[BITList] Rejoice, You Tipplers of Fine Whiskeys!!

[John Feltham]

 From a contributor...



NEW DELHI — A funny thing happened while Scottish whiskey makers were  
fighting to pry open India's tightly controlled, protectionist liquor  
market: A mass market Indian booze maker in Bangalore decided to  
develop its own premium, small-batch single malt — and launch it  
worldwide.

What's more, the stuff is pretty darned good.

Indian owned and operated Amrut Distilleries has been distilling malt  
whiskey since the early 1980s, because India's excise laws prevented  
it from sourcing it abroad, and the company needed malt to mix with  
molasses-based alcohol to produce what's known in the trade as “Indian  
whiskey.”

As Indian consumers grew more sophisticated, though, the company  
started aging its malts longer and longer. And then one day, the  
patriarch of the family-owned business, chairman Neelakanta Rao  
Jagdale, pulled the trigger. “It was around '98 or '99, when we had  
enough [quantity] of matured malt whisky, that we thought, 'Why can't  
we look at the possibility of producing our own single malt?'” Jagdale  
said in a telephone interview with GlobalPost.

Drawing on the expertise of Scottish consultants and a large network  
of professional tasters, the company spent the next four years  
developing its first single malt, and another two years developing a  
marketing plan. The first bottles hit shelves in the United Kingdom in  
2004 with little fanfare. But over time, the Indian distillery — which  
produces nearly a million cases of mid-range Indian whiskey for every  
case of single malt — has slowly been collecting accolades. So far, it  
has won silver and bronze medals at the International Wine and Spirits  
Competition, at the Wine & Spirits Magazine International Spirits  
Challenge, and last year its Blackadder single malt was awarded the  
top prize in the sub-50 euros categories by Malt Maniacs.

Frankly, nobody was more surprised than the Indians. “Being an Indian  
and having tasted only molasses-based Indian whiskies for decades, you  
normally scoff when somebody says that India has produced a decent  
dram,” said Krishna Nukala, a Hyderabad resident who has rated more  
than 1,000 single malts from Scotland, Japan and other countries as a  
member of Malt Maniacs. “[But] Amrut's whiskey is as good as any SMSW  
(single malt Scotch whiskey) that is produced any where in the world.”

And like Japanese Scotch makers, Amrut is succeeding. “Currently we  
are selling in the UK, where we have our global office, as well as in  
France, Germany, Belgium, a little bit of Italy and Holland as well,”  
Jagdale said. “The only major market that we have yet to enter is the  
United States.”

And India.

It may sound weird, but Amrut's single malts are only for export.  
That's because India has to be the strangest liquor market in the  
world. Due in part to the famous “Patiala peg” (the frightening large  
serving favored in the Punjab), India is the globe's biggest whiskey  
consumer — downing about 90 million cases a year. But that doesn't  
mean it always goes down smooth. Thanks to Gandhi's ideas on  
prohibition, booze is banned in Gujarat and attracts punitive taxes in  
other states. The sugar lobby has ensured that traditional tipples  
(a.k.a. “country liquor”) remain illegal. And though the premium  
market segment is growing fast, ludicrously high taxes on imported  
spirits still ensure that so-called Indian-Made Foreign Liquor — the  
locally produced, molasses-based, artificially flavored versions of  
vodka, gin and whiskey known in these parts as IMFL — remains the  
unrivaled king of the hill.

Now, that looks set to change. Scotch exports to India rose 19 percent  
to a value of £7 million in 2008, according to Scotch Whiskey  
Association estimates, even though genuine Scotch made up less than 1  
percent of India's spirits market and the association has approached  
the European Union about making an official complaint to the World  
Trade Organization over India's prohibitive taxes. Single malts, too,  
are on the rise. Forecasting near 50 percent growth rates in single  
malt consumption, Bacardi launched Dewar's White Lable, Dewar's 12,  
Dewar’s Signature, Aberfeldy 12 and Aberfeldy 21 in India last year,  
and there's plenty of competition.

“There's a lot of room for growth, because the alcohol industry itself  
is changing from lower quality spirits and country liquor to higher  
quality alcohols,” said Jagdale, who also revealed that Amrut plans to  
start selling its own single malts in India by the beginning of next  
year.

That said, the jury is still out on whether Amrut will be able to call  
its single malts and other whiskeys “Scotch.” Last year, under  
pressure from the Scotch Whiskey Association, China agreed to prohibit  
any whiskey makers whose products are made outside of Scotland from  
calling their beverages Scotch, and a similar campaign is underway in  
India — which might be more amenable to the Scots' argument if its own  
claims on Basmati rice had been successful.

But to Jagdale, a malt by any other name, if it's a top-quality one  
that is, would smell as sweet.

“We are in the position to make high-quality malt whiskey which is  
equal and comparable to any malt whiskey in the world today,” he said.  
“Having been in the business so long — I am the second generation, and  
my son is the third generation — there is a bit of satisfaction that  
we all feel. I feel very happy that we are able to be in that class.”

Neelakanta Rao Jagdale


ooroo

Bad typists of the word, untie.




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