Introduction So let’s put our cards on the table right at the beginning. This is intended to grab the attention of whisky lovers all over the world and hopefully encourage them to be a part of our project. It’s a fairly chunky read but our opinion is, if you don’t have the interest to stick […]
Read MoreSo let’s put our cards on the table right at the beginning. This is intended to grab the attention of whisky lovers all over the world and hopefully encourage them to be a part of our project. It’s a fairly chunky read but our opinion is, if you don’t have the interest to stick around and read what we have to say, you were probably never seriously interested anyway. Right?
Primarily it’s about making better whisky and more interesting whisky for whisky lovers and making that whisky more affordable. But within the context of being a business and operating under normal, logical approaches to business. Business, profitability, creating a return on investment for shareholders, and offering world-class products that are great value for consumers really is possible. ROI, quality, and value can all exist in the same place.
As a startup that has been bootstrapped since day one and essentially funded by the drinking money of what is now over 200 people, we’re not about to start taking gambles with laws, rules, and regulations around investment offerings and opportunities. We think we need to be aware of certain things we believe we can say, and probably can’t say.
Ironically there seem to be stacks of people flaunting the rules that we think exist and do regular shoutouts to fundraise publicly, and even right here on LinkedIn. But we’re going to err on the side of caution and simply tell you all about our project and encourage you to get in touch if you’re interested to learn more about what we’re doing and find out ways that you could perhaps get involved.
It’s 2023, and everyone is either too busy with their life or has the attention span of a root vegetable, hence the popularity of those TikTok-type things. So if you want to just jump right in and reach out to us, you can CLICK HERE. But please do us the favor of at least skimming the headings here to make sure your first questions aren’t already covered. Remember, bootstrapped, every penny counts, we don’t have armies of people sitting around waiting for your questions because they are all busy working day and night to make this project the success that we know it can be.
Let’s run with the good old-fashioned (one of our favorite whisky cocktails for the record) who, what, why, where, and when.
Who are we? We’re Nine Rivers Distillery. We’re made up of just over two hundred whisky lovers from (literally) the four corners of the globe.
While that might initially sound like a rag-tag band of misfits (and it kinda is) there is a serious board of directors that lead this project.
Stephen Davies – our Chairperson who has been involved as a mentor since our project was just a monthly debate at whisky nights in Shenzhen.
Jeff Olyniec – the second investor and our deputy Chairperson, who helped shape our idea into something that resembled a real business, starting on the back of napkins in a McDonald’s in the ‘burbs of Shenzhen.
Joy Tan – a passionate whisky lover and a founder investor since the very beginning of the project.
Daniel Liang – a founder of the project and a mentor to many of the people working on the numerous work streams required to deliver our project.
Jan Lægaard Broni – our resident Viking (doesn’t every startup distillery need a Viking?) and another leader and mentor to many of our work streams.
Jay Robertson – our CEO who has moonlighted on our project as an excavator operator, loader operator, truck driver, steel fabricator, welder, plumber, bricklayer, and drone pilot – all within our project.
What are we? We’re a startup whisky distillery that aims to be something of a disruptive force in the crafting of world-class whisky and making it affordable for all. Consider us the caped crusader and the likes of Diageo and Pernod Ricard being Lex Luthor (Diageo) and The Silver Banshee (Pernod Ricard) – the DC Comics Nerds will get the references there.
However, we’re not your typical startup.
While not taking anything away from a typical startup distillery (sincerely, we admire them all because we know what it takes to turn an idea into a distillery – we’re living it) we’re bigger than most. In fact, we’re building towards a 7.5 million LPA (LPA = liters of pure alcohol – essentially 1000ml of 100% alcohol by volume – an industry standard for measuring capacity) distillery. An average startup distillery could be 100,000 to 200,000 LPA and even a big startup would almost never be more than 500,000 LPA.
If you prefer bottle numbers, 7.5 million LPA is likely to be about 17 million bottles (depending on bottling strength that might fluctuate a little) a year, or around 50,000 casks a year.
Why – in the context of why do we exist? Why did we start this project? Well, that’s an easy one to answer. We exist because of two drivers. Firstly, because a bunch of whisky lovers over here in China, got into the habit of debating three things:
We came to the same conclusion pretty much every time. Big corporations pretty much control whisky production all over the world, and being driven by shareholders and the need to shell out dividends, everything is driven by profit.
Why in the context of why did we go so big? Surely by building something that will eventually have 7.5 million LPA of production, then we become the very thing we are trying to beat? Nope. We simply need economies of scale.
There are literally hundreds of startups across the world in the last decade or so. Some of them are creating some really amazing products. Far too many to list. But it really doesn’t matter how amazing a product is, when you’re mashing, fermenting, and distilling at a small scale, your costs of production are so high, that you don’t have enormous amounts of money to spend on marketing and advertising that the big players have.
It’s a never-ending circle that almost always constrains small startups into only ever being small startups – unless of course, they cash in to one of the big multinationals, get a big injection of moola to brand build and save money using the distribution network of the big multinational……and of course then they become part of the monster.
Larger scale production = lower production costs per bottle = we can pass on savings to end consumers with better pricing, and we can make more money to help us brand build. But let’s come back to brand building.
Where are we? We’re in China. To be specific, we’re located in Beixi Village, in Da Chi Town, Longyan City, Fujian Province, China. Probably not somewhere that anyone outside of China would have heard of, but Longyan is a city of 1.4 million people, it has connectivity to the national high-speed road network in all directions. It has a significant high-speed train station with trains to every major city in China multiple times each day. It has a small airport just outside the city with another one being built in the south of the city in 2 years. It’s also about 50 minutes by train to a significant international airport at Xiamen.
At Da Chi, we’re surrounded by mountains up to 1500 meters above sea level, and our site is at 515 meters above sea level. So we have our own special microclimate that can be between 10 and 25 degrees cooler than the downtown city of Longyan (which is about a 40-minute drive from us). It can result in a daytime temperature fluctuation of up to 40 degrees celsius. Even an average swing can be 20 or more degrees. As all whisky lovers know, the change in temperature each day can be very good for maturing whisky.
People typically ask us “do you have enough water to make whisky”, which is when we typically point out the name “Nine Rivers” comes from the fact that the mountains around us have literally Nine Rivers every time it rains, which at this time of the year (August through September) is multiple times each day.
When did we start? The history of this project goes back to 2016 at a network of whisky nights that popped up all over China, starting first in Shenzhen. There was a lot of time invested into researching the possibility of making whisky. Then some of us spent a lot of time developing processes to make better whisky – some of which has resulted in patents being filed and granted. But in terms of real tangible and visible things, we’d probably frame the start (as in forming a company, and the founders chipping in their coins) to 2019.
We first visited Da Chi in February 2020. It took us about a year to find the perfect location and secure the land. We had a “groundbreaking” (a bit early in all fairness, but there’s a mildly amusing story about that) in February 2022 but the really good stuff (the excavation and construction) really started to happen in February 2023. It took from December 2022 through to the end of January 2023 just to level the land parcel.
When are we looking for more people to get involved? Right about now. Now is the perfect time for anyone interested in whisky to get in touch and learn more.
The timing of this is deliberate, and we’re happy to explain why. For one simple reason – credibility.
The 200-odd people that have helped us to get to where we are today are people that are connected to us. Typically they are personal friends, or professional contacts of either one of our board members, or someone else that is involved in this project.
The starting group of founders was made up from whisky lovers who regularly attended one of the whisky nights – in Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Shenyang, Shanghai, Beijing and Xiamen. Everyone that has got involved since are in some way directly connected to one of these founders or one of the board members. That friendship was important for the huge amount of trust it has taken between us all to fund this project and get it to where it is now.
But now we’re at a point where trust is mitigated by the fact we’re no longer just a slide deck and wishful thinking. We’re real.
How are we going to make better whisky, and still make it affordable?
Quality is massively influenced by the quality of raw materials, the production process, and the maturation process. Sure, cuts on distillate could be included in this, and there’s lots of marketing and PR around the mythical “Master Distiller”, but let’s not go down that Rabbit Hole and end up with every single self-appointed Master Distiller having a rant about how we have belittled their skill. Let’s stick with what we can prove.
Using the best grains for purpose (we’ll not use the word quality as that can be argued as a matter of opinion). Let’s simply say that we will be using the grains that we believe carry forward the most flavor and aroma as opposed to the grains that will give the best yield of alcohol per ton of grain – which is how the big corporate producers determine if the grain is good or not. We’ve talked about our approach to grains in some of our previous social media posts. The grains we will use will naturally cost more per bottle produced.
Using yeasts and fermentation timescales that again, focus on developing flavour and aroma as opposed to just converting as much of the grain-derived sugars into alcohol as quickly as possible. Big producers focus on what we refer to as industrial yeast. They need as fast a fermentation as possible. Faster fermentation means more batches of wash per month, feeding more wash stills, and producing more whisky.
We’ll be taking a craft beer approach to our fermentation. Longer, slower, and cooler, to utilize yeasts that are specifically developed to enrich fermentation with much more flavor and aroma that would typically be associated with large-scale alcohol production. Plus, lots of variants as opposed to just cranking out the same old wash, going through the same distillation process, to create the same, bland, mass-market offerings that most large-scale producers have got into the habit of churning out, year on year.
Leading this part of the production process is Neil Playfoot, a brewing consulting with 27 years of experience crafting world-class beers.
Anyone who knows anything about whisky will know that wood (in the form of oak barrels) is responsible for around (let’s not split hairs) 60% of the final aroma and flavour of the bottled product. To state that wood is critical to good whisky is fair to everyone but wood for the sake of clocking up the required years is currently the industry default.
There is an accepted shortage of oak barrels across the world. Reasons why aren’t important but the big producers are struggling to get enough oak barrels for their own production. There are barrel brokers popping up all over the world quicker than anyone can count because where there are shortages, there is money to made by those with little or no ethics.
Smaller producers are mostly being dumped with low-quality and well-used barrels. Of course, many of them have spun this as part of their marketing, proudly labeling their product with subtitles such as “Made with STR Casks” or quoting a plethora of random wines that would never have been considered suitable for whisky just a decade ago. Second and third-fill casks are the new norm for mass-market products and all those gardening enthusiasts are unable to find any wooden barrels to make planters for their garden anymore, because what would normally be up for grabs in their local garden center, is now being repaired and filled with bulk spirit for export markets.
Quality has dropped everywhere. With the two major barrel producers squabbling with each other and shaving dollars and cents off production so that they can supply the massive bourbon producers, by the time those ex-bourbon barrels trickle down into the whisky industry they are already much less of a barrel than they were a decade ago. That’s without us even touching on the whole barrel rinsing that now happens because even bourbon producers are not immune to the demands of shareholders and the need to cut costs and deliver better returns to investors each year.
The only solution to all of these problems that affect quality is to simply make our own barrels in our own cooperage. Sourcing our own green timber, cutting it to rough staves, seasoning it on site and then crafting our own barrels.
None of this is going to be easy. Coopering is an ancient art and training an apprentice to the status of Journeyman Cooper takes years. Having a few power tools in your shed and having done some DIY is far from coopering and although there are some really exciting success stories for boutique cooperages across the world, we decided to bring on board one of the best in the world to lead our cooperage project – Stuart Macpherson, former Master of Wood with Edrington and Macallan with a 43-year pedigree in the industry.
Better grains, longer fermentation, better quality barrels – they all cost money right? So how do we offset these costs, and make amazing whisky while not only being competitive – but being better value?
We have a few tricks up our sleeves which include some really clever tech (that we have patented) around energy recycling throughout the production process. We have some patents around crafting casks too. We’ve got some smart architecture which again massively reduces energy consumption and that makes a huge dent in the overall costs of producing whisky.
But the real big game changer comes from the people involved in our project and what they bring to the table. Literally, everyone who has invested in our project brings something, and absolutely everything helps.
We have a pool of investors that includes architects, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, product designers, graphic designers, copyrighters, marketing gurus, business leaders, experts on literally everything that any startup business needs.
Whether it’s as simple as just sharing content on social media or running workshops on designing our building, layouts and immersive visitors experience when we are producing spirit and have our doors open – this has made a massive impact into our costs and will continue to do so.
Let’s make a quick comparison to help you to understand just one benefit of having all these whisky lovers with a shared passion, involved in our project.
Before we look at how much this project is costing us to build, we need a baseline.
Here’s a press release from November 2021 (click here) where some blobs of concrete, some roofing tiles, and some grass was reported to be a US$150 million investment, which at the time was equivalent to 1 billion rambos (renminbi, or Chinese yuan). Forget all the other waffle in the press release, what matters is it’s a 2 still setup and believed to be about 1 million LPA of production capacity.
Diageo’s project up in Sichuan province on a press release the same month (click here) seems to be half the money (US$75 million, or 500 million rambos) for a 4 still setup and believed to be about 2 million LPA.
We’re going in on 10 stills, 7.5 million LPA and (with all due respect to both architecture firms involved in those other two projects) something that we think looks infinitely better visually. Our total budget to build? Considerably (!) less than both Pernod Ricard’s and Diageo’s for sure – especially since we don’t have all those suits to pay for!
We didn’t have armies of top-tier consultants in expensive suits, and we definitely didn’t have a second (smaller) army of consultants supervising the first army either. We just have a bunch of whisky lovers all chipping in when they can. A few even rocked up on-site and had a blast on the excavators and the loaders with some of them living on-site in dormitories for weeks on end just to be a part of what we’re doing. That has created massive savings for us and it benefits everyone invested in the project.
But it won’t end there.
Everyone invested in our project, from the smallest micro-investors to the ballers with a wheelbarrow full of greenbacks, is an Ambassador for our project. They tell everyone that they know about who we are, our mission, our commitment and our drive. Essentially grass routes brand building and creating brand awareness.
When we’re producing, this Ambassador approach becomes our default marketing. With everyone having a bit of skin in the game, we all benefit from sharing the story of Nine Rivers Distillery and creating an interest in our products. We all benefit from sharing a bottle with friends, which solves the biggest challenge in any business in any industry – getting new customers to take a chance and try your products.
That’s the other major cost-saving for our business. Brand building, marketing and advertising. All huge financial drains on any business in any industry. So to essentially have all this not just in-house, but in-house at almost zero cost, is a really big benefit for us.
We’re looking for people who are interested in being involved in our project as Ambassador Investors – owning a stake in our business as a micro-investor, who want to contribute as little as an hour a week of their time to share our story with their friends in person, and on social media.
We don’t think we can legally outline the terms here (although, as mentioned, others have) but we encourage everyone to reach out and contact us for a one-pager overview of the numbers and all that legal stuff.
For anyone worried about the fact we’re in China, the opportunity is with our parent entity, which is registered offshore. Essentially it’s a huge challenge for non-Chinese to invest directly into China, hence the offshore entity that ultimately owns our Chinese operating company.
As for the buy-in. We want people more than we need money. The more people we have involved as Ambassador Investors, the faster awareness of our project will grow. With more awareness, there’s logically going to be more people interested in trying our products once they are in the market. And of course, we’re quietly confident we’ll deliver on quality, and customers will come back time and time again.
That’s why the buy-in is 500 bucks. Yes, $500 (or the equivalent in other currencies so at the time of writing this it is €466, £400 ₣445, $682 in Canadian dollars, $784 in Australian dollars, or you can look up your own currency on the internet. Sure, people are welcome to pile in more if they want to, but $500 is the entry point.
If that’s enough to get you interested and you’d like to know more, you can CLICK HERE to go to our website and find out how to contact us. If you’d like to read more first, here are some links that might be of interest:
Here’s a quick summary video that tells you our story.
Here’s our company page on LinkedIn.
Here’s our company page on Facebook.
Here’s our company page on Twitter (not sure if it’s still called that, but anyway…)
If you use WeChat you can scan this QR code to follow our WeChat official account.
If you use WeChat the short videos platform, you can scan this QR code to follow our channel.
So how does a 54 year old Star Wars nerd from Seattle, Washington, USA that has never stepped foot in China, and prefers a Long Island Iced Tea to whisky, get involved in a project to build a single malt whisky distillery on the other side of the world? I’m Kevin Skraban and here’s my […]
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So how does a 54 year old Star Wars nerd from Seattle, Washington, USA that has never stepped foot in China, and prefers a Long Island Iced Tea to whisky, get involved in a project to build a single malt whisky distillery on the other side of the world? I’m Kevin Skraban and here’s my story.
Skipping the first 8 years of my life (all rather boring, starting with nappies, bottle feeding, screaming and progressing about as far as being able to ride a bicycle without training wheels) I was blessed with the privilege of seeing the first Star Wars movie at a drive in theatre when it was first released in 1977.
Becoming a Star Wars Nerd was a pivotal point in my life that ranks up there in life milestones such as meeting my wife Ardene, having my kids (Emily, Abby and Adam), walking my daughter down the aisle and of course having my first grandchild. (If any of them ask, of course Star Wars is less important than all of those……let’s not disappoint them all with the truth!)
Logically I collected the Star Wars figures and still have most of them still today. Which is kinda how I ended up being part of Nine Rivers Distillery. I’ll explain.
As with most people in the west, I use Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family both here in the USA and some in other countries. One day I noticed an update from an old friend Shaun, sharing some content about 9RD and I pinged him a message to ask him about it. He passed me the contact for one of the leaders of the project and that’s when I noticed – we were both in the same Star Wars nerd groups!
As every other Star Wars nerd will know, there are many groups on Facebook about George Lucas’ world and some of them are specifically about the collectible figures – if the very same Nine Rivers Distillery guy was in the same groups as me, he was worth a chat at least right?
I reached out to him, and we talked a bit of nerd. I gave him a grilling (verbally at least – my Traeger is more for smoking – not grilling!) and I wanted to know if he could tell the difference between a Kenner 38260 Han Solo with a 12-Back Star Wars card and a Kenner 39339 Han Solo. If he could, well then he’d be my kinda Star Wars nerd.
Jay passed with flying colours and actually, outnerded me. This led on to talking more about the 9RD project and his nerdiness went beyond Star Wars canon.
Over a few evenings we covered everything about the project. The amount of research that Jay and the team had put into this project before they even started was absolutely amazing. All leading to the goal of doing things better. Making better products at better prices for all whisky lovers. This is something that really grabbed my attention. The force was strong with this one!
Up until this point, I wasn’t really what anyone would consider to be a whisky drinker. I knew very little about whisky. In fact, my go to drink would have been cocktails. But hearing how much variety there is in whisky as a category, made me curious enough to explore a bit, to learn some more, and understand what I might be getting into. I’m still exploring whisky now and learning something new every day.
Sure enough, I ended up getting involved in the project as an investor and the rest as we say is history. I’m now part of a community of whisky enthusiasts and contributing an hour or two a week of my time to try and make something really special happen.
A few of my pals back home thought I was absolutely nuts to get involved. As I’m sure we can all agree, there is quite a lot of negative press about China in the west, which leads to most people thinking it’s just a land of hustles, scams and cheats.
The words “It’s a Ponzi Scheme” get thrown at me a lot. I can’t really be bothered to point out how Ponzi is a type of scam synonymous with the USA as that’s where the original Ponzi scheme happened and all others have mostly originated. It’s kinda like playing chess with a pigeon. If they don’t have the intellect to grasp the basic concepts and principles then it’s pointless bothering to try.
For the record – Ponzi schemes take money from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors. But if no one is taking anything out from the project, then it can’t be a Ponzi scheme. Every single penny invested is going into building a massive distillery. I had one friend suggest that the videos were all CGI – I guess he didn’t realise that it would cost more to fake it all with CGI than to actually just build the damn thing! As a Star Wars nerd I know my CGI!
I did as all people should do – I looked into things in as much detail as I needed to feel confident with the opinion that if anything just didn’t sound right or feel right, I’d have walked away. Sure, we can laugh and joke about the Star Wars connection (which, for the record is actually legit) but having put one of the senior people leading the project through the wringer, and having absolutely every question I asked answered to my satisfaction, I was confident enough to get involved.
Skip forward to today, halfway into the construction of the first three buildings, with video updates every few days and the live streaming. It’s probably fair to say I’ve got a couple of friends that are about 6 months away from eating their hat. I’ve got my salt and pepper ready for them to start chowing down on those baseball cap brims.
I’m involved in a few side groups and contribute my ideas and my opinions to a couple of work-streams. I’d love to be able to talk about them, but they are both a bit *top secret* as we think they are going be pretty significant when they go live. All I can say is that when they do go live, you’ll see me bragging about it.
I also ended being the face on one of the video thumbnails recently on our YouTube channel. I’d asked the team to make a video showing what’s going on inside Building Number 3. The tradeoff was to use my mugshot. But it’s all good fun! Most of the people involved are great fun to chat to and work with. I don’t know them all (there’s more than 200 the last time I counted) but there’s a dozen or so that I speak to regularly and we all get along well.
I’m also a touch point for anyone in the USA that is interested in our project. Time zone differences can be a challenge between the USA and China so it makes sense for me to be a first point of call for anyone in the USA. There’s about 20 of us in the USA that are actively involved in 9RD but there is always room for more. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn – just CLICK HERE (better than adding an email address to a webpage, for one of those interwebs bots to add my address to all the spam lists!)
As with everyone involved in 9RD, both investors such as myself, and people that haven’t invested, but really believe in what we’re doing, I’ve got my bricks for The Plenum Wall. Essentially bricks with steel name plates that will be cemented into a feature wall on the staircase that leads up to the mezzanine floor for Building 3.
I’ve got bricks for the wife, the kids, my grand daughter and for me too. Having all our names up on the wall will be a nice touch. It creates a connection between all of us and our project.
I was hoping to actually be there at the big event in July, with everyone else, to cement my bricks in. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it so I’ve got a deal on with Jay where he’ll cement in my bricks for me, in exchange for a Kenner 39030 Hammerhead – I’ve got two of them anyway so it’s a fair trade from my point of view.
If you enjoyed reading about how we currently don’t see any alternatives to Dramfunded, 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.
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.
You could help us by simply buying your very own Brick for Life – a brick with a steel name plate wrapped around it, which will be cemented into The Plenum (our feature wall) in July 2023. Every brick owner is entitled to a free dram for life every time they visit us in Longyan, Fujian.
Or, you could learn more about being involved and help us grow to our target of 1000 stakeholders. You can read more about how we are Dramfunded if you CLICK HERE. You don’t have to be a Star Wars nerd to be part of our proejct!
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. 6500 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 500 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.
Not long to go before we have our biggest event yet, Bricking It, – when everyone that bought their brick for The Plenum Wall, gets a chance to come along to our site and cement their brick into the wall. For those of you that might need to refresh your memory, here’s a link to […]
Read MoreNot long to go before we have our biggest event yet, Bricking It, – when everyone that bought their brick for The Plenum Wall, gets a chance to come along to our site and cement their brick into the wall.
For those of you that might need to refresh your memory, here’s a link to the article that announced this as A Brick for Life.
Brick owners will be forever immortalised into our feature wall, with their name (or chosen name if they bought bricks as gifts for friends or family) engraved and painted into a stainless steel plate, that will be wrapped around a brick that will then be part of the wall at the main entrance to Building 3.
Additional perks for brick owners include a free measure of our finest spirit every single time the brick owner comes to visit our distillery – for life. Subject of course to the brick owner being over the legal age for drinking alcohol and they are not driving!
The event will be pretty simple and straight forward and an agenda will probably look something like:
Bricking It will be held on Saturday 29th July, 2023, starting at about 10am.
Longyan is blessed with some amazing infrastructure. It has high speed roads (you might call them motorways or highways) in all directions that connect with the national network of roads covering all of China.
Longyan has a fantastic, high speed train station, with trains coming in from all over China. It is served by both the G-series and the D-Series trains and most parts of China have multiple train options every single day of the week. Our site is a 30 minute taxi journey from Longyan station.
For those of you that prefer to fly to Bricking It, then the most suitable national and international airport is Xiamen. From Xiamen airport, you can easily get connecting trains to Longyan. Again, a short taxi ride will get you to our site.
Use this form below to register for your attendance.
If you enjoyed reading about how we currently don’t see any alternatives to Dramfunded, 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.
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.
You could help us by simply buying your very own Brick for Life – a brick with a steel name plate wrapped around it, which will be cemented into The Plenum (our feature wall) in July 2023. Every brick owner is entitled to a free dram for life every time they visit us in Longyan, Fujian.
Or, you could learn more about being involved and help us grow to our target of 1000 stakeholders. You can read more about how we are Dramfunded if you CLICK HERE. Remember, we currently have no alternatives to Damfunded!
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.
Facebook users, you can CLICK HERE.
YouTube users, you can CLICK HERE.
Twitter users, you can CLICK HERE.
Instagram users, you can CLICK HERE.
Or follow us on WeChat using the QR code below.
We’re almost half way through the year so it seems a good time for us to give an update on our construction progress so far and some of our favourite milestones alone the way. The Land Parcel Let’s start with our land. What did we actually buy and what did it look like before we […]
Read MoreWe’re almost half way through the year so it seems a good time for us to give an update on our construction progress so far and some of our favourite milestones alone the way.
Let’s start with our land. What did we actually buy and what did it look like before we started working on it?
The first major task was to level out land out. In total, more than 14,000 cubic meters of earth were removed from the site.
We had to prepare the land by installing some key infrastructure. Electricity, water, drainage and a foundation for the tower crane as pictured below.
Even with levelling the land and removing more than 14,000 cubic meters of earth, we still had to excavate for foundations. The first excavations were for Building 3. A total of 8,600 cubic meters were excavated. In total, we will have excavated 46,000 cubic meters of earth for the land levelling, the foundation pits for all of the buildings and all of the supporting infrastructure.
It wouldn’t’ be a construction update without some numbers right? The numbers behind the steel and concrete are something of a wow factor. Starting with the steel alone, there is a total of 3780 tons (over 3 million kilograms) of steel being used in our construction. Concrete comes in at 24,600 cubic meters. 45,000 square meters of wooden boards for concrete formwork and 750,000 bricks!
Finally for the construction progress in images, here are some highlights of how the site has changed over time.
One of the most frequently asked questions that we get is when will it all be finished.
We’re still on target to have construction completed before the end of this year (2023) and we’ll be producing spirit early next year in 2024.
That’s it for our construction progress update.
If you enjoyed reading about how we currently don’t see any alternatives to Dramfunded, 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.
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.
You could help us by simply buying your very own Brick for Life – a brick with a steel name plate wrapped around it, which will be cemented into The Plenum (our feature wall) in July 2023. Every brick owner is entitled to a free dram for life every time they visit us in Longyan, Fujian.
Or, you could learn more about being involved and help us grow to our target of 1000 stakeholders. You can read more about how we are Dramfunded if you CLICK HERE. Remember, we currently have no alternatives to Damfunded!
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.
Facebook users, you can CLICK HERE.
YouTube users, you can CLICK HERE.
Twitter users, you can CLICK HERE.
Instagram users, you can CLICK HERE.
Or follow us on WeChat using the QR code below.
I’m actually writing this on Sunday 14th May, the day after the Nine Rivers Distillery Open Day where some of us made a pilgrimage to the new home of whisky in China.. I was one of the attendees (I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!) and after what can only be described as an […]
Read MoreI’m actually writing this on Sunday 14th May, the day after the Nine Rivers Distillery Open Day where some of us made a pilgrimage to the new home of whisky in China.. I was one of the attendees (I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!) and after what can only be described as an amazing experience, I felt it was about time for me to step forward and write my contribution to the story of Nine Rivers Distillery.
I guess I should start with introducing myself, so here goes.
I’m Jan Lægaard Broni, and I come from the beautiful Kingdom of Denmark. Fun fact, the UK isn’t the only country in Europe to have a monarchy and despite what people might think, the Kingdom of Denmark is the oldest Kingdom in Europe, dating back more than 1200 years!
I’m from a small town called Grenaa, famous for fishing, white sand beaches, a ferry connection to Sweden (in Denmark we need to make sure we always have a way to send the Swedish back home!) and the home of “de Danske Sprit fabrikker” – a type of traditional distilled alcohol.
I have a mechanical engineering degree which I then furthered with a business management degree. My career spans a few different industries before I ended in in the medical and physical rehabilitation industry, where I’ve been for more than 25 years.
I first came to China for a short trip in 2003. I then had the opportunity to come back in 2007 as the GM for AluRehab, a leading manufacturer of high end wheelchairs. A few mergers and acquisitions later, and we are now part of a much larger group called Meyra. I continue to be the GM for the original AluRehab factory, but I’m also the EVP for Global Supply Chain for Merya Group.
It was here in China that I met my wife, who is originally from Yichun in Heilongjiang. We got married and we have a daughter. The rest as we say is history.
I’m blessed to live in Xiamen, which I personally consider to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It has everything for anyone that wants a peaceful life in beautiful surroundings but also enjoys the convenience of living in a large, modern and developed city. There really is no where I would rather be in the world.
As a Dane doing business in China, and having a place in my heart for both Denmark and China, it was important to me both personally and professionally, to involve myself in developing bridges between both countries, through business and commerce. So I got involved in the Danish Chamber of Commerce here in China.
In 2009 I was elected to the Danish Chamber of Commerce in South China. In 2014 I was elected to Chairman for the Danish Chamber of Commerce in South China. In March 2023, I was elected to Chairman for the Danish Chamber of Commerce for all of China.
As with all people from Denmark, we would traditionally drink either beer (Carlsberg of course is Danish) or Snaps (that’s not a typing error, this is how we spell it in Danish – in other parts of the world it’s spelled “schnapps“). Which I did too in my early years.
However, during the late 1990’s I was travelling a lot within the UK and mostly in Scotland. There were almost never any of the big brand international hotel groups in the remote places I was visiting, so I would always end up staying in local inns. Local hospitality was always underpinned with a dram or two from the innkeeper.
After a few of these experiences, I stayed at an inn very close to the ferry that took people to Islay. It was here that I was introduced to a heavily peated whisky that blew my tastebuds into another world. My interest in whisky turned into a fanatical obsession from that point. It was the first time any drink from any country in the world really make me say “wow”.
I joined a whisky club on my return to Denmark (a shout out here to everyone at the Braband Whisky Club, where my brother is the Chairman!) and even now, being in China for so long, I still attend one of their events each year, typically in January when I am on my annual holidays across Christmas and the New Year.
Ironically through wine – although no doubt a lot of the other people involved in Nine Rivers Distillery will scorn me for even mentioning anything other than whisky!
I started off in one of the many wine groups that are led by Jay and his team. I then found out about the whisky groups, and of course jumped straight in as I really do love whisky. I then noticed frequent references to Nine Rivers Distillery, searched the internet, found the website, filled out a form to learn more…….and then nothing.
After a few weeks I gave Jay a nudge and explained I’d heard nothing. A few hours later, my original message was dug out of a spam bin and then Jay and I talked over the next few evenings so I could understand more about the project.
Like many people, we’ve all heard about startup distilleries. There’s a new one every other day on LinkedIn. Whether it’s gin, rum, whisky or any combination of them all together. They are often little more than slide decks and wishful thinking. Being the naturally cautious person that I am, I put Jay through the mangle in terms of drilling down into the real details, to make sure that this project wasn’t just another one of those pipe dreams.
What really stood out to me, aside from the fact that every single base was covered, was the involvement of so many other investors. Sure, there are people that have invested because they want to earn a good return. I understand that. But the fact that there is an open door for every investor to get more involved with the limits only being how much spare time they have and their own imagination, is what really grabbed my attention. An opportunity for me to use some of my spare time to add value to the project pulled me in.
Most of my contributions to the project haven’t been that visible. I’m not a graphic designer, a branding guru, a social media expert or any of those skill areas that are immediately visible to the outside world. Where I’ve contributed the most in around the more strategic areas. The business side of things. The commercials. The framework of management that isn’t typically considered with most startups (let’s be fair, most startups just don’t have the resources available to consider mapping out an organisation for the next year – let alone the next decade or two). Policies, procedures, HR governance – everything we will need once we start producing and of course selling product. We’re anticipating a speed of growth that if we don’t plan and organise in advance, we’ll get buried in our own momentum.
Concurrently, I help organise regular whisky networking events in Xiamen with three other members of the Nine Rivers Distillery family, Jamal, Jeremy and Marc. Jamal is a long time friend, and also mentioned in one of our previous articles. If you missed it, you can find it if you CLICK HERE – a really fun read if you missed it the first time around. Marc was also featured in a previous article which you can find if you CLICK HERE.
My contributions resulted in an appointment as a board advisor and that eventually became a position on the board of directors. A role I still hold today.
Living in Xiamen, about 90 minutes away from the site, it’s close enough for me to visit regularly, and I have done. I was there on site in February with my wife and daughter with some of the other board directors where we stood in the pit that was excavated for what is now Building 3. At that point there was more than 8000 cubic meters excavated and it really was something beyond imagination.
I was there on site again, for the May 13th Open Day with lots of other investors. That very same pit now had the sub-basement water storage tanks for 1.8 million litres of water, the basement for the plant equipment, the first floor and the mezzanine floor all built. There’s a really good video of the day on our WeChat video channel. Just 3 months from a pit to almost a third of the steel and concrete being in place. There’s really only one place in the world that can build at this speed and that’s China. The term “China Speed” is one of the many unique things that make China the most exciting country to be in.
At the risk of sounding biased, there really are some exciting times ahead for all of us. We have the next big event in July (the last weekend of July – book it out in your diary now!) where we will all start laying the first bricks. These will be the bricks of The Plenum Wall, where hundreds of us (both investors and non-investors, who want to support our project and be a part of our story) will have our names on steel plates, cemented into the wall on the staircase of Building 3).
Then it’s full steam ahead to get the construction finished before the end of this year. Then install our stills and equipment, so we can start producing spirit early next year.
Feel free to get in touch with me. Everyone is welcome to our Xiamen Whisky Networking events and we have a WeChat group for organising it. I’m always there and happy to talk to anyone about our project.
Just remember. If you want to share a whisky with me, we’ll have none of that Slàinte Mhath nonsense toasting. Aside from the fact, it’s actually Irish Gaelic in origin (albeit spelt Slàinte Mhaith by the Irish) and only highjacked by Scotch drinkers in modern times, it doesn’t have the same history as a traditional Danish toast. Over in Denmark, we’ve been using “Skål” (pronounced like “Skoal” – rhymes with “coal”) for 5000 years. A good 4200 years longer than Irish Gaelic reached the lowlands of Scotland and about 4900 years longer than it became a hipster thing.
If you enjoyed reading about how we currently don’t see any alternatives to Dramfunded, 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.
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.
You could help us by simply buying your very own Brick for Life – a brick with a steel name plate wrapped around it, which will be cemented into The Plenum (our feature wall) in July 2023. Every brick owner is entitled to a free dram for life every time they visit us in Longyan, Fujian.
Or, you could learn more about being involved and help us grow to our target of 1000 stakeholders. You can read more about how we are Dramfunded if you CLICK HERE. Remember, we currently have no alternatives to Damfunded!
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.
Facebook users, you can CLICK HERE.
YouTube users, you can CLICK HERE.
Twitter users, you can CLICK HERE.
Instagram users, you can CLICK HERE.
Or follow us on WeChat using the QR code below.