Neil Playfoot joins Nine Rivers Distillery

[Longyan, China, December 01, 2022] Nine Rivers Distillery today announced that Neil Playfoot, a brewing expert with more than 27 years experience in brewing and fermentation, will be joining as Master Brewer and Advisor to the Board of Directors.

"Fermentation of malt and grains is now (finally) becoming as important to modern whisky crafting as it has been to craft beer for the last few decades." said Playfoot. "I really admire the fact that Nine Rivers Distillery are taking a wholistic approach to creating better whisky, and ensuring that the very best inputs go into every stage of the whisky production cycle. So many distillers see fermentation as an arbitrary process without any consideration for how much depth in aromas and flavours can be created by malts, grains, the roasting process and the types of yeasts used. "

Nine Rivers Distillery officially broke ground in February 2022. It's a fully crowdfunded, grassroots project with a 17,000 square-meter site in the mountains of Longyan, scheduled to begin producing spirits in the second quarter of 2023.

"Nine Rivers Distillery have some real challenges ahead," continued Playfoot. "It's just so easy to follow the examples of everyone else in the whisky industry and play it safe. Experimentation, to create new and distinctive whiskies, is a huge investment of time and money. The final result can't be assessed for years due to how long it takes to mature whiskies in oak barrels. But that's the fantastic thing about being part of a project owned and led by whisky lovers - we all know and accept its going to take time.

Jay Robertson, CEO of Nine Rivers Distillery, said: "Neil really is a brewing and fermentation geek. He was brewing craft beer in Fulham in London back in 1995, which is where our paths originally crossed. Neil has now been over here in China for the last decade and has been involved in the background of our project since the early days, before we even had a name! When it came to appointing our Master Brewer, there was only ever one name on the list.".

Neil has a pedigree of brewing that spans the globe. Neil has been based in the UK, France, Bermuda, Armenia, and China, while remotely consulting on brewing projects across another 22 countries over the last 27 years. From brew pubs and micro breweries, right up to working with some of the big multinational beer producers, Neil brings a wealth of experience to Nine Rivers Distillery, all of which will help shape and define the Nine Rivers Distillery product portfolio.

CONTACT DETAILS

Phil Stout (phil.stout@nineriversdistillery.com)
Nine Rivers Distillery Company Limited
福建省龙岩市新罗区大池镇龙池路266号
266#, LongChi Road, DaChi Town, XinLuo District, FuJian Province, China.

ABOUT NINE RIVERS DISTILLERY

We are a group of whisky enthusiasts who came together in 2017 to craft better whiskies by marrying tradition with technology to improve on the largely generic and industrial approach that has taken over the world's whisky industry.

On February 18, 2022, we broke ground on our 17,238 square-meter site in the mountains of Longyan, Fujian Province, and will begin production in Q2 2023.

Nine Rivers Distillery is entirely crowdfunded by whisky enthusiasts, with more than 200 founders from 25 different countries, and we are currently in the process of broader Series A funding.

This release was published on openPR.