We’ve been unconventional in our approach to almost everything in our project, which you have probably noticed from our other updates and articles. It then shouldn’t come as a surprise that our distillery layout workshops were far from conventional boardroom meetings. What we lacked in corporate thinking and experience, we more than made up with enthusiasm and creativity. After all, many of us (The Founders) simply appreciate whisky for what it is (and could be!) and have a blissful ignorance of the industry which allows us the freedom to create our masterpiece through the methods the title of this article references. We now want to invite you to look at our vision, method, and finally a few results that might one day be considered works of copper artistry.
Why are we taking the time to share this story? Simply because we want to create something a little bit more than just a whisky factory. We want to build the destination that every whisky lover in the world would want to visit on a whisky pilgrimage. A cathedral dedicated to the holy spirits. A place where Whisky Cat would be proud to call home.
THE ARCHITECTURE
Ensuring our still house is large enough to function properly as well as be aesthetically pleasing is harder than it sounds. We are a Type A facility (no, this isn’t the grade we gave ourselves; rather, it’s the mark for the highest standards possible regarding construction quality and operational safety) which means a lot of boxes to tick and a lot of red tape. As you might imagine, distilling involves working with high temperatures, processes that can cause fires and explosions and of course the fact that alcohol is highly flammable: all of this must be housed in a Type A facility.
The end result is of course the 4 building image that so many of you are already familiar with: the still house on the right (the north side); the dunnage on the left, where we mature whisky in casks, (the south side); the two larger, middle buildings, which will be for milling, mashing, fermenting, and storage.
But that doesn’t really help anyone to understand what’s really going on in the still house, nor does it distinguish us as being a tipple above the rest, so let’s take a closer look starting with the Visitor Viewing Deck.
We wanted to build in the ability for whisky enthusiasts to be able to see everything that happens in the whisky production process. After all, transparency and provenance about everything that goes into making whisky are some of the key reasons why we started this project. Because a working and operating distillery is a dangerous environment, but we have a serious responsibility to keep you safe when you visit! Even though some distilleries will let visitors get up close enough to touch stills, we don’t plan to stop cranking out good quality whisky long enough to make it safe to touch, so you’ll have to be content to just watch the action from the best view in the whole distillery. More on this a bit later.
With the architecture agreed on and an 852 square meter open space to play around with, it was time to take everything to the next level. It was time to roll up our sleeves, bring out the big guns, get cracking, and so on. You get it.
THE THINK TANK
The now legendary 9RD Think Tank are the elite, special forces within Nine Rivers Distillery. (I know. We just mentioned how unconventional we are and yet have a super cliché name like The Think Tank. Oh well.) They are all at the very top of their (drinking) game. They show no fear. They will accept any challenge put in front of them. They laugh at death in the face and if all else fails, they pour another dram.
It’s “A-ha” moments like the subterranean water cavern to appease the fire safety regulations that frequently happen in our “The Think Tank” group. It’s not all smooth, though. Starting with a dozen or so sessions in The Think Tank WeChat group, we managed to collate some scribbles, brain farts, and a lot of random anecdotes about irrelevant nonsense. We were lucky enough to get some workshops scheduled between travel restrictions and lock downs.
THE WORKSHOPS
Dumping a dozen people in a room and tasking them with solving a problem that has absolutely nothing to do with their skills or experience is already a challenge. Throwing a few bottles of whisky into the mix spells out ‘herding cats’ in big neon letters. Needless to say, the first few workshops turned into parties and very little was achieved – unless we count hangovers as achievements.
With our groundbreaking scheduled for February 18th, 2022, we knew we had to get our act together. Luckily, a leader emerged in our time of need, and we were blessed with Whisky Cat’s nemesis – Muffin the miniature poodle – who stepped up to lead our distillery layout workshops.
Under Muffin’s authoritarian approach, and with the support of his baseball bat wielding, thuggish enforcer, the rules were laid down. No whisky and no scoff (food) until there were 4 distillery layout options worthy of presenting to the whisky loving audience that read our updates. That’s you, right?
Hunger and thirst soon kicked in. Motivation was achieved. 4 layouts were scribbled with all 4 of them being suitable contenders for our distillery layout. In our next update, you will all have a chance to see them, vote for your favourite, AND have a chance to win something so amaaaaazing that it’s top secret. You’ll have to read our next update to know what it is.
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