I earn enough to pay my bills and buy whisky, so it’s all working out fine in my humble opinion.
I had a few jobs that were a bit artsy, mostly around video production and art installations, but it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. As it turns out, most of the production staff or technicians I worked with couldn’t bring my vision to life. Sometimes these disconnects were unspeakably frustrating!
To have an image in your mind of exactly what you want and then the “professionals” not being able to deliver it annoyed me so much that I decided to learn all the nerdy bits myself by going back to university to earn a masters degree that combined technology with art. Now, I’m able to make my own creations become exactly as they should – I’m officially a #Techno-Fluffy (let’s see if we can start a new hashtag trend with that).
I have two types of whisky in my life. No, not the type with an “e” and the type without an “e”. I mean Whisky, and my ickle bitsy cutie pie Whisky.
The fact that I’ve got a growler named after a type of alcohol should go some way towards demonstrating that I genuinely LOVE whisky. Dog lovers will of course know that this little cutie isn’t the deformed, big eared runt from a litter of Dalmatians, it is of course a French Pug.
She was minutes away from being named after my favourite Islay whisky (that begins with the letter A) but I didn’t want to reinforce that old Western cliché that we Chinese have no respect for copyright or trademarks. So, she became just plain ol’ Whisky.
My first encounter with whisky as a drink was way back in about 2017 when I got dragged along (much to my disinterest at the time) to a Whisky Networking event in Shenzhen. I had seen the address (Maker Hotel) and assumed it would just be full of those yobs who had flown over to Shenzhen, with a wallet full of crowdfunding money to source some new gimmick on the cheap, to sell to gullible punters in the West for 20 times the cost of buying it from a Guangdong factory.
I was more than pleasantly surprised to see that it really wasn’t that type of crowd. In fact, not only was it full of interesting people, but they all had the patience to welcome me as “one of their own” and give me a crash course in whisky. I did a flight of the 5 Scotch regions (yes, I know, there are only actually 4 regions, blah blah blah, but the Speyside lovers will bang their tambourines if I don’t count it as a 5th region….) and ended up leaving the night a little bit tipsy, content in the knowledge that I had fallen in love with heavily peated Islay whiskies (when I got home, I threw the Absinthe in the bin, because I really knew now that artists prefer whisky!). Not at all lady-like (my friends roll their eyes when I order straight-up whisky on girls-night out) but conventional thinking is boring and I’d bet most ladies would actually enjoy a good Islay whisky if they tried it (except my friends).
These whisky networking nights were the only reason I actually went to Shenzhen (I live in Guangzhou) although I didn’t have the time for them once I went back to University. But (because artists prefer whisky), I stayed in touch with most of the people I had met there because I’m a part of some of the whisky groups on WeChat, so I was never far away from it at all.
The idea of the distillery was something discussed at the end of pretty much every whisky night, so when the talking became a something, I was on it like a dog on a bone (or an artist on a bottle of good whisky!). I became one of the founder investors, threw in my money and got my name on the website, proud to be a part of something that is a real passion project for me. Yes, of course it’s an investment, but for me, the investment aspect came second to what I really wanted to do – get involved in creating amazing whiskies with a huge team of people that feel the same as I do.
Currently I have been involved in managing the Nine Rivers Distillery WeChat official account, publishing the content, replying to the people that contact us through our WeChat official account, and I help out on translating content to Chinese. My future plans are to be more involved on the fluffier side, so watch out for my whisky fuelled creative input on some of the art and technology mashups that we have planned. I’m probably not supposed to leak this, but think immersive, augmented reality experiences for visitors…..and then some. There’s a real benefit to a distillery project when artists prefer whisky.
If you enjoyed reading this, and you would like to catch up with some of our past articles, then please CLICK HERE and go to our News Section, where most of our other content is published.
If you have enjoyed reading this and want to learn more about Nine Rivers Distillery, then use the QR Code below to follow our WeChat Official Account.
Alternatively, if you prefer Linked In then you can CLICK HERE to follow us.
Facebook users, you can CLICK HERE.