Today we have the pleasure of introducing another member of our growing family at Nine Rivers Distillery, Mitchie Perrine. Here’s the transcript of the interview by our resident scribbler, Phill Stout. mitchie perrine Give us your 60 second introduction then Mitchie: I guess I don’t need to repeat my name, so I’ll dive in. I’m […]
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Today we have the pleasure of introducing another member of our growing family at Nine Rivers Distillery, Mitchie Perrine. Here’s the transcript of the interview by our resident scribbler, Phill Stout. mitchie perrine
I guess I don’t need to repeat my name, so I’ll dive in. I’m from the south east (armpit) of Washington State in the USA. I grew up on rock and grunge music (hence the haircut and the crusty wardrobe) and I came to China about 11 years ago to escape the army of groupies that were hounding me, since one of my “friends” leaked the fact that I was the stunt double for Mini Me in the Austin Powers movies.
Originally, I ended up in Hangzhou but the stories of the “atmosphere” in Dongguan created enough of a calling for me to head down South and see what all the stories were about.
Ha ha, well, none of THAT malarky. By profession I’m a graphic designer and I’ve spent most of my time here in China designing packaging for a company I used to work for here in Dongguan.
I also opened a bar back in 2015, called Ziggy’s. It’s lovingly referred to as a dive bar by Westerners but I kinda see it as my lounge which happens to sell booze at decent prices. I relocated the bar to a bigger place in 2017, and turned the original bar into a 1950’s style American diner. I’m currently opening a new bistro (the lady of my life wanted something a bit more classy – she thinks I’m a bit of a tramp) so I guess I’ll have to go out and buy some smarter clothes in a week or two. Mitchie Perrine
With F&B taking up so much of my time now, I moved on from a full time day job and now have my own design studio during the day.
Pretty much since it was nothing more than an idea being bounced around at whisky nights and in one of the Oak and Barley whisky groups on WeChat. Like most of the people involved, Jay is the connection. He’s the one that brought us all together and the reason that we all had enough confidence in this project to pony up our money.
Although – confession time…it’s only since being involved in Nine Rivers Distillery that I’ve actually started to explore whisky. Prior to the whole 9RD thing I was a beer and gin guy. Yes, yes, I know, totally shameful, but whisky is one of those things that you typically have a bad first experience with and then avoid like the plague.
My first experience (in my teens so not quite legal) was a cheap bottle of bottom shelf stuff with my older brother while fishing for trout in Montana. A combination of cheap liquor, way too much sun, and a badly cooked trout on a makeshift barbecue left me ill for almost a week. Subconsciously, I blamed the whisky, and never touched another drop until a few years back when Jay told me to get my sh*t together and grow a pair. Since then I’ve been enjoying some really good bourbons. I think bourbon is just one of those things that as an American, we are drawn to it – like moths to a flame.
He’s my dealer. Ha ha. Excuse the crap jokes. He’s actually my alcohol supplier.
Back when I first started Ziggy’s Bar in 2015, I knew I didn’t want to fall into that murky world of dodgy booze. I asked a few friends about who was on the level with supplying legit stuff and we had a mutual friend in the form of a guy called Jake (who’s also part of 9RD now).
I gave Jay a call, got over the fact he’s a grumpy, impatient ass on the phone, and invited him to come see Ziggy’s. He swung by a few days later when driving between Guangzhou and Shenzhen. We had a few coffees, chewed the fat about expat life in China, got along well, and the rest is history. He’s been our supplier of booze ever since.
(Am I allowed to say this?) – I’m looking forward to the first bottles of…GIN! Sure, the whiskey will be cool, but that’s going to be a few years away as it’s going to take at least 3 years to mature right? Gin, well that can happen a lot faster so I’m all over that when it’s available. In fact, I plan to be there at the site for the week when the first batch is made.
I won’t pretend I’m a gin expert, but I’ve got a few ideas that I’d like to explore for things that I think would work really well. There are some fickle rules about gin here in China that most people aren’t really aware of – but for example, there are a number of traditional botanicals that are used in gin (angelica root and oris root for example – two botanicals that underpin pretty much every gin in the world) that aren’t allowed to be used in China.
They fall under a classification of medicine, and because they are used in traditional Chinese medicine, they can’t be offered for human consumption without a doctors prescription. Therefore, you just can’t use them to make gin in China. mitchie perrine
This is a real challenge for gin, because angelica root and oris root act as a “fixative” (it helps the flavours and aromas from other botanicals to bind with the alcohol molecules in gin.) In other words, making gin without these two botanicals results in a really flat gin. The aromas are extremely faint and the flavours are just kinda boring.
I’ve got some good ideas for how to solve these problems with alternative botanicals.
Should I give you three guesses? Definitely not needed. That’s Jay. He’s a total nerd on all of this stuff. It’s the reason why I knew he’d be the perfect booze supplier back in 2015, and no doubt the reason why so many of us have piled into this project. He knows his stuff and he’s always happy to share his knowledge and bring us all along with him on the journey.
Nah, no need to plug anything. We’re not the biggest bar or the busiest bar. As I mentioned before it’s kinda like my lounge where I get to hang out with some amazing friends, that just happens to sell booze. So instead, I’ll do something else. Mitchie Perrine
Nine Rivers Distillery is important to me, as it is to everyone involved. So to support the spread of our story on social media, I’ll throw down a 10% discount on absolutely anything we sell (none of those dodgy deals where only junk gets a discount – this is across the board) on any Monday, to anyone following the Nine Rivers Distillery WeChat official account.
Mondays are typically quieter, so it gives me a chance to talk a bit more and get to know anyone that is interested in our project.
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. Mitchie Perrine
As mentioned in our last social media update, we are excited to host an event of legendary proportions across China, giving whisky lovers the chance to enjoy an experience of a lifetime. And no, this isn’t us being melodramatic! The Founders’ Flight is a 6 whisky flight of all six expressions of The Founders’ Casks […]
Read MoreAs mentioned in our last social media update, we are excited to host an event of legendary proportions across China, giving whisky lovers the chance to enjoy an experience of a lifetime. And no, this isn’t us being melodramatic! The Founders’ Flight is a 6 whisky flight of all six expressions of The Founders’ Casks from Nine Rivers Distillery.
We will have The Founders’ Flight events in the following cities.
All of The Founders’ Flight events will be Saturday 26th November. We are enforcing a strict 7 P.M. start time.
6 x 35ml measures of artisanal single malt whisky. One measure of each of the 6 expressions.
You betcha! It’s a reasonable ¥350 per ticket for The Founders’ Flight including 6 whiskies.
Each The Founders’ Flight event is being organised by a Friend of 9RD in each respective city. Scroll through the list below to find the Friend of 9RD for the city most convenient to you. There are a maximum number of tickets for each city and they will all sell out pretty quickly. In other words, book your ticket sooner rather than later. The Founders’ Flight
All events will be subject to local rules regarding health codes and travel codes. Please take notice that the rules local to your area can change at very short notice so our advice would be to ensure you’ve had a PCR test the day before the event and on the morning of the event.
If you need to cancel (due to changes in health codes or the such) please notify your local Friend of 9RD, who will try and sell your ticket(s) on to other people to facilitate a refund.
If the entire event is cancelled due to local rules or restrictions, then the event will be rescheduled as soon as possible after the planned date.
Danny will be leading the Shenzhen event. The event is limited to 60 people. You can contact him on his QR code below.
Texas Tim will be leading the Dongguan event. The event is limited to 60 people. You can contact him on his QR code below.
Lucas will be leading the Wuhan event. The event is limited to 20 people. You can contact him on his QR code below.
Mudy will be leading the Shenyang event. The event is limited to 20 people. You can contact him on his QR code below.
Jamal will be leading the Xiamen event. The event is limited to 40 people. You can contact him on his QR code below.
Navin will be leading the Shanghai event. The event is limited to 40 people. You can contact him on his QR code below. The Founders’ Flight
Jonathan will be leading the Guangzhou event. The event is limited to 60 people. You can contact him on his QR code below.
Steve will be leading the Beijing event. The event is limited to 20 people. You can contact him on his QR code below.
Aaron will be leading the Nanjing event. The event is limited to 20 people. You can contact him on his QR code below.
JP will be leading the Chengdu event. The event is limited to 20 people. You can contact him on his QR code below. The Founders’ Flight
Mark will be leading the Suzhou event. The event is limited to 20 people. You can contact him on his QR code below.
It’s going to be an epic event! Get in while you fit in or cry about it later!
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. The Founders’ Flight
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.
What’s the best feeling in the world? Could it be the birth of a child? An amazing bottle to share with some friends? Or could it be the day you get a phone call from an express delivery person telling you THE WHISKY HAS LANDED? The first bottle released from the soon to be whisky […]
Read MoreWhat’s the best feeling in the world? Could it be the birth of a child? An amazing bottle to share with some friends? Or could it be the day you get a phone call from an express delivery person telling you THE WHISKY HAS LANDED? The first bottle released from the soon to be whisky distillery that absolutely everyone is talking about! Well, this article is actually going to about all of these!
The arrival of The Founders’ Casks – Expression One Madeira, has been a story of a long overseas voyage that luckily didn’t involve icebergs or pirates. Despite being a mundane journey (and the fact that it did take a frustratingly long time waiting in the queue to board a shipping container to arrive here in China) all of our investor, ambassador and whisky WeChat groups have been popping with pictures as excited recipients tore open the packaging, proudly positioned their bottle, and snapped a photo to share.
With no shame in showing chewed finger nails, ghastly curtains, gnarly placemats and coasters, dirty spoons, floors so dirty that even the mop and bucket went on strike, a lack of understanding the word focus, and composition in the context of taking photographs, and showing the world how old some people’s smartphone are – it’s been a complete frenzy of humble brags for those lucky enough to get some of our bottles.
One of our bottles even made it to the live birth of the second Nine Rivers Distillery baby. Both mother and father are investors in our project and father “wet the baby’s head” with a bottle of Expression 1. We’ve forgiven him for the blasphemy of paper cups…but we will never let him live it down. The Whisky Has Landed
One of the most exciting things about The Founders’ Casks was the inclusion of the names of everyone that was involved in our project when we originally designed the packaging. Bragging rights aplenty for all those named. The Whisky Has Landed
Sure, we now have more than double the amount of people involved, but they will all be listed on the next bottling that we do. But we can’t say anymore about that right now. It’s all top secret so shhhhhhhh.
Today, we are celebrating with a collage of photos before ending with a reminder about an upcoming exciting event to a Chinese city near you. While it is too late to get your hands on this bottle, Expression 2 is currently taking reservations and you have a chance to tell us why you think you deserve a bottle. CLICK HERE for more about that – the reservation form is near the bottom of the page. The Whisky Has Landed
If you are located in China, like most of us are, then you will be pleased to know that we will be hosting a Nationwide flight of the 6 expressions.
As a tribute to the very roots of our project, Whisky Networking Events across China, in all of the cities that have been supporting Nine Rivers Distillery, will be collaborating to launch a synchronous tasting. We will be covering this in a future post. The Whisky Has Landed
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.
It’s the day that many of us have been waiting for. The Founders’ Casks Expression 1, is landed and will be shipping to whisky lovers all over China next week! But before we get onto talking about The Founders Casks Expression 1, let’s make something really clear to everyone first. Expression 1 is SOLD OUT. […]
Read MoreIt’s the day that many of us have been waiting for. The Founders’ Casks Expression 1, is landed and will be shipping to whisky lovers all over China next week!
But before we get onto talking about The Founders Casks Expression 1, let’s make something really clear to everyone first. Expression 1 is SOLD OUT. It was reserved and deposits were paid some months ago. There are none left for sale. Not even a secret stash hidden away somewhere. It was a 100% sellout and we probably could have sold 3000 bottles if we had them.
Therefore, for Expression 2 (which will be released in about 6 weeks time) we are changing the way that people can secure a bottle – details at the bottom of this page.
Expression 1 is the first of a series of 6 bottlings that were conceptualised back in 2017 as a demonstration of the types of whisky that we want to craft here at Nine Rivers Distillery. We published some articles about it, and you can read Part One HERE and then follow up with Part Two HERE and Part Three HERE.
Bringing these bottlings to life has been a huge learning experience for us all and one of the many successful collaborations between all of the people involved in the Nine Rivers Distillery adventure. From designing bespoke glass, to the branding and packaging, under the creative leadership of Darryl Swanepoel and Fabien Dupont, the end result is something we’re all proud of.
Expression 1 of the Founders’ Casks is finished in carefully hand-picked wine barrels from the island of Madeira. Bottled at cask strength (53.4% ABV) and non-chill filtered for purity of flavour, this whisky derives its unique palate from the thick and velvety Portuguese wine.
The nose is fruity, laced with raisins and sultanas on a bed of vanilla and cream fudge. A final hint of citrus peel makes way for a smooth and honey-rich palate, complete with green apples, peaches and a viscous underflow of caramel, cream and malted milk biscuits.
The finish is light and quick – a tropical flourish that gives way to dried stone fruits.
Priority for all bottlings goes to those people that are investors in our project. As most of you know, Nine Rivers Distillery only exists because of almost 200 whisky lovers coming together to invest their time and money in turning our shared dream into reality. Logically, they take priority in allocation of bottles.
Of the 600 bottles of Expression 2 that were created, we expect there to be about 100 bottles available for purchase by people who are not investors. To make it fair for everyone we are taking applications from whisky lovers to have a chance to be allocated one of these bottles.
Names and contact details just aren’t enough. We want to hear from YOU and hear WHY you think you deserve to be allocated an opportunity to purchase one of the 100 or so bottles that are available.
Some of you out there are familiar with some of the characters and personalities that underpin Nine Rivers Distillery and could be perceived to have something of an unfair advantage in your application. So we’re going to level the playing field and make everyone aware of what is likely to influence the review of all the applications.
Whisky Lovers
If you’re not a whisky lover, you won’t even get a foot in the door. So make sure you detail your love of whisky.
Sharing is Caring
Details about how you intend to share this bottle with friends is really going to help your application. As all whisky lovers know, whisky is a social drink and is always best enjoyed with friends. A decent pour, a comfy chair and great conversation is something we all believe in at Nine Rivers Distillery.
Laughs, giggles and sharp wit
Humour is something that is part of the very fabric of our DNA. Business really can be serious, professional AND fun – all concurrently. We don’t do stuffy and boring. Jokes and banter really will help you and we promise to publish the funniest applications over the coming weeks.
请告诉我们为什么您值得获得一瓶创始人系列2威士忌 – Tell us why you think you deserve an allocation of Expression 2
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.
An entire article without any Hayden baiting. Either this is the start of a new chapter in our articles……or we have something really big coming up.
As a follow up to last week’s bit of fun, it’s time to put on the suits and the polished shoes and be a tad more formal in describing what really happened on Wednesday 7th September 2022 and what exactly is Red Rock Mountain Cooperage. If you missed last week’s article, then CLICK HERE to […]
Read MoreAs a follow up to last week’s bit of fun, it’s time to put on the suits and the polished shoes and be a tad more formal in describing what really happened on Wednesday 7th September 2022 and what exactly is Red Rock Mountain Cooperage. If you missed last week’s article, then CLICK HERE to catch up before you read on.
The short summary is: we signed a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding – basically a fancy way of saying a business deal) as the lead partner and lead investor in the Red Rock Mountain Cooperage at the CIFIT (China International Fair for Investment & Trade) conference in Xiamen, Fujian Province.
Before we get into the nitty gritty, we’d like to give a shout out to Dr. Harley Seyedin and his team at AMCHAM South China for (once again) doing anything and everything to help us make this happen.
Whisky enthusiasts will likely know what a cooperage is, but bear with us while we let everyone in on this. Feel free to skip to the next section if you’re already in the know.
Whisky needs a few things to turn into the drink that we all love to relax with. Malted barley, yeast, water, a bit of magic to ferment everything, and then a still to distill the fermented wash into new make (or “raw”) whisky. But that’s not where the transition ends. The new make whisky needs to go and swish around in an oak barrel for a few years to tame it. By that, we mean the barrel needs to pass on some colour, additional aromas, and flavours from the both the barrel itself and whatever former use the barrel might have had. The point is that barrels have an enormous influence on the whisky’s final profile.
These barrels are made by highly skilled craftspeople called coopers, and their magical factory is called a cooperage. Magic truly isn’t far from the truth. It takes an incredible amount of skill, talent, and experience to craft barrels, especially when you consider that they only use oak wood, a few steel hoops, fire, and water. Absolutely no glue is used (as this would taint the whisky) yet coopers still manage to create something that is watertight.
It’s true, we could make whisky without a cooperage; most distilleries in the world don’t have their own cooperage. A few of the bigger group producers with many different whisky or whiskey brands in their portfolio still have at least some cooperage functions. It makes sense when there are economies of scale. But most of the smaller brands don’t bother and startups certainly don’t explore the route of making their own barrels.
But, well, that’s them, and this is us. We never started our project to just be “another one of those.” We promised from the start we would do more than just say different, we would be different. Quality would always come first and we don’t think any whisky producer can claim to be putting quality first AND being distinctive if they are buying the same old casks from the handful of coopers out there producing barrels.
The entire barrel making industry in pretty much dominated by just a few names who crank out the same generic barrels for the masses. While we certainly are not claiming that there are any faults with their barrel craftsmanship, we also can’t claim to be in complete control over everything that goes into crafting our whiskies without making our own barrels. After all, most respected whisky experts attribute between 40% and 60% of the final aromas and flavours of whisky being a direct result of the barrel and its interactions with the maturing whisky. Therefore, in keeping to our promise of quality, a cooperage is an absolute necessity to our vision and our commitment to crafting amazing whiskies.
Red Rock Mountain Cooperage will be almost 7000 square meters in total footprint and will be built to produce 100,000 barrels a year, right here in Da Chi, Longyan, Fujian Province. It will be built on a land parcel that joins our distillery site with the distance between the cooperage and our own dunnage (cask maturation warehouse) being almost 30 meters, or 18 Haydens laid end to end. We know, we actually measured the distance by laying him down on the floor 18 times. #truestory.
We will be working from raw or green timber – wood that hasn’t been air dried and seasoned so it will need time for the elements to reduce the moisture content and to wash away some of the harsher tannins from the wood. It will have a stave mill to create staves from dried planks – each barrel needs 32 staves, so we’ll need to churn out 3.2 million staves a year to make 100’000 barrels.
There will be a vast, open plan cooperage work area with provisions for shaping, crafting, toasting, and, of course, charring the barrels.
We plan to have an immersive visitors experience where visitors can watch the entire end-to-end barrel making process from the safety of an elevated mezzanine floor encircling the production area.
It’s underway right now! We are recruiting the first batch of potential trainees in October. We will then immerse them in some intensive English language training before we send them off to the far corners of the world to spend a couple of years learning how to be coopers.
In the meantime, we’ll crack on with the architecture of the new Red Rock Mountain Cooperage and hope to start building it towards the end of 2023.
We got some press coverage about the event thanks to our friends over at AMCHAM South China. The complete list of news websites and news wires that covered both the AMCHAM delegation to CIFIT and the signing of our MOU is 7 pages long, but we have listed some of our favourite ones below.
If you have a few minutes, click through and read a few. .
Yes we know, it’s really quite random. The rumours are that one leading member of the content editorial team (our money is on it being Phill Stout) discovered one of those funky AI driven arty doodling websites and decided to let it loose on a few cooperage related phrases.
We liked some of them so much, we decided to share them with you all. It really is that simple. Why? Just because we can.
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. Daniel Liang
Facebook users, you can CLICK HERE.