Nine Rivers Distillery Company: Classic Distilling With a Modern Touch!

Nestled in the breathtaking mountains of Longyan, a serene region abundant with ancient woodlands and pristine natural springs, Nine Rivers Distillery is more than just a place where spirits are crafted—it's a modern-day homage to nature and tradition. Founded by visionary Jay Robertson, Nine Rivers is redefining the art of distilling by blending time-honored purity with 21st-century innovation. Just ninety minutes north of Xiamen, the distillery sources its water from springs that have been naturally filtered through centuries-old igneous and sedimentary rock formations, creating an ideal environment for producing world-class vodka, gin, rum, and whisky. With roots in one of China's oldest agricultural heartlands, Nine Rivers stands as a tribute to the land’s legacy, crafting spirits that reflect the purity and richness of their surroundings. In this interview, Jay Robertson takes us behind the scenes of Nine Rivers to discuss his passion for distilling, the significance of sustainability, and how he is shaping the future of spirits by connecting the purity of nature with the precision of modern craftsmanship. Join Delivery Rank as we explore the journey of a distillery that embodies the essence of its remarkable environment.

Nine Rivers Distillery is situated in a unique location, surrounded by natural springs, amazing scenery and rich in history.  How will the environment of Longyan influence the quality and the character of the spirits that you will create?

We have a truly unique location, notable for several reasons, primarily due to its varied climate. In the summer, temperatures can reach as high as 40°C, while in the winter, they can drop to around 0°C. This fluctuation in temperature tends to accelerate the maturation of whiskey. 

We think we might have some challenges around whisky maturing a little bit too quickly, and this is why we have architected a unique style of cask maturation warehouse (which as far as we know, no one else has done or is doing) where we have 13-meter-high internal ceilings.

We will stack casks up to about half of that height, and then use the empty space above the casks as part of a passive cooling system.  Warm air rises, so some simple air movement will lower the temperature of that warehouse considerably.  We’re already experiencing a 15-20 degree drop in temperature within the cask maturation warehouse.

Humidity will also have a significant impact on our spirits.  We have more rain here than most of Scotland.  Scotland averages 250 days a year with rain.  We have had more rain so far this year and we’re only in October, with more than 2 months of the year left!  Rain with the heat that we get creates a lot of humidity, which helps maintain the wood properties in the casks and allows more flavour and aroma compounds to be drawn out of the cask.

How about the geography of your location – does that bring any benefits to your project?

There are many benefits to being located where we are.  We didn’t just throw a dartboard at a map or pick the cheapest place to secure land or to operate.  Our location was a strategic decision that was compared to 25 other locations that we reviewed over the space of a year and a half.

While the exhaustive list of comparison points would be boring to go through, some of the key highlights include:

The availability of water.  The name "Nine Rivers" comes from the fact that we are surrounded by a ring of mountains, each of which feeds into nine different streams. "Nine Streams" didn’t quite sound right as a name, so we decided on "Nine Rivers." This plentiful water supply is a crucial aspect of our production.

The popularity of Longyan as a tourist destination. Longyan attracts about 7 million tourists annually, as it is considered a cultural heartland of the Hakka people in China.

There are 2 UNESCO World Heritage sites, 2 AAAAA rates and 13 AAAA rated tourism destinations within a 60 minute drive of our site.  They include the Tulou’s at Yongding, resorts, hot springs, mountains, geoparks, theme parks and everything else to be expected of a tourism hotspot.  I’ve been here now for 4 years and I’ve not seen a fraction of what Longyan has to offer to tourists.

Another advantage of our location is the abundance of local fruit growers. The town where we’re based, Da Chi, is famous for oranges and many other fruits.  Fruits naturally support wild yeast strains, so we will incorporate some of the local yeasts into our fermentation process, which adds a unique terroir to our whisky—flavors that are exclusive to our environment.

Our location also has infrastructure advantages. We are only a 30-minute drive from a high-speed train station and as everyone across the world knows, it’s a 40,000 kilometer high speed road network.  We can travel by train to Xiamen in 40 minutes, Shenzhen and Guangzhou in four hours, Shanghai in 6 hours, and even to Beijing in 12 hours.  With multiple trains every day.

Additionally, a new international airport is being built nearby, which will add even more connectivity to our distillery. Unlike many other whisky distilleries in China, which are located in remote areas hours away from the nearest city, airport, or train station.

We’re confident that the travel infrastructure all around us will support and encourage more whisky tourists to visit us.

Water is such an integral part of distilling. How does the pristine water from the natural springs in Longyan enhance the taste profile of your vodka, gin, rhum, and whiskies?

Yes, water is important in the sense that you need a lot of it, but it’s also important to be responsible in your use of water, and with the waste products that are created through distillation.

We have an abundance of pristine water from natural springs, so it means we have to do almost nothing to that water to make it usable for making alcohol.  But it’s still something we are very responsible with in terms of minimizing our use of water through reuse, recycling, and with our own onsite water treatment.

On site water treatment is also something really important to us.  Distilleries create a lot of waste water, and if this is just dumped into rivers or streams, it can create serious environmental impact downstream.

Distillery waste water will typically have a lot of suspended solids, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and some other challenges.  It has a high COD and BOD (Chemical Oxygen Demand and Biological Oxygen Demand) and as it breaks down, it removes oxygen from the water, killing aquatic life.

So we make sure that any water that leaves our site, leaves in the same pristine state as it started.

With Nine Rivers producing a range of spirits, including vodka, gin, rhum, and whisky, what is your approach to maintaining consistency and quality across these diverse categories?

When it comes to quality and consistency in unaged spirits, achieving this is relatively straightforward. Vodka, for example, is essentially neutral grain spirit or neutral spirit. Many producers claim to make their own vodka, but in reality, they’re often just sourcing neutral spirit from an industrial factory that produces it in large quantities, then diluting it with water for bottling. Some might go through the extra step of redistilling it, but in truth, this process is mostly unnecessary. All that’s really needed is to filter and refine the industrial alcohol to make it palatable. So, achieving consistency with vodka is quite simple.

It becomes a bit more complicated with spirits like gin because the process involves macerating various botanicals. This can result in variations from one batch to another. However, we address this issue through the sheer scale of our operation. Many craft distillers work with 1,000-liter stills, producing around 50,000 LPA (liters of pure alcohol) annually. In contrast, our facility has a capacity of 7.5 million LPA.

If you placed our distillery in Scotland, where there are 152 distilleries, we would likely rank around seventh in size, and even globally, we’d be among the top 20. Working on such a large scale makes it much easier to achieve consistency. Whether it’s single malt whiskey, wine, or another product, the typical approach involves blending multiple batches together to maintain a consistent style and flavor profile.

Craftsmanship and sustainability often go hand in hand in the modern spirits industry. How is Nine Rivers incorporating sustainable practices in your production process and facility management?

We're working on several initiatives, with one of our main goals being to minimize our energy consumption.  A significant portion of energy usage comes from the distillation process itself, so we focused on making that more efficient. After extensive research, we developed a more energy-efficient distillation design and even filed a patent for it. This allows us to use stills that consume considerably less energy than a typical still, while fully complying with Scotch whisky regulations, such as using pot stills made from copper.

In addition to this, we use air source heat pumps to extract as much energy as possible from the surrounding air, reducing our overall energy needs. As already mentioned, we also focus on recycling water as much as we can to minimize our water consumption. While we are located in an area with abundant water resources, it's still important to use them responsibly and not wastefully.

With the rise of craft distilleries worldwide, what differentiates Nine Rivers from other craft distilleries, both regionally and globally?

Primarily it’s about size and scale – we’re on a completely different scale to a typical craft distillery.  In fact, if you picked up our distillery and moved it to Scotland (where there are now over 150 single malt whisky distilleries) we’d probably be ranking in the top 10.  We will have a total production capacity of 7.5 million LPA.  That could be as much as 20-25 million bottles a year (assuming 700ml at 40% ABV), depending on how much we lose to The Angel’s Share.

With this much production capacity, and working on batch sizes as big as we will, we can achieve the economies of scale that a typical craft distillery can’t get to.  Buying in raw materials – grains, bottles, closures, labels, packaging – is much more cost effective when you’re procuring hundreds of thousands, and even millions at the same time.

The end result of this is that we can deliver on our commitment to make premium and ultra-premium quality whisky affordable for the masses.  Not just for the financially elite. #whiskyforthepeople as we refer to it.

One of our other key differentiators is the fact that we are made up of (currently) more than 300 whisky lovers, from all 4 corners of the globe.  Essentially it’s similar to crowd funding, although a little bit more involved in the sense that all of our investors (whether a major investor, or a micro-investor) are all involved in supporting, shaping and delivering our project.  It could be as simple as supporting us on social media by sharing our content.  It could be much more involved such as product development, both in terms of crafting whiskies, and all the way to branding and packaging design.

To read more about Nine Rivers Distillery Company, please visit https://www.nineriversdistillery.cn/