We think are many special things about our project – but right up there at the top of the list is being the catalyst for a wedding between two of our investors…..kinda.
Let’s start by introducing the happy couple. Meet Anastasiia from Donetsk in Ukraine and Alessandro from Padova in Italy.
Shenzhen Whisky Networking
The tie in to Nine Rivers Distillery comes in the form of their first official date, which was on Saturday 6th March 2021 at a Shenzhen Whisky Networking. For those that don’t know, Nine Rivers Distillery was pretty much born out of Shenzhen Whisky Networking (and a few other Whisky Networking events all over China).
Shenzhen was the first whisky event that we all started together, originally hosted by The Grey Haired Monster when it used to be held down some dodgy looking backstreet in Huaxiangbei (华强北), a subdistrict of Futian in Shenzhen.
Skip forward to 2021, the Grey Haired Monster had moved to an on site dormitory in Da Chi, in Longyan to start digging holes and building things, and the night was taken over by the legendary Danny Lyons. Danny tried a few different venues and on the night of Saturday 6th March it was hosted at Champs Bar, in the Shangri-La hotel in Luo Hu district of Shenzhen.
Anastasiia
Starting with Anastasiia, in her own words:
I originally came to China in 2015 as a fashion designer. My background was broadly in design in general but fashion is something that interested me the most and the area where I believed there to be much more freedom for creativity.
Graphic design and branding has aspects where one can be creative, but more often than not, you’re still hindered by the opinions and preconceptions of clients. In many scenarios, clients typically have a mental image of where they see their company or their brand, and as a designer, you simply have to take their thoughts and put them into visuals. On the rare occasions you would be given complete creative freedom, it would almost always end up with a design process that completes a full circle and goes back to pretty much what the client thought of in the first place – even if those ideas were complete out of date and trend.
With fashion design it really is a blank canvas and (almost) anything goes. Sure, there are constraints around ensuring that designs are both realistic to create and can fit within a market appealing price point, but that just increases the challenges, which actually make fashion design much more interesting.
Alessandro and I met randomly at a coffee shop in Guangzhou, and then had our first official date over whisky, and the rest is history – we had our wedding in 2021 and here we are now.
Alessandro
I first started coming to China back in 2012, and moved here full time in 2018. My background is mostly within the construction industry and I used to supply high-end construction materials to China. The demand for premium and ultra premium building materials was growing faster than any other market I was involved in, so I decided to move to China and setup my own company with my business partner, to import and distribute sintered stone from Italy.
Looking back on that decision and considering the last few years, it was a huge gamble for me to take at the time. I pretty much invested everything I had, and of course I’ve put in a huge amount of time and effort over the last 6 years. But I think I’ve developed the right relationships and I have some amazing distribution partners all over China. So the future is looking very positive.
It’s now the start of a family business. Anastasiia and I got married on December 6th 2021, and she joined the company in 2022, initially in a design role and as she got to understand the business, this role developed into running the marketing for the business. We had our first baby at the end of 2022 and we were blessed on 28th June 2024 with our second child. No doubt they will both end up joining the business after graduation!
Nine Rivers Distillery – Anastasiia
“I got involved in with Nine Rivers Distillery because I’d been introduced to whisky by Alessandro and got really interested in how whisky is crafted and how so many seemingly minor things can make such a massive difference to the final product. Grains, peating (or not), fermentation, types of stills and distillation methods, the cask types, and the length of maturity of the whisky. So many different possible combinations, I found it fascinating“
“I also wanted to be involved in the design aspects and have already been involved in some of the workstreams that go on behind the scenes. It gave me some new challenges to apply my design skills and experiences to a completely different industry. There are a few of us that are involved in Nine Rivers Distillery that have a design related background and we make a really good team. We all come from different design backgrounds so the diversity of experience and opinions really adds something special to the final results.”
Nine Rivers Distillery – Alessandro
“Getting involved in Nine Rivers Distillery just seemed more like a fateful event for us both. With our first date being at one of the events that underpins Nine Rivers Distillery (which was a catalyst for our interest in whisky) and with us both being friends with so many other people that are involved, it just seemed the logical and natural thing to be a part of.” wedding
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