Back in March we announced that Joy Tan was joining our Board of Directors. Recently, our beloved, extremely handsome, and not even remotely tipsy editor, Phill (who’s currently writing this), had the opportunity to sit down and chat with her about her background, why she joined the Nine Rivers project, and her own ambitions for the distillery.
Here’s what she had to say.
The Waffly Introduction
I’ll condense the introduction. Most of it was spent with me having Zoom issues and strategically adjusting my camera to hide how much I may or may not have been drinking at the time. Joy Tan
How would you introduce yourself to the world?
Joy Tan: I grew up in Beijing and studied biology at Tsing Hua University. I first came to the US for graduate school and just stayed here in Texas after school. Over the years, I’ve worked with several large technology companies, including Verizon and Huawei. I had the opportunity to live in Shenzhen for several years when I was the head of Global Media and Communications for Huawei.
Last year, after more than two decades in tech, I decided to start my public affairs consulting firm to help companies improve their reputations and expand their businesses globally. I also do venture capital investment, especially startups led by female founders. I’m very passionate about initiatives that help empower women and girls around the world.
That’s quite the journey. From China to the US, from biology to digital tech. There’s a lot of big jumps in your life. What would say is the thread that connects all of these experiences?
Joy: I think that, at the time, fundamental science research wasn’t nearly as technically advanced as it is now. So a lot of the work was manual, tedious, and SLOW. The amount of time it took to do basic things was really frustrating. Today, thanks to advances in technology, we can sequence an entire genome in about an hour for US$500. That’s about a 100 million-fold increase in efficiency compared to when I was in school.
That frustration is what first pulled me into the world of technology. I knew technology was poised to create exciting advancements in medical technology. But I didn’t want to wait for it to happen – I wanted to be part of it! The practical application of science has a much more immediate and tangible impact on the world. So halfway through my PhD, I had a good opportunity to jump ship, so I did. I got an MBA in marketing and jumped headfirst into the tech sector.
At first glance it may seem like I’ve quite a few seemingly unrelated branches in my career, but the connecting thread is really my passion for using technology to make life better. Joy Tan
So why whisky? Why did you end up getting involved in Nine Rivers Distillery?
Joy Tan: First and foremost, I love whisky. And I can see you do too.
[Editor’s note: Oops. Got caught trying to sneak a drink between questions.]
I especially love a good scotch, although I’ve got a foot in both camps because I love bourbon too. Second, it’s a very vibrant and burgeoning industry. Whisky has seen massive growth over the past few years.
We’re seeing all kinds of new startups popping up around the world. Truly artisanal shops that are doing some groundbreaking stuff with flavor and experience. At the same time, we’re seeing larger, more traditional Scotch distilleries start to reinvent themselves. Distilleries Brora and Rosebank are opening up their doors for business again, and of course we have Port Ellen due to reopen next year.
The demand is there, and China especially is an untapped, eager market for whisky. Chinese consumers are growing more sophisticated by the day. So when Jay approached me about bringing some of my experience to the project, I jumped at the opportunity.
I’m glad you mentioned Jay. Because, seriously, why Jay of all people? I can’t join the dots. How on earth did you end up in his mad, mad world?
Joy Tan: (Laughs) Yeah, craaaaazy Jay. I originally met him years ago, back when Nine Rivers was still a concept and very much in the early stages. We were introduced by an old colleague of mine in Shenzhen. One night we were chatting over drinks and Jay started talking about this project he was working on.
He said he was working with a group of whisky lovers across China to start their own distillery. It was a grassroots approach. At the time, he was building up this whisky community across China through one of his other projects, Oak and Barley. It brings whisky enthusiasts together in different cities, combining their love of whisky with professional networking.
These whisky networking events always had a ton of diversity. Men, women, people from China, North and South America, Africa, Europe. Everywhere. There were older people and younger people, and people from all walks of life: engineers, teachers, architects, writers, designers, even shoemakers. All brought together by a common love for whisky. It sounded like an awesome group.
Jay’s dream was to put China on the international whisky map, and he wanted to do it together with this community by making them co-founders, investors, and ambassadors. There was no shortage of talent; they all brought their expertise to the table through focusing on one thing: making incredible whisky.
The idea of a grassroots distillery in China was interesting, but what really stood out to me was his ideas on technology in the whisky industry.
A lot of people might not know this, but prior to his alcohol import business in China, and his adventures in Africa, Jay was a real nerd. We’re talking old-school computer programming, networks, infrastructure – that kind of nerd. Even in Africa he was out there helping remote villages get internet access through satellite, so technology has always been a part of what he has done over the years.
When we met, he was throwing around ideas about using technology to revamp areas ranging from production and brand protection to customer engagement. Not only to create better whisky, but also to create a better overall whisky experience. It was right up my alley.
Needless to say, we stayed in touch. And last year, when Jay noticed that I’d moved on from my previous role to do consulting work, he reached out. We started talking formally at the start of 2022, and well, here I am.
Can you talk a little about what the public can expect regarding technology and Nine Rivers Distillery?
Joy Tan: Absolutely. I can’t share all of our secrets just yet, but there are a few things that make this project uniquely awesome.
Currently, whisky is a relatively untouched industry when it comes to tech. In terms of distilling itself, nothing has really changed for the past 200 years except the tendency to lean towards profitability over consumer experience.
Don’t get me wrong, that’s a good thing. In a lot of ways, whisky is about tradition. There’s a reason why traditions become traditions in the first place, and that’s because they produce good results.
At Nine Rivers, we want to use technology to build on those traditions. We can protect the good parts and see if we can do better in other parts, such as environmental impact, production quality (like flavors and aromas), and customer engagement.
That’s where technology really shines. For example, you know those big copper onion or lantern-shaped stills you see in distilleries? They are quite wasteful when it comes to energy use. You need to heat them up super hot, and then cool them back down for emptying and cleaning. All of that energy is just lost in between. There is some partial energy recovery that happens with heat exchangers, but most distilleries still end up wasting most of that energy.
Nine Rivers Distillery is going to use it. To start with, we’re using renewable energy as our primary heat source. We will use air source heat pumps. Additionally, we have designed and patented a more efficient way to use heat exchangers on our stills. Current projections show that we can meet about 70% to 80% of our energy needs with renewable and recovered energy. This is huge. So much so that we patented it and the patent has been granted.
That all sounds great. Obviously we need to protect the natural environment because, well, if you don’t have good natural resources, you can’t have good whisky. But if we take a step back, what about me as a consumer? You mentioned product quality, and you mentioned customer engagement. What is Nine Rivers doing with technology that will directly benefit me as a consumer of whisky?
Joy Tan: Essentially three things: We will use digital technology to make whisky in a more sustainable way, to make whisky better, and to improve the overall “whisky experience.”
For example, we are setting up connected systems to monitor all aspects of the mashing and fermenting process. Sure, these exist in general terms, but not to the precision and accuracy that we will use. I’m talking about three-second time slices on data sampling.
We will be taking a “big data” approach to every single aspect of production and then modelling this against all of the environmental data so we can leverage renewable energies – not just at the most optimal time to harvest energy, but also in consideration of the tradeoffs that we have to accommodate. For example, a hot day might give us more renewable energy from air source heat pumps, but we would then also have challenges with chillers on fermentors and condensers on stills.
That’s the sustainability aspect. As a consumer, you probably won’t really “feel” that directly, but to tech nerds like me and Jay, this gets us excited. And like you said, protecting the environment also protects our product.
We can also use this big data approach and create data models that will help us maintain strict consistency in the production of our milling, mashing, and fermenting, which means reliable consistency in the quality of the final product. For example, wood management, like everything about our casks, can be managed with the same technology-driven approaches.
That means better whisky. And you will definitely be able to taste and feel that.
As for the better overall experience you asked about, we have several plans in the works. Joy Tan
Take that whisky glass you keep trying to hide from me. I don’t know how you got your hands on one of the prototypes before I did. That’s totally not cool, and I’m definitely going to yell at Jay for that. (Laughs)
As someone who was part of the team that designed those, though, you know first hand how much technology went into creating what I can only describe as a work of whisky art. We are making a very conscious effort to provide people with a product and experience that make the most of technology to amplify tradition.
For example, we have plans to incorporate augmented reality in the distillery itself. When people visit, they will be able to engage more closely with what we’re doing, understand our end-to-end processes, why we do things the way we do, and interact with the distillery around them in a more immersive way.
We also have our own “grain to glass” technology that tracks the entire product lifecycle. Every bottle will have its own NFC chip, which means that when someone taps their phone on our product they can see everything about that bottle. This includes the farm where the barley was grown, the specific production process, the aging of the whisky, and everywhere the bottle has physically been.
Of course, technology will play a role even when we aren’t producing. We’ve got a lot in the works. Over the next few months, we’ll be releasing some really interesting technology-driven experiences. Joy Tan
Right now we’re working on something called “Project X.” We think it’s going to be a first for the whisky industry, and we’re pretty confident it will make all players take note of what Nine Rivers is doing. I dropped a little hint in there if you’re paying attention!
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