[Longyan, China, December 11, 2022] Nine Rivers Distillery today announced that Fujian Rong Tian Construction Company have been appointed as the construction partner for their project to build Nine Rivers Distillery in Da Chi, Longyan, Fujian. “We compared propositions in a formal tender process which involved 8 different construction companies who all bid to build […]
Read More[Longyan, China, December 11, 2022] Nine Rivers Distillery today announced that Fujian Rong Tian Construction Company have been appointed as the construction partner for their project to build Nine Rivers Distillery in Da Chi, Longyan, Fujian.
“We compared propositions in a formal tender process which involved 8 different construction companies who all bid to build Nine Rivers Distillery. The offer from Rong Tian was not only aggressively priced, but it included a much more rounded and complete vision of what we want to achieve with our architecture and construction” said Robertson. “This initial phase of construction is just one of many that we have on our roadmap. We needed to chose a partner that would be with us, side by side, as we grow both here in Longyan and nationally across China”.
Fujian Rong Tian Construction Company is a family owned business, based in Shanghang in Longyan, Fujian. They have successfully delivered construction projects across Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Hunan and Hubei provinces. The company is built on a moral ethos of putting people first and giving back to society, something that has frequently earned Fujian Rong Tian recognition and awards.
“Here at Fujian Rong Tian, we like to choose projects that we think will make a positive difference to China, both locally and Internationally. When we heard about Nine Rivers Distillery and their people-led approach to put China on the International whisky map – we knew we had to win this project” said Huang. “I put the very best of my people to the task of ensuring that our bid was both technically correct and commercially correct. It was a proud day for me and all of my team to win the project to build Nine Rivers Distillery”.
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Neil Playfoot joins Nine Rivers
Saturday 26th November 2022, a date laser etched into the brain of a lot of whisky lovers across China, the night of The Founders’ Flight Live. 11 cities planned. 11 cities stepped up. 11 event organisers did everything they needed to do. Unfortunately a few of those cities had some restrictions and so were unable […]
Read MoreSaturday 26th November 2022, a date laser etched into the brain of a lot of whisky lovers across China, the night of The Founders’ Flight Live.
11 cities planned. 11 cities stepped up. 11 event organisers did everything they needed to do. Unfortunately a few of those cities had some restrictions and so were unable to have a social gathering. For those that still held their event, it was a fantastic experience for all. For those cities that missed out, there will be a reschedule in the near future.
We’ve put together some highlights from each of the cities and you can link to them from the list
Beijing was organised by our very own Steve G. If you’d like to see some highlights of the Beijing event, then CLICK HERE.
If you want to see some of the highlights of The Founders’ Flight Live Chengdu, then CLICK HERE.
Tim, Daniel and the rest of the Dongguan whisky loving team, took it to the next level once again with their whisky night. If you’d like to see a few highlights then please CLICK HERE.
If you want to see some of the highlights of The Founders’ Flight Live Guangzhou, then CLICK HERE.
Aaron is the person to thank for The Founders’ Flight Live Nanjing. If you want to see some of the highlights then CLICK HERE.
Jason and Navin pulled together something special for The Founders’ Flight Live Shanghai. If you’d like to see some of the highlights then please CLICK HERE.
If you want to see some of the highlights of The Founders’ Flight Live Shenyang, then CLICK HERE.
If you want to see some of the highlights of The Founders’ Flight Live Shenzhen, then CLICK HERE.
If you want to see some of the highlights of The Founders’ Flight Live Shenzhen, then CLICK HERE.
If you want to see some of the highlights of The Founders’ Flight Live Wuhan, then CLICK HERE.
If you want to see some of the highlights of The Founders’ Flight Live Xiamen, then CLICK HERE.
Continuing on from our series of articles about the “feedback” we frequently get from the non-believers, this week we provide a brief overlook regarding our approach to mashing and fermenting and how this will be different from other types of whisky. No One Will Buy Chinese Whisky – It’s Not Going to Taste the Same […]
Read MoreContinuing on from our series of articles about the “feedback” we frequently get from the non-believers, this week we provide a brief overlook regarding our approach to mashing and fermenting and how this will be different from other types of whisky.
One relentless critique that has been lobbed at us more than a few times is the comparison with Scotch; somehow, the fact that our whiskies won’t taste like Scotch is a bad thing.
We actually see the opportunity of creating something distinctly different as an exciting challenge. In fact, the vast majority of time and effort from our research and development sector, that will underpin our project, is to create a whisky in a completely distinct product category. This is similar to the way that Irish whiskey has some clear defining characteristics that make it different from Scotch. American whiskeys are distinct through the globally respected bourbon whiskey style. Wales also has its own character for whisky, led by our friends at Penderyn. English whisky too, now has it’s own style and approach.
We aim to do the same for China. Not only to say “hey look, China can make whisky too”, but to bring something unique to the table of global whisky producers and say “this is how we define it”.
Simply trying to copy what already happens in Scotland and to make a knock-off Scotch would undermine the potential of this project and demote it to more of a national embarrassment as opposed to the flag waving symbol of national pride that we believe Nine Rivers Distillery can be. The 200+ investors, at the time of this writing, did not rally together to make a copy; instead, we are eager to showcase our originality.
There are a few things that all whisky production shares, irrespective of the country it’s made in. There are some things all distilleries need, without exception:
First, good quality grains (remember, only single malt needs to be made from 100% malted barley – but other grains in the mash bill can make some really exciting and interesting whiskies – just look at some of the amazing whiskies coming out of the USA over the last couple of years!).
Second, good quality water. Scotch producers typically prefer to work with “soft water”, while a lot of American whiskies credit some of their quality to the use of “hard water”. Soft water is typically rain water or surface water with little or no dissolved minerals, while hard water typically comes from underground sources with dissolved minerals.
We did an article just over a year ago about barley and how we plan to use barley differently than most of the global whisky producers (if you missed it you can CLICK HERE to go back and read it). We have also announced our intention to build our own cooperage (if you missed that you can CLICK HERE to go back and read all about that).
Grains contribute to creating differences; this is best seen when comparing bourbons, as a different mash bill will create a different whisky, even with all other influences remaining the same.
Casks are believed to be responsible for 40-60% of the final flavour of whisky although, with some heavily seasoned casks, it’s easy to believe that the vast majority of the aromas and flavours derive from the previous use of the cask.
One thing almost no one is talking about in the whisky world, the real elephant in the room, is fermentation.
While no doubt most of the people reading this understand the basic end-to-end process of making whisky (malting grains, milling grains, mashing grains, fermenting, distilling, casking and then blending product before bottling), very few people look deeper at fermentation. The assumption is generally “it’s the bit where beer is made and it’s not important until it gets to the still”.
From a scientific perspective, fermentation is probably the most complex part of the entire process. Sure, a lot of whisky makers can kinda just wing it: Cook the high yielding GM grains, chuck in the yeast and come back when it stops bubbling. A lot of whisky makers aim for the quickest and cheapest fermentation possible. This means logging just 50-60 hours to get as much base alcohol as possible, with a few thousand generations on the same yeast culture purchased 10 years ago, to save money.
That type of logic makes sense if you’re making neutral grain spirit to be turned into vodka. When you’re taking alcohol off a column still at 95 or 96% ABV and the aim is for it to have absolutely no flavour or aromas, then there’s no need to care about fermentation. Cheap and quick is the order of the day.
But when crafting whisky with an intention to cask it at 55%-65% ABV, then the distillation process is actually creating a concentration of aromas and flavours that come from…Yes! You’ve guessed it…FERMENTATION!
While we’re not about to let all the cats out of the bag right now, we can at least reveal how we will do things differently.
Absolutely no 50 to 60 hour fermentations in our distillery. Aromas and flavours take time to develop. Just ask any brewer about the time it takes to make a really good beer; after all, the base of all whisky is essentially a type of beer.
Absolutely none of this mass market, industrial scale distillers yeast that will convert every single milligram of sugars in the mash into insanely high ABV wash. Sure, it’s about 80% cheaper than brewing yeast, but you get what you pay for.
Absolutely no rigid clock-driven fermentation process. Each batch will be ready for the next stage, when our Master Brewer decides it’s ready. Maybe it’s a week. Maybe it’s 2 weeks. Maybe it’s longer. It is what it is and that’s all there is to say.
Yeah, that’s another difference with our approach. While most distilleries build their brand around a “Master Distiller”, we think that’s little more than marketing fluff. It seems to be really popular as a title for startup distilleries. In fact, there’s currently over 5000 Master Distillers on LinkedIn right now (we just counted). We don’t have a Master Distiller and never will have.
Distilling is largely a predictable and routine process. Aside from deciding when to cut the heads and the tails, the rest of it is a case of sitting back on a chair. watching the world outside the window, or playing Candy Crush. Sure, there are highly skilled professionals in the whisky industry, but those skills are mostly science driven. There is science around (and crafting of) casks. There is science around fermentation. There is science around maturation. Then there are the people that normally understand a bit of all of this and have an exceptional sense of smell and taste. These people, we’d call them Master Blenders (although they have other names) and are normally the people that decide what’s going into a bottle.
Well, we have a Master Brewer and it’s likely we’ll introduce them to you all over the next few weeks.
With so many of the Nine Rivers Distillery team introducing themselves to the world, and occasionally even explaining why they became a part of this project, I decided to take an alternative approach. I’m using my 5 minutes of fame to do a bit of myth busting, clear up some misunderstandings and then that will […]
Read MoreWith so many of the Nine Rivers Distillery team introducing themselves to the world, and occasionally even explaining why they became a part of this project, I decided to take an alternative approach. I’m using my 5 minutes of fame to do a bit of myth busting, clear up some misunderstandings and then that will (hopefully) lead me to explain why I’m a part of Nine Rivers Distillery.
Let’s start with the basics. My name is Graham Bannerman and I’m currently based in Guangdong, China. I’ve previously lived in Chengdu and Tianjin since moving here full time in 2008, although my first visits to China go back to 1999.
I’m born and bred in Scotland, specifically Dundee, where my family can be traced back quite a few hundred years to Dovinaldus (Donald) Bannerman, who was apparently the quack to King David II of Scotland*
As a Scotsman, I’m patriotic. As are all Scots. But there is so much confusion created by plastic jocks**, that someone has to set the record straight, debunk the XXX, and clarify a few points. China, it seems, is full of Plastic Jocks, all putting their own spin on what they think it is it to be Scottish.
Let’s start with the definition of the three terms that will help you to pick out a Plastic Jock.
Used to define some things that originates from Scotland. Usually used to define compounds, such as Scotch whisky, Scotch pine, Scotch pie, Scotch egg, or Scotch broth. There’s only three other approved uses IMHO – Scotch Corner at the junction of the A1 and the A66, Scotch Bonnet and Scotch tape.
This is the preferred adjective when you’re referring to literature, characters or the ancestry of people from Scotland.
Is typically used to refer to languages of both Scots English and Scots Gaelic
Alongside bagpipes and whisky, there are few things that make people think of Scotland quicker than a kilt. They have a long historical tradition with Scotland and they are considered to be the national dress. But, the myth (thanks to Hollywood and Braveheart the movie) is that Scottish folk have been wearing them since the times of William Wallace (Mel Gibson’s character in the movie) in the late 13th century. In fact, the kilt didn’t come to be a thing until the end of the 16th century with the oldest written account dating back to 1594.
Where it gets interesting the thing that you often see Plastic Jocks prance around in isn’t Scottish at all. It’s English. The modern outfit, which a real Scotsman would call a “small kilt” or a “walking kilt” was invented in the 1720’s by Thomas Rawlinson, from Lancashire (a county in England), as a lighter and less cumbersome outfit that could be worn for the jobs of manufacturing charcoal and smelting iron ore.
If that wasn’t bad enough, it gets even worse when we look at tartan, the woven cloth that kilts are traditionally made of. While most people assume that styles or patterns of tartan can be traced back to ancient Scottish clans, the only real tartans with any provenance can be traced back to the 1819 Key Pattern Book from William Wilson and Sons of Bannockburn. A catalogue of the 250 different tartans that Wilson’s made at the time, of which only 100 actually had names.
Skip forward to today, and there are about 7000 registered tartans. I wondered how that was possible, to go from 250 tartans to over 7000 in just over 200 years. Then I found a website where pretty much anyone can just randomly invent a tartan and register it for £70.
I was just browsing that site where the “New Tartans” section shows that there’s a tartan for Italian Americans, a tartan for French Freemasons, and a tartan for German people worldwide.
So the kilt isn’t Scottish and tartan is for anyone that can throw down 70 quid.
Now we get to the big one. Scotch whisky. In fact the very reason that so many Scots here in China have needled me for being a part of Nine Rivers Distillery. Apparently, there’s some unwritten rule about Scottish having a moral obligation to only drink Scotch and hell should freeze over before anyone from Scotland touched a drop of a whisky from any other country, let alone be part of a team aiming to make whisky.
I’m told by other jocks (plastic or not, you can make your own judgement) here in China, that whisky is as Scottish as my blood and that Nine Rivers Distillery is akin to blasphemy for me to be involved in.
So let me finally explain why I’m involved with Nine Rivers Distillery.
Scotch whisky is so far removed from being Scottish that it’s embarrassing that there’s an industry association for it that still pretends it is a national treasure. Almost 70% of Scotch whisky distilleries are owned by companies that are not based in Scotland and have nothing to do with Scottish heritage.
As recently as 2021, The Herald (through an article written by Billy Briggs and Joshua Martin) revealed that only 42 whisky distilleries in Scotland were owned by Scottish companies. The rest are owned by companies based in Bermuda, Gibraltar, China, France, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, South Africa, Australia and Switzerland. That’s not even touching on the rather grey area surrounding the Scottish Government department called Business Gateway, wheeling in some rather murky businessmen from a not-so-popular country beginning with the letter R to bankroll a whisky distillery. For the record, they seem to have resigned as directors on 8th March 2022. Just over two weeks after that day.
With all the big conglomerates taking over, it stands to reason that profits and dividends would be the priority for all. That can be demonstrated by the fact that the vast majority of Scotch whisky produced is the vastly inferior bulk blended product. As you can see from the diagram HERE on the Scotch Whisky Association website, only 10% of Scotch is actually Single Malt and while not all of the 90% of the remaining blended Scotch would be bottom shelf product, some simple maths on the diagram released by the Scotch Whisky Association on 11th February 2022 shows that with a total export value or £4.51 billion across 1.38 billion bottles gives an average value of £3.26. Or less than ¥27 a bottle.
The two biggest grain distilleries in Scotland are Cameronbridge and Girvan with Cameronbridge reported to have 140 million LPA of production capacity with Girvan not too far behind on 115 million LPA.
Industry numbers can almost mean nothing. But with a bit of maths, we can work out what 255 million LPA actually means in everyday terms, like bottles.
An LPA (litre of pure alcohol) is a defacto measurement. It means one litre (1000ml) of 100% alcohol equivalent. However, alcohol is rarely distilled to 100% ABV (its too expensive to achieve such purity and not really practical) so at an industrial facility such as Cameronbridge or Girvan, it’s typically 1.05 litres at around 95% ABV.
255 million LPA would be equivalent to 637.5 million litres at 40% ABV (most blended scotch is bottled at 40% ABV – even the legendary Blue Label), or, 910 million bottles at 40% ABV and 700ml. Remember those numbers above – 1.38 billion bottles exported? Just two grain distilleries in Scotland have the capacity to be responsible for 66.42% of that.
Add in the other grain distilleries – North British with 72 million LPA of capacity, Invergordon at 36 million LPA, Strathcludy with 39 million LPA, and Starlaw with 25 million LPA – we have a total of 427 million LPA – 1.06 billion litres at 40% or 1.52 billion bottles of 700ml at 40%.
Not really the beautiful, dreamy image of a XXX generation highlander, hand crafting whisky in a beautiful cottage in Scotland that we’re shovel fed by the marketing experts, is it?
So we finally get to the reason why I knew that Nine Rivers Distillery was something I had to be a part of. Having seen all the things that I grew up with believing that they were part of my national identity, being brushed aside, bastardised, plastified, corrupted and robbed of any soul, the opportunity to be a part of a team that were fanatical about creating a whisky for the people (as opposed to for the greed and profit of some bloated conglomerate) was my opportunity to try and get back some of the things that I’d lost.
I love whisky, in all its forms and varieties. I love the social engagements that it creates (and in fact, originally became a part of Nine Rivers Distillery because I used to host a monthly Whisky Networking event in Tianjin) and the fact it can bring people together from all walks of life to unite in a shared interest.。
But, having been an avid lover of whisky for more than 40 years, I can see how it’s changed. From what used to be a really artisanal industry full of characters that hand crafted some really individual and mostly amazing whiskies – to a well oiled machine that cranks out 1.37 billion bottles equivalence (it’s not all bottled in Scotland, in fact, most of the cheap blend leaves Scotland in 1000 litre IBC containers to be bottled at their destination, or mixed in with other things) and seems to know every single trick going to put profit before consumers. Frankly, it’s heart breaking.
That’s why I’m part of Nine Rivers Distillery.
*My dear old Uncle Alan did all that family tree malarky about 20 years back when genealogy had its 15 minutes of fame, so don’t shoot me down if it’s wrong. It’s not anything I personally lay any claim to as I think it’s all rather silly to leverage ancient history for kudos.
**There are two definitions for the term Plastic Jock. It can either mean someone that pretends to be Scottish or claims some unjustified or invented Scottish ancestry to try and appear to be slightly more interesting than damp cardboard (as most fake Jocks are). Or, it can mean someone that only bothers to acknowledge their Scottish ancestry to support an intoxicated and mindless rant about something that they aren’t qualified to rant about. Typically supported by “I know because I’m Scottish” even when talking total nonsense.
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. n a million years
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“Not in a million years” is a commonly used hyperbole to emphasise that something is either impossible or very unlikely to happen. It’s a phrase that has been said to us (no exaggeration here at all) thousands of times over the last few years. Like many things at Nine Rivers, we love taking these things […]
Read More“Not in a million years” is a commonly used hyperbole to emphasise that something is either impossible or very unlikely to happen. It’s a phrase that has been said to us (no exaggeration here at all) thousands of times over the last few years. Like many things at Nine Rivers, we love taking these things that can’t be done and doing them. We are proud, and maybe a little smug, at how well we rise up to the challenges of doing business in China.
Today, we’re proud to announce the launch of a new series of articles that are going to cover the most popular reasons why some people didn’t believe that Nine Rivers Distillery was possible. Through this, we also are going to debunk many of the myths that Westerners beleive about doing business in China and therefore help inspire other people bring their business ideas to fruition.
This first article will cover acquiring the land and building on it.
Claim: If you’re neither a Fortune 500 nor a multinational company, you can’t buy land. If foreigners are involved or if you’re a startup, don’t even bother. not in a million years
There’s some truth to this and there’s also a lot of misunderstandings. Let’s start with the truth. You really can’t buy land in China. Irrespective of your nationality, your global status, whether you’re well established or a startup, there’s no such thing as the Western concept of land ownership in China.
All land belongs to either the state, or in more rural areas, is owned collectively by the community. However, land usage rights can be secured. This is kinda like what we might call a long-term lease in the West. So, to save confusion, lets call it a lease.
Land can be leased for between 40 and 70 years (depending on how the land is used) and at the end of the lease there are rights and procedures to renew.
We have a 50 year lease on our land which was purchased in a similar way to how a lease would be purchased in the West. A value is assigned to the land for that time period, that value is paid, and then a lease title document is handed over. The document is called “不动产证” and it looks like this:
Now let’s cover the other concerns, specifically, the “impossibility” of getting land by being a startup as opposed to being multinational or enormous like Diageo or Pernod Ricard. Obviously, this is a myth that getting the land is impossible. The proof is in the proverbial pudding. We’re a startup and we have land. Here’s a little more showing off with a photo of our lease title:
We’re not going to pretend this was easy, though. It’s not like anyone can just rock up to a government office and say “I’ll take one land lease to build a distillery, please”. It’s a long and challenging process that requires finding suitable land, a formal application to the government, a presentation of a credible business plan, an online auction, a bidding process, and a number of formal reviews with all levels of government from local community right up to the provincial board. Then, maybe, if you’ve satisfied a huge amount of requirements that make Western processes seem like a cakewalk, you can finally buy the lease on the land.
This is something we have heard many times. It’s a common Western opinion that construction standards and quality in China are vastly inferior to Western standards. not in a million years
Thanks to the general psychology of bad news being covered more than good news, we’ve all seen hundreds of pictures and read equally as many stories of buildings collapsing in China. But it seems that it happens more in China right? not in a million years
Let’s examine this more logically. When a country has the world’s largest population, and therefore has many more buildings, the statistical liklihood of the populous country having more buildings collapse is higher. So, for example, if 0.01% of all buildings collapsed – then the country with the most buildings therefore have more buildings collapse. Combine that with media fixation on disasters, and presto: a popular but untrue myth is born.
China has some of (if not THE) strictest rules and regulations around construction in the world. All are there for the safety and protection of the population. No doubt at least some of the readers have just scoffed, raised an eyebrow, and laughed this off as utter nonsense. There’s probably nothing we can say or do to change the mindset of those people “educated” by YouTube clickbait videos and tabloid journalism.
We know this first hand because we’re living it. We’re breathing it. But most importantly, we’re complying with it to be able to build our distillery.
Concrete for any serious licensed construction can only be supplied by licensed and regulated concrete batching plants, who have to submit samples of every single batch for government testing (none of that “mix it on site with a shovel and a mixer” nonsense). Steel is heavily regulated in terms of standards and national level pricing. Once concrete and steel are secured, the design, architecture, and excavation all require unparalleled levels of documentation that has to be signed off by all parties involved and government-licensed specialist approval companies.
Every single aspect of construction in China is regulated and monitored to ensure that nothing less than absolutely perfect is ever delivered, even to the extent that every single construction site is a secure site and everything is covered by CCTV throughout the entire construction process. It’s exhausting. But that’s law. It’s not an option as it is in the West. Everything and everyone going in and out of a contruction site is monitored, recorded, and logged.
Oh, and if that wasn’t enough? If there are problems and people are injured, then it’s not just a case of construction companies being sued for damages and insurance companies shelling out money. In China, if there are problems with a construction that injure or even kill people, caused by cutting corners or using inferior quality products, people go to jail for a very long time.
There is every incentive to do everything by the book.
China is serious about construction quality – despite what some western media portrays. not in a million years
This has been a closer look at how a company like Nine Rivers Distillery is complying with local laws to do business in China. We hope that you have learned something or enjoyed reading. Our next installments in this series will examine topics such as guanxi, shareholding, product quality, and more.
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. not in a million years
Alternatively, if you prefer Linked In then you can CLICK HERE to follow us.
Facebook users, you can CLICK HERE.