We are thrilled to announce that we have joined forces with Liverpool and Wales legend Ian Rush MBE to launch NINE, a nine-year-old Welsh single malt whisky matured in Tawny port casks and personally selected by Rush himself.
The name draws its power from one number. Nine was the shirt Rush made famous at Anfield across a senior career that produced 892 appearances and 411 goals for Chester, Liverpool, Juventus, Leeds United, Newcastle United, Sheffield United, Wrexham and Sydney Olympic. At Liverpool alone he remains the club's record goalscorer with 346 goals in 660 appearances, a mark that has stood for more than three decades. For Wales, his 28 goals in 73 caps made him his country's record scorer for 25 years, from 1993 until Gareth Bale surpassed it in 2018. Two unmistakably Welsh names, one number: NINE brings them together.
The whisky itself is a nine-year-old Welsh single malt matured in Tawny port casks, at 43% ABV. Rush was involved from the start, travelling to Penderyn to taste his way through the casks and select the liquid that would carry his name. "I wasn't going to put my name on it unless I'd be happy pouring it for my family and friends," he said.
Where the name is drawn from football, the bottle is not. NINE is presented in a distinctive gold-finished bottle designed by threebrand in Leith, Edinburgh and is a deliberate departure from club or country colours, built instead as a standalone object with the sophistication of cinema and the glamour of a collector's piece. "I also wanted the bottle to look completely different," Rush said. "It's stylish and has a bit of glamour about it."
Stephen Davies, Chief Executive of Penderyn Distillery, said the partnership was a natural fit: "Ian Rush is a Welsh sporting icon and a genuine whisky man, which is exactly the combination we look for. Penderyn was built to demonstrate that Wales could produce world-class single malt whisky, while Ian's career took a young Welsh footballer from Flint to the very highest level of the European game. What makes NINE particularly special is Ian's involvement, this isn't simply his name placed on an existing bottle."
Rush was born in St Asaph, Denbighshire, and raised in Flint, making North Wales central to his story as much as it is to Penderyn's. The distillery's Llandudno site, housed in the Grade II listed former Old Board School, will be a focal point for launch activity alongside Chester and the wider North Wales and Merseyside corridor.
NINE launches this September at a recommended retail price of £55 for a 70cl bottle.