Time for me to pile in and introduce myself to the world – I’m Andy Perry, and I’m from absolutely nowhere, but now I’m somewhere, and I’m involved in something a little bit special in the form of Nine Rivers Distillery. Here’s my story.
Leigh (not on the sea)
I’m originally from Leigh, a nowhere town that is almost part of Manchester, kind of considered to be part of Wigan, and also falls under the county of Lancashire. It’s not so much a case of everywhere wanting to claim it. It’s more a case of everywhere wanting to dump it on somewhere else.
It’s a town with about 40,000 people. Tiny in comparison to Beijing, the massive and modern city that I live in and call home, but it’s not completely terrible. It had a shopping mall built there in 2011 on the north side of the Bridgewater Canal, and boasts not only a Nando’s but it has a Frankie and Bennies too! One thing it doesn’t have anymore is Andy Perry.
Joking aside, it’s where I was born and bred so although I make fun of it now, it’s always going to be a special place for me.
Andy Perry – my life in two paragraphs
I kicked off my career with a stint in the Royal Air Force for 22 years where I worked in logistics. Then I fancied a complete change in career so I decided to come to China to work in Education. I’ve been in China since 2012 and can’t think of anywhere in the world I’d rather be.
Of course China takes a bashing in western press, and people that have never been to China, lap up this bad journalism like kittens with a bowl of milk. As someone that has lived here for 12 years and built a life here, I can tell you all that 99% of the stories are complete nonsense. I came here with absolutely no knowledge or experience of China, fitted in quickly and easily and never looked back.
Andy Perry in the movies
I took some time out from education between November 2020 and April 2021 to work in the movies! I was contracted to be a military consultant and instructor to train 130 foreign film extras to start in an epic movie made here in China.
I saw it as an amazing opportunity to live out the role of Ronald Lee Ermey, playing the drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket. But after my first 10 minutes of shouting, it was too difficult to keep a straight face and not laugh at the horror on the faces of the movie extras. So I toned it down, went back to being a nice guy.
My role expanded to include advising on the script of the movie and the stunts too. Then I ended up with another 200 film extras to instruct and train. It was an amazing 6 months and an experience that I will never forget.
What about the whisky eh?
I was recently asked how long I’ve been drinking whisky. I reached for the calculator and after about 10 minutes I realised it’s more than 25 years. I’m probably one of the most qualified whisky drinkers on the Nine Rivers Distillery project. Especially as so many of them are youngsters in comparison to me!
I’ve always been a big fan of smokey and peated whisky, although over the last few years, I’ve broadened my palate to try some other world whiskies in addition to just scotch.
Nine Rivers Distillery – how and why?
I originally got involved in Nine Rivers Distillery in 2021. I’d been aware of the project since a few years before and I know many of the people involved, but I took a bit of caution initially just because of the sheer scale of the project.
The badly kept secrets of the Diageo and Pernod Ricard project, two of the biggest western spirits conglomerates in the world, were suggesting that even with their might and financial weight, they were putting together much smaller projects in China. A “dramfunded” project on a fraction of the budgets of the big boys, aiming to be 3.5 times bigger than Diageo’s project and 7 times bigger than Pernod Ricard all seemed a bit pie in the sky to me initially.
But as time went on, all the crazy ambitions started to fall into place. I had some friends who were already invested, I had seen some of the architecture renders over one of their shoulders and I had gotten to know Whisky Jesus himself over a few whisky-fuelled late night chats and I realised that this was so much more than big talk and hot air. It was going to happen and it was going to be something special.
Remember remember…….some day in November
Some time in November 2024, about 6 months away from writing this, I’ll be there on site. We’ll be finally filling our first casks and we’ll have something of an event for all the investors on site together.
I’m looking forward to it. It will no doubt be a weekend long event and it will not only be a chance for me to finally see what I’m part of, but an opportunity to meet some of the other 300+ people that have come together to make this happen. While I know all of those that are based in Beijing (where I am based) I’ve not met any of the others and only know them through LinkedIn and a WeChat group that we all share together.
I’ll also be able to get a photograph of me standing next to a brick with the name Andy Perry on it – well, because that’s my name isn’t it lol.
Would you like to read more?
If you enjoyed reading our article about Andy Perry, 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.
Would you like to know more about helping Nine Rivers Distillery?
One of the easiest ways to help our project succeed is to take an interest in anything we have for sale. You can find out what we have if you CLICK HERE and go to our shop. We’ll make a few percentage points (after sales tax) and this goes directly to our project.
Follow us
Last, but as important as all the other points above, you can help us by reading, liking and sharing our content across some of the more popular platforms.
LinkedIn users you can CLICK HERE to follow us. Over 8000 people are following our story on LinkedIn right now.
Facebook users, you can CLICK HERE. 2652 followers so far.
YouTube users, you can CLICK HERE. We’re at past 1000 subscribers and growing.
Twitter users, you can CLICK HERE.
Instagram users, you can CLICK HERE.
Or follow us on WeChat using the QR code below.
