A new ‘whisky embassy’ has been created by UK branders Love, working with design practice Asylum, for the burgeoning and discriminating Chinese palate for a wee dram

Client: Diageo
Design: LOVE, Asylum
Size: 400 sq m
Completion time: Six months

With rapid economic growth and with more billionaires than any other country except the USA (according to Forbes), China has developed a taste for the high life. Luxury liquor, and especially fine whisky, has grown in popularity, but drinks company Diageo, which owns premium Scotch brand Johnnie Walker, felt that Chinese consumers could do with a few pointers when it comes to the best way to enjoy a wee dram.

‘They tend to drink it mixed with green tea, which isn’t necessarily the best way to appreciate the more premium blends,’ says Christian Myers, of Manchester-based Love, the creative agency behind a new Johnnie Walker-themed ‘whisky embassy’ in Shanghai.

The idea is that Diageo will hand-pick people from the upper echelons of Shanghai society and invite them to come and learn about Johnnie Walker whisky. The company hopes they will become ‘brand advocates’ who will in turn pass on their knowledge of whisky to friends and associates.

Originally founded as a branding agency, Love is more used to designing in 2D, but recent collaborations with specialist retail design practice Checkland Kindleysides have seen it move towards interior design. For the whisky embassy, Love collaborated with Singapore-based interior design practice Asylum to create a scheme whose every detail was inspired by the whisky production process.

‘Every single material and element in the space has a connection with whisky,’ says Myers, who began the design process with a visit to the Johnnie Walker distillery in Speyside in the Scottish Highlands. ‘It was a fascinating place,’ he says, ‘like something out of another world.’

In the ground floor reception of the embassy, Love and Asylum represented the purity and simplicity of the raw ingredients – water and barley – that are used to make whisky. One wall has a waterfall lit by fibre optics, while another is decorated with barley set in resin and then covered with glass. The wall behind the reception desk is made of peat brick (peat was traditionally used to fire the kilns in which the barley was dried), and copper pendant lights above the reception desk reference the traditional copper stills.

The stills also inspired a copper installation called The Art of Distillation, which represents the whisky-making process and is part educational exhibit and part artwork. Floors throughout the building are in oak, a reference to the oak barrels in which the whisky is aged, and the upper floors have panels of oak set at a 24-degree angle to mirror the angle of the Johnnie Walker label.

Only the ground floor of the four-storey colonial house is open to the public; the rest of it is reserved for VIPs who, as they move up through the building, become further immersed in the Johnnie Walker story. On the third floor, the ‘blending room’ gives visitors a chance to learn about – and taste – some if the fine whiskies. Guests sit around a barrel-shaped ‘multimedia table’ on stools made of whisky casks. The table has a internal projector and a tinted glass top, and displays images and plays audio tracks designed to evoke the unique characteristics of each whisky being tasted.

The top floor has a bar where visitors can put their newfound knowledge into practice. Here too every inch of the decor has been inspired by whisky. An undulating ceiling is covered with 4,000 whisky tumblers (plastic, sadly, for safety reasons) with each one is individually lit by LEDs, while 10 Decanterlamps by Lee Broom hang above a bar made of solid metal with an oak casing and a copper front.

Myers says that the scheme, with its artful blend of interior design and branding, would not have been possible without the fruitful collaboration of the two agencies. ‘Many of details in this scheme go beyond traditional interior design,’ he says, ‘and the client wanted something conceptual that would also look premium and up-market.’ The brief, he says, was to create ‘the most premium place to drink whisky in Shanghai’.

The result, thanks to Love’s branding expertise and Asylum’s background in interior design, is a unique interior that’s heady with the spirit of the drink.