Description

If you find the whole subject of whisky a bit too baffling and would rather stick to some cheap blend in a bar, smothered in cola, then what you need is the Nine Rivers Apperception Whisky School.  An easy-going, learn at your own pace, approach to learning about whisky – what it is, how it’s made, where the flavours come from and why they are all so very different – so you can understand your own preferences to upgrade your life to something you’ll not only start enjoying but will finally get past the blasphemy of mixing your whisky with sugary junk.

What is the Nine Rivers Apperception Whisky School?

It’s an exciting new collaboration between Oak and Barley and Nine Rivers Distillery. A technology-driven platform that helps every day people learn more about whisky through apperception based learning – building up knowledge through experience and associations with existing experiences – an approach that we believe works really well with whisky as (with whisky being a very individual experience) everyone is unique, different, has their own tastes and has their own preferences.

We take NAWS students on a journey through whisky and whiskey allowing them to explore different whiskies, understand how those whiskies were crafted, what are the key influences that shape the smells and the tastes of whiskies.  At at the end of the journey, the NAWS students will have enough knowledge about whisky to allow them to be able to choose whisky styles that they are more likely to prefer and so increase their enjoyment of whiskies.

How does It work?

NAWS students subscribe to the NAWS programme and complete a simple registration process to profile their tastes, preferences and their existing knowledge about whisky.

Oak and Barley then send a parcel of individual whiskies to the NAWS student that is drawn from a pool of 120 whiskies. Based on their individual profile there will be some whiskies that our analysis suggests that the NAWS student will definitely enjoy. There will also be some whiskies that will help the NAWS student to understand whisky in a broader sense – the main styles of whisky, the effects of ageing, cask type, cask finishes and the peating process.

The NAWS student utilises the Nine Rivers Distillery smartphone app to activate one whisky each day. The smartphone app will provide a brief daily piece of education about whisky, coax the NAWS student through the tasting of the whisky, collect some opinions on the whisky, allow the NAWS student to guess what whisky it might be and then will tell the NAWS student what the whisky actually was. The NAWS student will then be able to read all about that whisky and the distillery that crafted it.

What’s With The Wooden Tree?

Normally, Oak and Barley release a Whisky Advent Calendar before each Christmas holiday.  The NAWS project also serves the same purpose – 24 whiskies for whisky lovers to try in the build-up to the Christmas holiday period.  The difference is that this year, for Christmas 2020, the whiskies come with an integrated and technology-driven whisky education experience, to help whisky enthusiasts to know more about whisky, and more importantly, understand what styles are best suited to their own individual tastes.

The Purpose

The primary purpose of NAWS is to help consumers learn more about whisky. We hope that with increased knowledge of whiskies will help the future customers of Nine Rivers Distillery appreciate the efforts we will go to in order to craft some unique signature whiskies for whisky lovers.

Additionally, the information that we collect about consumer preferences will help us to craft whiskies that will suit consumers on a more individual level.

The NAWS project will continue in perpetuity and evolve over time to build up a much richer understanding of consumer preferences in whisky and this will have a direct influence on the whiskies that will be crafted by Nine Rivers Distillery.

Other Benefits of NAWS

At the end of the course, each NAWS student receives an electronic certificate to show their participation in this journey through whisky and a recommended list of whiskies that are more likely to be enjoyed by the NAWS student.

Additionally, for participating, everyone gets a NAWS Student  Distillery Visitors Pass.  Not only can they come to the distillery for free, but they can also sample products that are available. The value on that ticket alone is likely to a substantial percentage of the overall cost of participating in the NAWS.

Finally, NAWS students will be giving opinions on 24 whiskies against 10 characteristics – each with 5 or 6 choices. A baseline will be created based on our in-house expert review of the same whiskies. Each answer will be given a points value and the consumer that has the closest points value to our baseline will be the “Golden Ticket Winner” of the entire event.

The winning prize would be a VIP Day at the distillery for the winner and 5 friends to come with them. That day will be closed to all other visitors – it is for the winner only and their friends.

They can get involved in the production process. Shovel some malt. Tip bins of grain into the mash tun. Flick some pumping switches to fill fermenters, flick some switches and fill a still. Switch a still on. Watch the spirit trickling through. Tastes some new make spirit fresh off the still. Fill a cask. Then come back in 3 years and hand fill their own bottle, which will be signed by the Master Distiller.

It will be a Whisky Jamboree Day – a once in a lifetime experience.

(There will be a tiebreaker question built into the experience in the off chance that there is one of more winners with the most points)

When Is It Happening?

1st October 2020 will be the official start date and the program will run through until 31st December 2020.  This gives everyone about 3 months to go through the program, read all of the material, sample all the whiskies that they were supplied and give go through all the questions.

How To Participate?

Pay your ¥500 below and someone from Oak and Barley will be in touch with you to arrange your user profiling questions and to have your profile-driven 24 whisky selection.

Any Questions?

If you have any questions about this exciting new way to learn about whisky, then please send an email to NAWS@nineriversdistillery.com