Indian liquor industry moves towards spirits made from authentic source materials
The smell of Desmondji's Pure Cane is heavy, sweet and slightly rancid, like the deteriorating debris of a sugar-cane juice vendor's stall. Which is pretty accurate since this colourless spirit is distilled from fermented sugarcane juice.
It is not rum, which is made from molasses, but like Brazilian cachaca or Caribbean rhum agricole, both fiery spirits made straight from sugarcane. For a country that grows so much sugarcane, this is strangely the first spirit made directly from it - legal and above board, that it is.
Pure Cane, which has just been launched by the Goa-based Desmondji, is also an example of a new trend in the Indian spirits industry - the move towards spirits made from authentic source materials, in traditional ways.
This is counter to the way the oddly named Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) category was conceived in the past. These were made by flavouring and colouring extra neutral alcohol that was derived from molasses, cheaply available as a by-product of sugar manufacture. Nearly all Indian versions of whisky,brandy, gin, vodka were originally made from molasses.
Second After Agave Spirit
Which meant that by international standards, Indian whisky was not really whisky, since real whisky had to be made from malted grains. It was, at best, a strange kind of rum, which is the one spirit really made from molasses. Pure Cane is, in fact, the second authentic spirit that the company has launched, after it started with Agave Spirit, made from the same base of a cactus-like succulent that is used to make Mexican tequila.
The company cannot call its spirit tequila since that term is exclusive to the spirit made in Mexico - and fiercely defended by them. But it is made from the same blue agave plants, grown in the Deccan, and made into spirit in the company's distillery in Andhra Pradesh.
Originally from the drier regions of Mexico and Southern USA, and possibly imported into India for ornamental purposes, agave now grows wild in the similar conditions of the Deccan. Nazareth set up his distillery in AP, partly because he was able to obtain a licence there, and also because it was close to the growing areas. The spirit is made there, but bottled in Goa.Desmondji's agave spirit has been very well received, and has got him international attention, including from Mexico.
He also makes an orange liqueur, from ENA, but flavoured with Nagpur oranges - "so we could offer Indian versions of all the ingredients for margaritas," he laughs. This success whetted his appetite for other authentic spirits, and a cachaca-like drink was an obvious choice. People were more aware of it thanks to the popularity of drinks like caiprinhas (lime, sugar and cachaca, like a knock-out nimbu-pani) and sugarcane was easily available. "And with the World Cup and Rio Olympics coming up, all things Brazilian will be very popular, so why not be ready with something appropriate?" he says.
But the real pioneer for authentic spirits in India isKarnataka-basedAmrut Distilleries. Established in 1948, the company was a regular IMFL producer with brands like Amrut Prestige Whisky, Silver-Cup Brandyand Blue-Star Gin, all made the regular way. ButNeelakantaRaoJagdale, CMD, Amrut explains that in the mid-'80s, they started making whisky from malted grains: "We wanted to enhance the quality of whiskies we were already producing by blending with malt spirit." Others were doing this too, to create more premium blends, but they were mostly buying from abroad, butAmrut felt that doing it themselves would give them better control over supplies.
Structural and regulatory changes in the liquor industry would encourage this trend. Jagdale explains that even the use of ENA was a step up from the molasses derived rectified spirit that was originally used for IMFL (now you know why drinking in the '70s really left you with a hangover!) The problem with switching to grain was simply that enough extra grain was not available in those days of food shortages.
"The country's own sufficiency in grain production from 2000 gave a fillip to grain alcohol production," he says. "Technology upgradation by plant manufacturers likePrajBSE -5.08 % has also aided in bringing grain alcohol as a future substitute for potable alcohol purposes."
By then IMFL makers also had a potent motivator to upgrading. The entry of liquor multinationals, touting their products as more authentic than IMFL and attractive to increasingly affluent consumers, was a strong sign of where the future lay. Indian companies could either upgrade and build brand equity, or find themselves relegated to the lower end of the market. In the liquor business, such mass market sales are usually tied to government agencies in different states, and it is a notoriously cut-throat and corrupt business.
Manufacturers who wanted to move beyond this had to go up-market, and that increasingly was going to mean authentic. For a giant like Vijay Mallya's UB Group, this could be done by purchasing foreign liquor companies, like Whyte & Mackay which it acquired in 2007. Amrut took the more audacious strategy - instead of buying the Scots, it would beat them at its own game. Not only would it give them their own stocks of malt spirit, it would enhance the overall image of all the company's products. "There is no doubt that this image will have a cascading effect on our other brands," says Jagdale.
The story has already been told in ET how Amrut Fusion Single Malt was ranked number three in the 2010edition of Jim Murray's Whisky Bible, an internationally recognised source of information. Jagdale says that they purposely chose to launch first in Scotland and prove themselves there: "Its launch subsequently in India was in fact in response to widespread and popular demand from within the country."
Amrut has been using this success in two ways. First, it has been upgrading its semi-premium products, like the MaQintosh Silver Limited Edition blended malt whisky it recently launched, which uses some of the same malt spirits that go into Amrut Fusion. And it has also extended its premium expertise to rum, with the launch of Two Indies Rum, which is priced at Rs720 per bottle, putting it among the top in the Indian rum category. Jagdale explains that it has taken four years to develop this rum which brings together Indian and Caribbean(West Indies) styles of rum into a unique product. (Amrut also makes Bejois brandies which it says contain a large percentage of matured grape brandy).
Jagdale notes that grain availability can still be a problem in some states. Allowing grains to be used for alcohol is an emotive subject in a country where many still go hungry and alcohol has an ambivalent reputation. This is one problem that Nazareth saysDesmondji won't face, since their licences are for non-grain alcohol, and as he has shown with agave and cane spirits, there are plenty of options out there.
He has also chosen spirits that are often drunk young so the issues of ageing need not come up, unless he wants to develop a reserve blend to be sold at a premium. Desmondji's main problem is distribution. Alcohol sales are a state subject, and each state has its own, often absurd requirements and taxes, many of them designed to protect politically well-connected local liquor companies.
"I have got so many offers to export our products to places like Canada," says Nazareth. "But we can't handle that - somewhere like Sri Lanka might be the most we could go too." But in any case, he doesn't need global sales when he has a domestic market that is increasingly interested in authentic spirits. And producers are interested too - another company we spoke to for this story isn't willing to be identified yet, but is already testing premium gin and vodka made from grain spirit. Those days of Indian rum drinkers looking down on other IMFL may soon be really numbered thanks to the authentic alcohol revolution let loose by Amrut and Desmondji.
Source : VIKRAM DOCTOR,ET BUREAU
IN HIGH SPIRITS: Desmondji’s Desmond Nazareth
The smell of Desmondji's Pure Cane is heavy, sweet and slightly rancid, like the deteriorating debris of a sugar-cane juice vendor's stall. Which is pretty accurate since this colourless spirit is distilled from fermented sugarcane juice.
It is not rum, which is made from molasses, but like Brazilian cachaca or Caribbean rhum agricole, both fiery spirits made straight from sugarcane. For a country that grows so much sugarcane, this is strangely the first spirit made directly from it - legal and above board, that it is.
Pure Cane, which has just been launched by the Goa-based Desmondji, is also an example of a new trend in the Indian spirits industry - the move towards spirits made from authentic source materials, in traditional ways.
This is counter to the way the oddly named Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) category was conceived in the past. These were made by flavouring and colouring extra neutral alcohol that was derived from molasses, cheaply available as a by-product of sugar manufacture. Nearly all Indian versions of whisky,brandy, gin, vodka were originally made from molasses.
Second After Agave Spirit
Which meant that by international standards, Indian whisky was not really whisky, since real whisky had to be made from malted grains. It was, at best, a strange kind of rum, which is the one spirit really made from molasses. Pure Cane is, in fact, the second authentic spirit that the company has launched, after it started with Agave Spirit, made from the same base of a cactus-like succulent that is used to make Mexican tequila.
The company cannot call its spirit tequila since that term is exclusive to the spirit made in Mexico - and fiercely defended by them. But it is made from the same blue agave plants, grown in the Deccan, and made into spirit in the company's distillery in Andhra Pradesh.
Originally from the drier regions of Mexico and Southern USA, and possibly imported into India for ornamental purposes, agave now grows wild in the similar conditions of the Deccan. Nazareth set up his distillery in AP, partly because he was able to obtain a licence there, and also because it was close to the growing areas. The spirit is made there, but bottled in Goa.Desmondji's agave spirit has been very well received, and has got him international attention, including from Mexico.
He also makes an orange liqueur, from ENA, but flavoured with Nagpur oranges - "so we could offer Indian versions of all the ingredients for margaritas," he laughs. This success whetted his appetite for other authentic spirits, and a cachaca-like drink was an obvious choice. People were more aware of it thanks to the popularity of drinks like caiprinhas (lime, sugar and cachaca, like a knock-out nimbu-pani) and sugarcane was easily available. "And with the World Cup and Rio Olympics coming up, all things Brazilian will be very popular, so why not be ready with something appropriate?" he says.
But the real pioneer for authentic spirits in India isKarnataka-basedAmrut Distilleries. Established in 1948, the company was a regular IMFL producer with brands like Amrut Prestige Whisky, Silver-Cup Brandyand Blue-Star Gin, all made the regular way. ButNeelakantaRaoJagdale, CMD, Amrut explains that in the mid-'80s, they started making whisky from malted grains: "We wanted to enhance the quality of whiskies we were already producing by blending with malt spirit." Others were doing this too, to create more premium blends, but they were mostly buying from abroad, butAmrut felt that doing it themselves would give them better control over supplies.
Structural and regulatory changes in the liquor industry would encourage this trend. Jagdale explains that even the use of ENA was a step up from the molasses derived rectified spirit that was originally used for IMFL (now you know why drinking in the '70s really left you with a hangover!) The problem with switching to grain was simply that enough extra grain was not available in those days of food shortages.
"The country's own sufficiency in grain production from 2000 gave a fillip to grain alcohol production," he says. "Technology upgradation by plant manufacturers likePrajBSE -5.08 % has also aided in bringing grain alcohol as a future substitute for potable alcohol purposes."
By then IMFL makers also had a potent motivator to upgrading. The entry of liquor multinationals, touting their products as more authentic than IMFL and attractive to increasingly affluent consumers, was a strong sign of where the future lay. Indian companies could either upgrade and build brand equity, or find themselves relegated to the lower end of the market. In the liquor business, such mass market sales are usually tied to government agencies in different states, and it is a notoriously cut-throat and corrupt business.
Manufacturers who wanted to move beyond this had to go up-market, and that increasingly was going to mean authentic. For a giant like Vijay Mallya's UB Group, this could be done by purchasing foreign liquor companies, like Whyte & Mackay which it acquired in 2007. Amrut took the more audacious strategy - instead of buying the Scots, it would beat them at its own game. Not only would it give them their own stocks of malt spirit, it would enhance the overall image of all the company's products. "There is no doubt that this image will have a cascading effect on our other brands," says Jagdale.
The story has already been told in ET how Amrut Fusion Single Malt was ranked number three in the 2010edition of Jim Murray's Whisky Bible, an internationally recognised source of information. Jagdale says that they purposely chose to launch first in Scotland and prove themselves there: "Its launch subsequently in India was in fact in response to widespread and popular demand from within the country."
Amrut has been using this success in two ways. First, it has been upgrading its semi-premium products, like the MaQintosh Silver Limited Edition blended malt whisky it recently launched, which uses some of the same malt spirits that go into Amrut Fusion. And it has also extended its premium expertise to rum, with the launch of Two Indies Rum, which is priced at Rs720 per bottle, putting it among the top in the Indian rum category. Jagdale explains that it has taken four years to develop this rum which brings together Indian and Caribbean(West Indies) styles of rum into a unique product. (Amrut also makes Bejois brandies which it says contain a large percentage of matured grape brandy).
Jagdale notes that grain availability can still be a problem in some states. Allowing grains to be used for alcohol is an emotive subject in a country where many still go hungry and alcohol has an ambivalent reputation. This is one problem that Nazareth saysDesmondji won't face, since their licences are for non-grain alcohol, and as he has shown with agave and cane spirits, there are plenty of options out there.
He has also chosen spirits that are often drunk young so the issues of ageing need not come up, unless he wants to develop a reserve blend to be sold at a premium. Desmondji's main problem is distribution. Alcohol sales are a state subject, and each state has its own, often absurd requirements and taxes, many of them designed to protect politically well-connected local liquor companies.
"I have got so many offers to export our products to places like Canada," says Nazareth. "But we can't handle that - somewhere like Sri Lanka might be the most we could go too." But in any case, he doesn't need global sales when he has a domestic market that is increasingly interested in authentic spirits. And producers are interested too - another company we spoke to for this story isn't willing to be identified yet, but is already testing premium gin and vodka made from grain spirit. Those days of Indian rum drinkers looking down on other IMFL may soon be really numbered thanks to the authentic alcohol revolution let loose by Amrut and Desmondji.
Source : VIKRAM DOCTOR,ET BUREAU
