News

May 24 2024

LIFE IS MERRY – WHEN YOU’RE ANDY PERRY

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.

***An aerial picture of Leigh, my hometown (taken by Haydenberg of course). See if you can spot me. I’m the guy wearing blue jeans and running shoes….***

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.

***The only time that Cola is accepted with whisky – when it’s the name of your dog.***

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.

***An amazing film and a fantastic experience. I’m really proud that I was able to be a part of this movie.***

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!

***Whisky as it should be – by the pint, and with a beautiful lady (my wife)***

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.

***One of the architecture renders that I saw a few years ago.***

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.

***Our first three stills, with the mad man himself up on the top***

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.

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.

Tyler Nickerson

Originally from Canada, Tyler now lives in Shenzhen in Guangdong.

“I’ve been watching the Nine Rivers Distillery project develop over the last few years, having first learned about it through one of those many crazy whisky groups that underpin the project. I try and follow most of the updates on social media and it’s been really interesting to finally see it all come to live over the last year.

I enjoyed one of the articles last year where one of the investors, Kevin Skraban, stepped up and admitted his love of Star Wars to the global audience. It just made sense to me to try and tie that in with the naming of the stills.

Who doesn’t love Star Wars right?”

We’ll be interviewing The Witch and The Mayor next week, to hear their feedback on their new found fame in our still house, right here at Nine Rivers Distillery, in Longyan.

Would You Like To Read More?

If you enjoyed reading our article about our stills being named The Witch and The Mayor, 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.

The Results

So lets start with the results from last week’s vote.

There was a total of 1079 votes and although we’re pretty sure that Mischa made 120 of those to get his nomination into The Final Vote, we’ll run with it as it is.

The 5 most popular suggestions The Final Vote were:

The Witch and The Mayor
Dengshan and Daniel
Jiulong and Ting
Bertha and Genevieve
Obi-Wan Stillobi and Luke Stillwalker

The Backstories and Nominators for The Final Vote

Some of these suggestions were nominated multiple times. In fact, one of them was nominated 23 times. But, we can’t share a prize between 23 people, so we’re taking the first person to nominate each idea, as the potential winner in this vote off.

Nominated by Tim Shaver for The Final Vote

Dengshan and Daniel

Nominated by Chris Policari for The Final Vote

Jiulong and Ting

Nominator – Pritesh Desai

Bertha and Genevieve

Nominated by Mischa Veenhuysen for The Final Vote

Obi-Wan Stillobi and Luke Stillwalker

Nominated by Tyler Nickerson for The Final Vote

Sorry this vote is now over.

Would You Like To Read More?

If you enjoyed reading our article and being part of The Final Vote to name our stills, 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.

Let’s start with the introduction to the public vote and to explain why at this stage, there is no identification of anyone who has made any of the suggestions. We want to keep this vote as fair as possible and for everyone to pick the names that they think best suit our stills (as opposed to just voting because they are supporting a friend).

Next we have all the names that have made the short list for you to pick from. Then finally we have a list of those suggestions that didn’t make the cut for the vote.

If all you want to do is vote for your favourites, then just pile in and make your vote.

We will do a second vote off for the top 5 next week.

UPDATE on Friday 29th December 2023

The voting is now closed. The results are below.

The top 5 will go into a second round vote off.

Sorry, the voting for this is now closed. But thanks for being a part of it.

Thanks for trying:

These are all copied directly from the entires. Some just aren’t names. Some just don’t work. Some are a bit stupid. Some just don’t make any sense at all.

Jim Murray and Becky Paskin – the perfect couple in the world of whisky
The Dragon
Copper and Jingley
Spiritual Angels
Still Life Still Of The Night Still
想到两个名字：第一个，蒸馏器——谐音名字：（真牛🐮气）意思就是这个东西特别厉害特别牛逼，它又那么大个，老牛逼了😜 第二个，蒸馏器——蒸蒸日上意思是久溪未来会越来越好🥳🥳
The Alba The Rabbie Burns Braveheart Celtic Hebrides Highland Skye
The name: 栖溪 The reason : 1.“栖”字取自“良禽择木而栖”，蒸馏器不远万里，为酿臻品栖息于久溪，长存于龙岩； 2. 同时与中国情人节“七夕”同音，愿品尝久溪臻品的人们都能醉心于美酒，醉美于爱情！
1) pretty in pink (Rosie) thought it sounded nice and always liked the movie. 2) the Red Queen. ( obviously for Red wine) we’ll always like Alice in wonderland and resident evil could be a nod to both movies) 3) the white stuff ( a play in words for the song from the 90’s the right stuff and a nods to the nose candy one might slide to it.)
Feng 风and Shui水 cuz we know a chaozhou master came there with a bagua and a jujubulle to bless our distillery.
‘The innkeepers wife’ I could use a brunch of decriptions, warm, fullbodied, made of stronger stuff etc but really I just like the name
Easty and Westy Both from an orientation within the building perspective. If their alignment is north south even better. But more importantly the distillery is completely reliant on the cooperation of Western and Eastern skills and philosophy.
They say the word “Whisky‘’ is originated from the old Latin phrase Aqua Vitae.. meaning water of life. So call the two still AQUA and VITAE. It will be good to have something to talk about while on a tour of the distillery..
Peter, Paul, and Mary for obvious reasons. It just sounds right.
Cortado Amber Oloroso Mahogany Tawny I have chosen these names as they are the colors of whiskey 🥃 and i think it will be suitable for whiskey still and also to 9 RD group
Demeter – Greek God of grain Poseidon – Greek God of water Dionysus – Greek god of fertility. Later, he came to be known chiefly as the god of wine and pleasure
These are just for fun: Hopty Dumpty- I think it’s funny, and is technically accurate. Blue Stihl- Pop culture references, etc etc etc
The Dealer The Gambler Two roles that fill society’s vices. Just like our spirit. Also, just sounds cool.
WHITE – Symbolizing Purity, Simplicity and above all Peace. BLACK – Symbolizing Elegance, Wealth, Power and above all Dynamism Together they Smbolize unity, fusion, co-existence.
Tic and Tac cuz you know
The snidget 2. The phoenix imaginary birds from Harry Potter, Hogwarts Legacy
Zhang he : legendary Chinese explorer. Confucius : most influential chinese philosopher Marco Polo: bridged the gap between East and west which is what we are trying to do. Our company should be representing the people and culture we wish to supply. Directed at those we wish to pass through our door that will create local and cultural connection.
Lorel and Hardy the fat and the short, ya know the lyrics
StillWise – I just think it’s an awesome name for a still. 2. Noble Spirit – It’s a bit of a lofty name and I needed a second . But I mostly just like my first one.
The Copper Witch Obvious 2. Hooch Another name for. liquor and sounds like a pet name. 3. Mingly Jingly i giggle saying it.
I have 2 suggestions. Boily, Stills & Mash Or just David, Stephen & Graham (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
pliosaur 上龙 “Because the shape of the distillation column resembles the snout of the Jurassic Pliosaurus, Pliosaurus was reportedly the largest animal in the sea in history. As Nine Rivers is the first whiskey manufacturer , might also is the largest distillation column in China, the name Pliosaurus is used to convey a good omen, signifying that the distillation column, like the Pliosaurus, will continuously produce high-quality liquor.”
Cat of Nine Stills Sassy spirit Seductive stream Forbidden city ferment The flavor furnace
Distill my heart Pour decisions Liquid courage Still Rivers run deep
Stihl Haven’t Met You Yet- lazy, I know Be Stihl My Beating Heart- Even lazier, I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel.
1.Bacchus (or in ancient Roman: Dionysus) 2.Pan (or in ancient Roman: Faunus) 3. Poseidon. As Fujian lies on mountains and sea, in ancient Greek (and Roman) mythology Pan is the god of wild mountains and forests, Poseidon of seas and water, whereas Bacchus is the god of alcohol, wine, leisure, etc. So like like between mountains and water our whiskey will flow between mountains and sea, Bacchus will stand between Pan and Poseidon
Spirit Still (Tall): ASTUTE : These pot stills remind me of submarines. Astute class submarines are currently the most advanced compact nuclear powered attack submarines in service for the British royal navy. Compact, agile, but yet powerful, hence the name. Wash Still: DREADNOUGHT: Dreadnought class submarines are currently the largest and most advanced nuclear powered submarines capable of launching ballistic missiles in service for the British Royal Navy, name befitting for this behemoth of pot still! Spirit Still (Short): TRAFALGAR: Trafalgar class submarines are currently the smallest of the attack grade nuclear powered submarines. Slightly smaller than the Astute class submarines. They pack near the same punch but comes in a smaller package. Name befitting for this super compact pot still (compared to the other 2)
Stihl don’t know what I’m looking for-All credit to David Tait. His brilliant idea, but he’s uncomfy giving out his WeChat Stihl Trap-I dunno, I’m drunk.
Poppa Still and Momma Still Because they the head of the Stills Family.
‘Still Nursing A Hangover’ – as are some of the folks admiring it no doubt. ‘Not For Hotpot’ – since it is essentially a big copper pot and Jingley’s might want to make soup in it.
Whisky and music are always found together, so this suggested a musical theme to me. There also needed to be a reference to their differences in height. I’ll let the taller still do the introductions. “Hi, welcome to the 9 Rivers Distillery Still House. I’m Still Standing and this is my colleague Sitting Still” (no apologies to Elton John and REM). So Still Standing and Sitting Still
Hank, Bertha, and Stilly McGillicuddy The only reason I chose them is because they popped into my mind as good names for the stills no special reason or meaning. They just seem like fitting names.
Stilly McStillface – 27 submissions with this suggestion……yawn.
Qilin, Qi refers to male ones, and Lin refers to female ones, is always considered one of the luckiest, happiest, and most legendary creatures in Chinese The Loong: The Loong is a powerful mythical creature in Chinese culture that symbolizes strength, power, and good luck. It is often represents prosperity, success, and good fortune.
Dreadnought: Heavy, huge and fears nothing. It’s a legend like the boss
I like to name the Tall Head still “Big Jim”, the washer still “Slim”, and the Short Head “Tiny Tim”
Another one : Bullet ride Because they looks like bullets
// Orchestra – a fluid dynamics composition is taking place.. distillery is not static // LongCop- Longyan and ‘police copper’ to capture the ‘essence’ and process control every drop in the copper stills // Longstil – play on Longyan, the size // Rivershine – instead of moonshine, 9RD, ‘proof is in the stil’ // Instillerger (Art of Instillergy) play on the root latin word ‘instillare’ and ‘synergy’ – in terms of introducing fluid dynamics – ‘drop by drop’ and team intelligence ‘drop by drop’

Those That Can’t Be Printed

As is the jovial nature, there were of course a number of suggestions that just can’t be listed, so if you can’t see your suggestion here, then you know why. Let’s just say there were 123 suggestions that were a bit naughty.

Would You Like To Read More?

If you enjoyed reading our article and being part of the public vote to name our stills, 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.

LIFE IS MERRY – WHEN YOU’RE ANDY PERRY

Leigh (not on the sea)

Andy Perry – my life in two paragraphs

Andy Perry in the movies

What about the whisky eh?

Nine Rivers Distillery – how and why?

Remember remember…….some day in November

Would you like to read more?

Would you like to know more about helping Nine Rivers Distillery?

Follow us

Probably THE best……

Would you like to read more?

Would you like to know more about helping Nine Rivers Distillery?

Follow us

THE WITCH AND THE MAYOR

Tyler Nickerson

Would You Like To Read More?

Would You like To Know More About Helping Nine Rivers Distillery?

Follow Us

THE FINAL VOTE

The Results

The Backstories and Nominators for The Final Vote

Dengshan and Daniel

Jiulong and Ting

Bertha and Genevieve

Obi-Wan Stillobi and Luke Stillwalker

Would You Like To Read More?

Would You like To Know More About Helping Nine Rivers Distillery?

Follow Us

THE PUBLIC VOTE (TO NAME OUR STILLS)

UPDATE on Friday 29th December 2023

Thanks for trying:

Those That Can’t Be Printed

Would You Like To Read More?

Would You like To Know More About Helping Nine Rivers Distillery?

Follow Us