I’m Barry Keir and I drew the short straw this week, so it’s down to me to tell you a bit about my life and how I got involved in Nine Rivers Distillery.
I’m originally from Auchtermuchty, a town in Fife in Scotland. While Fife isn’t considered as a traditional home of Scotch whisky (although it did have a whisky distillery from 1829 until 1926 Stratheden Whisky Distillery, but it had to close when Prohibition in the United States drastically reduced the demand for its products). it is the source of 3 really interesting, modern Scotch whisky distilleries – Eden Mill, Lindores Abbey and Kingsbarns.
Auchtermuchty
I’d love to be able to list 1000 amazing facts about Auchtermuchty, but all I can really think of is that is was once the home of a pair of twins called Charlie and Craig Reid who were quite famous pop stars in 1987 with a song called “Letter From America”.
Aside from that, there is the unforgiving aroma of Brussels sprouts that clings to the air during harvest season, that is known to be strong enough to give Geriatric Nurses cold sweats.
China
I came to China back in 2018, so I’m just over 6 years in. I came here to try something different and to find some better weather than back home, so I used my education experience to come to China to teach English and STEM subjects to early years students.
I live in Ningbo city, in Zhejiang province. One of those many massive cities that few people in the west have ever heard of. I’d never heard of it before I started to apply for jobs in China, and once I started to read a bit about the city, I found it interesting enough to make it my new home.
It’s about 10 million people and has the 12th highest city level GDP in China, out of 293 cities. It ranks 8th in terms of disposible income, has over 100 stock market listed companies (it has the 7th highest number of stock market listed companies in China on a per city basis), and is also one of China’s oldest cities with a history stretching back to about 6300 BC.
My Way Into Nine Rivers Distillery
As an average whisky enthusiast, I quickly became part of some whisky groups, which then led to getting to know some of the other people involved in the project.
I don’t have any intention to leave China, my wife is Chinese and we recently had our first child. There will no doubt be another little Barry Keir on the roadmap, so to be involved in something whisky related here in China, and have access to liquid therapy is really quite interesting to me.
Would you like to read more?
If you enjoyed reading our article about Barry Keir, 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.
