Camikara Rum is Rs 6,200 a bottle; Greater Than Broken Bat, Rs 1,450 in Goa; and Kurinji, Rs 5,999.
Amrut Kurinji
Back in October 2021, Amrut Distilleries made its foray into independent bottling with the Neidhal peated whisky. The term Neidhal is derived from Sangam literature, which classifies the earth into five regions called thinais, and refers to coastal regions. The whisky was procured by Amrut from a distillery on India’s southeastern coast, matured in bourbon casks and sold under its Single Malts of India umbrella.
Now, the Bangalore-based distillery is out with its second offering, Kurinji, which is sourced from the hills. The floral, fruity whisky is inspired by the purple-blue Kurinji flower that blooms once every 12 years — 2022 is one such year — in the Western Ghats. India will get 8,100 bottles out of the total production of 16,000 bottles. Select tasting sessions conduct by Amrut has evoked descriptions such as “opens with sweet floral wafts of jasmine and honeysuckle”; “glides through the palate with a syrupy texture, triggering mini explosions of spice along the way; and “warm ginger and white pepper finish”.
The whisky is priced at Rs 5,999.
Less than a year after it launched the multiple-award winning Indri whisky, the country’s first three-wood expression, Karnal-based Piccadily Distilleries is out with another first — Camikara, India’s first pure cane juice rum.
The rum has been matured for 12 years in American oak casks and is bottled at a strength of 50 percent ABV. According to Piccadily, Camikara, which means ‘liquid gold’ in Sanskrit, has no added colour, caramel, or flavours, and is a completely naturally aged rum. The limited-edition rum — India will get 400 bottles — will obviously be best enjoyed neat.
As limited edition cask-aged variants released earlier this year — from Pumori and Amrut — have shown, wood does interesting things to gin. While the Pumori gin was aged in American oak barrels and the Amrut Nilgiris was rested in ex-bourbon casks for about three months, Nao Spirits has kind of inverted the process by soaking wood in a vat of high-proof Greater Than gin.
More specifically, they used cricket bats made of Kashmir Willow. The bats, which were crowd-sourced — cracked or chipped wood was also sourced from a bat-maker in Kashmir — were shaved and cleaned before being dunked into the vat for about six weeks.
The "ode to India's love of cricket", says the company, tastes like "aged leather and fresh toasted wood" with a hint of mango and sweet juniper spice. The gin will soon be available in six states, including Goa and Maharashtra, and is priced at Rs 1,450 in Goa.
Entrepreneur Lalit Kalani's family once made rums — with formidable names such as Double Bull and He Man's — for the Armed Forces. Now, though, the focus of the family business is on small-batch spirits such the recently launched Rock Paper Rum. The two variants on offer include a triple-distilled golden Indian Spiced Rum and the Coastal White Rum, which, the company says, is woody and sweet, with hints of vanilla.
The rum, priced at Rs 1,500 (gold) and Rs 1,350 (white), is available in Mumbai, and will soon be available in Pune and Goa.
![Amrut Distilleries MD Rakshit Jagdale: "We did not anticipate the Indian market to be this big in terms of sales"](https://images.moneycontrol.com/static-mcnews/2022/06/Rakshit-Photo-MD.jpg?impolicy=website&width=168&height=118 "Amrut Distilleries MD Rakshit Jagdale: "We did not anticipate the Indian market to be this big in terms of sales"")
