MC Interview | Amrut Distilleries MD Rakshit Jagdale: Indian whisky is second to none today

Amrut Distilleries in Bengaluru was judged the Best Distillery of the Year - Asian Whisky at the Tokyo Whisky and Spirits Competition. (Image courtesy Amrut)

In a freewheeling conversation, Rakshit spoke to Moneycontrol about his earliest memories of Amrut, the business of Indian whiskies, and changing perceptions around Indian spirits. Edited excerpts:

Amrut Distilleries completing 76 years this year?

The distillery was established in 1948 by my grandfather, Mr Radhakrishna Jagdale, here in Bangalore. It began as a blending and bottling unit and then in 1950s we began to rectify rum. And in 1963, we entered the canteen stores department to supply our contact rum known as Amrut XXX Rum.

(1960 image courtesy Amrut Distilleries)

My father joined the family business in 1972. That is when he sort of pioneered the concept of premiumization; 1972 he joined, 1975, we began to distill grape brandy from a very popular varietal of grape known as Bangalore blue. And in 1979-80, if I remember correctly, we began to distill malt whisky. So both the brandy that we distilled and the malt whisky that we produced, we were maturing them for shorter periods of time—this was way back in early 1980s—mainly to use it in our blends.

Fast forward now to the mid '90s, post globalization, a lot of multinationals entered India. Seagrams, especially, entered with their brand called Royal Stag, which did exceedingly well. Then, we also wanted to follow suit. We began to introduce more lighter whiskeys into the Indian market.

(1960s image courtesy Amrut Distilleries)

So, when did you join the family business at Amrut?

I joined the family business in '99 and worked under my father for two years. And then the company sent me abroad to the University of New Newcastle upon Tyne in Northeast England to do my MBA. And it was actually there that the concept of marketing an Indian single malt whiskey was conceptualized. Actually, it was the brainchild of my father. Once you're through with the theory aspect, you have to complete the MBA curriculum with a thesis. It was a three- to four-month project that I had to do. My father called me one day and asked me, what would you like to do a project on? I was keen to do it on operations management. Then he said, no, no, no, why operations? Why don't you see if there's a scope for marketing an Indian single malt whisky within the Indian restaurant community in Great Britain? And I said, wow, that's a wonderful idea.

He said, I will send a few samples across, miniature samples. You can test the product in UK, in Scotland, in England and see if there's a market for a genuine Indian single malt whisky. So samples were imported into Great Britain and I did most of my survey and thesis in Newcastle where the university was located in the Midlands like Birmingham, Manchester and also in Scotland, especially in Glasgow. And the response was very encouraging.

I came back and presented the project to the board. It took a while for us to conform to the packaging standards of the European Union, and in 2004, precisely on August 24, 2004, Amrut launched India's first indigenously produced made in India, made in Bangalore (whisky) product in an Indian restaurant called Cafe India.

Rakshit Jagdale

So how did you score on that thesis?

(Laughs) I think we did quite well probably. The company board, the family went through the entire project and they said we must take it forward. And here we are 20 years later—we probably started a category which we did not know would do so exceedingly well globally and especially in India as well.

What is your earliest memory of visiting the family distillery?

That's a good one. I think my earliest memory was when we first opened our new distillery on Bangalore-Mysore Road. That was way back in 1987. After that, of course, I didn't visit until I finished my graduation when I was 21 and I joined the business when I was 21 as well. But, you know, being in the family business of distillers, you're exposed to the hearsay that goes around within (the industry), within the family itself. And I was keen to get into the family business and should say God has been kind.

(Image courtesy Amrut Distilleries)

What was your first taste of whisky?

My first taste of whisky was when I was 21. We had a family get-together. We have a premium whisky called Maqintosh. That was my first memory of tasting whisky, actually. My father was very firm, saying that you must earn and drink. You should not drink on your father's money, which was a philosophy that I completely agree with. So after 21, (I had my first drink) after a few months after I started earning, then he said, OK, you're now eligible. Yes, we enjoy alcohol but you should respect it at the same time and savour it responsibly—those were his words.

Now that we're on the topic of money, what is the Jagdale family's net worth? One estimate puts it at Rs 700 crore. Is it still around that mark?

To be honest, we haven't done a valuation exercise as far as the company is concerned and where do the brands stand and things like that. This is an exercise which we probably intend to do going forward. So at this point in time, it will be difficult for me to tell you exactly what could be the numbers until we do a thorough analysis, please.

At Amrut Distilleries in Bengaluru

What kind of volumes does Amrut sell in a year, across spirits?

All in all, we do about 5.5 million cases of the entire spirits category at Amrut starting from brands which are in the economy range. In our company's first (portfolio), we have Amrut Silver Cup brandy. We also have brands like Amrut XXX rum as I explained, which is the first rum that we launched from Amrut. So the entire spectrum, starting from the economy range going up to the luxury range and just not Amrut single malt whisky... We also have the Two Indies Rum, which is a luxury rum, and we have the Nilgiris distilled gin, which is also a luxury gin as well... the entire portfolio, we do about 5.5 million cases in that... We also have a brand called Amrut Amalgam, which is a pure malt whisky. And the luxury division itself, we are with this year, we will be closer to about 135,000 cases.

Out of which ninety, 93-95 percent of it is luxury whiskey; the Amalgam range as well as the single malt whiskey range.

So when you say luxury, can you give me a sense of how do you look at your market? What is your economy range and what is your luxury?

It basically depends on how much we recover what is known as an ex-distillery price (EDP). So our ex-distillery price in the economy range is roughly about Rs 500 to Rs 550 a case. If you move to the luxury segment, it goes up to about an average of about Rs 12,000 a case. So that is how we cover almost the entire gamut of the entire spirits. We have brands that are in the economy range, in the deluxe, the prestige, in the semi premium, premium and luxury division, luxury segment to say. So that's the variation, from Rs 500-550 to Rs 12,000 on an average per case.

Whisky stills at Amrut Distilleries

You mentioned that this is a made in India, made in Bangalore product. And with whiskey, we know that everything from the water you use to the climate it is aged in makes a difference. Can you tell me a little bit about the deliberation that happens when you're selecting ingredients for the whisky?

Amrut, starting from barley to bottle, is 100 percent Indian. We source our barley from northwest India; it comes from Punjab, Haryana and parts of Rajasthan as well. And it is malted somewhere around Delhi. The malted barley is transported to Bangalore where the distillery is located. The water comes from... we have deep well waters. The company has a farm which is about 7 kilometers from our distillery. We draw the borewell water, which is very, very nice. It's next to a lake and the water is of exceptionally good quality. So we are blessed by nature as far as the raw material ingredients is concerned: malted barley comes from northwest India, and water which is exceptionally good quality. Processing the entire thing - that's the milling, fermentation, distillation, then maturation and bottling - everything happens at our unit over here in Bangalore. So it's 100 percent Indian and, and we feel very proud about it.

There seems to be a change in perception around blended whiskeys now across the world. Japanese whiskeys, for example, there's a whole range of blended whiskeys. Is there still a perception that single malted whisky is better?

Yes, absolutely. To give a very simple analogy, my father would often do that, it (blended whisky) is something like wearing terrycot material for dressing. You know a 100 percent cotton dress is far more expensive than a blend with synthetic fabric like terrycot or terrywool. So single malt whiskey is considered as a Rolls Royce of the of the whisky category globally. There's nothing above a single malt whisky. Blend has a percentage of matured malt whisky in it - it depends on the distillery whether they want to add as low as 5 percent or can be as high as 50 percent (single malt). Whereas a single malt whisky is 100 percent whisky. You cannot blend it with anything. And there are certain there are certain criteria for calling it single malt. That's why it's very unique.

It has to be made from 100 percent malted barley as a cereal only you we cannot add any wheat in it. We cannot add any corn in it. It has to be matured for a minimum period of three years in Oakwood barrels with a capacity of 700 litres or less and it has to come from a single distillate. So these are the sort of criteria, and we have to tick all the boxes to ensure that we qualify for marketing it as a single malt whisky within the EU and within the United States as well.

Fermentation tanks (Image courtesy Amrut Distilleries)

You mentioned markets in EU and the US, are exports still the largest portion of where your revenue comes from?

Well, the Indian luxury division, not only for Amrut but for everybody, is doing exceedingly well. Indian single malt whiskeys are now competing on level terms with single malts from Japan, Scotland and Ireland as well. So the Indian single malt category is doing well.

So if you take a split, I would say today it is roughly around 60 percent (sales in) India and 40 percent overseas. That is the split, please, at the moment, yeah.

A lot has also changed in the industry in the last 15 years. It's become a little bit more crowded since you launched Amrit Fusion exactly 20 years ago this month. What can you tell me about the industry? What is it looking like within India and on a global scale? What is the perception around Indian whisky?

The perception around Indian whisky globally has increased phenomenally, globally as well as in India. No longer India is perceived as a low, as a what-to-say a cheap alcohol-producing nation, producing just maybe lower alcohol products like arrack or something else. We are known to produce world-class alcohol. It's not only whisky. Our gins globally are doing well. Of course, single malt whiskeys are doing exceedingly well. I think there's a there's a lot of scope and people globally and in India as well perceive Indian alcohol and even rums... Today Indian rums globally are doing exceedingly well. We have Two Indies Rum that is doing exceedingly well abroad.

Going forward, the concept of premiumization is here to stay and today we are second to none as far as quality of the single malt segment, as you may call it, that we are offering today globally, goes.

Whisky distillation in Amrut Distilleries.

How do you price Amrut Whiskeys? Some of them go up to Rs 20,000 a bottle.

If you look at a country like India, as you know alcohol is a federal subject. Each state has its own alcohol policy, and laws for regulating alcohol. So that being the case, though our ex-distillery price is more or less the same, maybe slightly higher in certain states, but in general it is the same across India. But because of the taxation, the maximum retail price, the consumer buying price changes. For example, take a city like Bangalore. In Karnataka, a brand like Amrut Fusion is available for Rs 4,400. The same product retails in Goa for about Rs 3,600, in Bombay for Rs 5,400 and in North India, whether it's Haryana or in or in Punjab, it retails at about Rs 3,200. So it's basically a state subject. And depending on what taxation the state levies on alcohol, it varies according to that, please.

How is the Indian alcobev the space looking to you right now? Is it looking more crowded now with more people coming into Indian whiskies, for example?

Oh yes, I mean after Amrut Fusion launched in 2004, Paul John followed suit, if I'm not mistaken, in 2010. Then Rampur came on board. Indri followed suit in '21-'22, if I'm correct. We also have Gianchand, another very good single malt whisky produced in Jammu in North India that's doing exceedingly well as well.

I think many (more) Indian distillers are going to jump on the single malt whisky bandwagon for sure over the next year or two. Certainly we are going to witness at least another five to seven more single malt whiskeys produced in India to hit the shelves, which is very interesting actually. We welcome that because the category is only going to grow. Our people will get exposed to drinking outstanding whiskeys coming in from India. So we welcome that actually. Yeah, it is getting crowded. But I think whether it's Amrut or Paul John or Indri or Rampur or Gianchand, we have set very high quality benchmarks. As long as our industry peers are able to (maintain that) benchmark quality that we have established, we welcome (the arrival of more players) and it's good to see Indian single malts doing well, not only in India but abroad as well.

Neelakanta Rao Jagdale at Amrut Distilleries.

It took some time for you to standardize and to organize around what Indian whisky really is, from ingredients to distilling and aging, etcetera. What are the next few challenges that you see for the industry?

The challenges that I see are on regulations. As you're aware, it's highly regulated industry. And I wish the Indian alcobev industry as a whole is able to convince lawmakers that the industry is not what it was say 15-20 years ago. It's completely changed now. And our laws also have to change with the times. We can't stick or hold on to very old archaic laws which were set up by the British way back before 1947. Many of the laws are 75-80 years old, and we still have them.

There has to be a more proactive approach from the industry as well as lawmakers to ensure that an industry today which contributes close to Rs3,00,000 crores in revenues, this I'm talking direct revenues, whether it's in the form of sales tax or whether it's in the form of excise duties. The lawmakers have to recognize that today we are an industry that's contributing a lot as far as taxation is concerned.

I think it's a process. I think proactively both the sides have to see how we can strengthen the alcobev industry in India, please.

Could you give an example of a law that you think needs to be changed?

Well, again, it varies from state to state. So I can't pinpoint and tell that this should be a specific thing, but I think laws in general (have to be updated). Industry has to lobby state wise and see that we move away from the old thinking pattern and the concept of trust has to come in.

Now, there is a massive trust deficit sadly that has been there for many decades as far as our industry is concerned. Industry has matured and grown out of that. So hopefully, going forward, things would be looked at from different lens altogether.

Radhakrishna Jagdale, founder, Amrut Distilleries.

We started on a personal note, which was your first visit to the distillery. Let's finish this interview on a personal note also. How do you like your whisky?

It (Amrut) is something very, very unique. Whether it's Amrut classic Indian single malt whisky or the Amrut Fusion, we feel proud that it's made in India, distilled in India, bottled in India and represents what we are able to offer globally.

So it's different. We don't want to compare ourselves to either Japanese or Scotch. Indian single malt whisky, Amrut especially, has its own uniqueness. People appreciate it for what we produce, what we stand for. And we are happy with that. And we would like to see that that particular concept grows globally going forward.

Excellent. So how do you like your whisky particularly? Is it neat? Is there ice in it? Is it a cocktail?

Generally, I would prefer a single malt whisky with a splash of water and definitely not on the cocktail side. We keep telling wherever we do tastings globally, please don't add any aerated drinks into especially a single malt whisky because world over, we make a single malt whisky with a lot of care. And please don't; it's sacrilegious to add aerated drinks into single malt whisky, but if you feel it, it's actually a personal choice. Some people like only ice, some people add soda and have a highball, some of them like it neat. So it's up to personal preference, please.

So the rule essentially is no Amrut and Coke, everything else is OK?

No Amrut and aerated drinks. Absolutely not!