Aaron Chan

Aaron Chan is a Hong Kong-based entrepreneur, collector, and whisky authority who has spent two decades building one of Asia's most respected platforms for rare and old-style Scotch whisky. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Chan studied at Stanford University and began his career as an investment banker before pivoting to the food and beverage industry, a transition that would ultimately lead him to become one of the most influential figures in the global whisky community.

In 2003, Chan opened Club Qing, a Cantonese fusion restaurant in the Lan Kwai Fong district of Central Hong Kong. By 2015, having accumulated a substantial personal collection of rare Scotch and Japanese whiskies, he transformed Club Qing into Hong Kong's first specialist whisky bar and independent bottler. The bar became internationally renowned for its collection of pre-1980s single malts, and Chan co-founded WhiskyNow!, a leading old-and-rare whisky festival in Hong Kong. In 2020, Chan made headlines when he auctioned a complete set of the legendary Hanyu Ichiro's Malt Poker Card Series — 54 bottles modelled on a standard deck of playing cards — at Bonhams for a record-breaking US$1.52 million.

Chan serves as Chairman of Kythe Distillery, a Perthshire single malt distillery he co-founded with Jonny McMillan and Angus MacRaild, two respected figures from the Berry Bros. & Rudd stable. Chan was, in his own words, the “missing link” in the project — providing the business experience and financial backing that allowed the founders to move from concept to construction. Kythe's philosophy mirrors Chan's own: efficiency is the enemy of character, and the world's greatest whiskies are built on time, heritage grain, and uncompromising craft.

Kythe Distillery completed construction in summer 2025 and raised £1.7 million ahead of its first production run. The distillery's approach — using locally grown heritage barley, two-week wooden washback fermentations, and Scotland's only commercially scaled direct-fire wash still — represents one of the most ideologically ambitious distilling projects in contemporary Scotch whisky. Chan leads the global investor network behind the distillery, which is funded entirely by whisky enthusiasts rather than institutional capital.