Focus: India's love of homegrown single malts shakes up Pernod, Diageo

Talisker Resources

18/12/2023 01:30

(Repeats Sunday story, no change to text)

        * 
      India's single malts reshaping $33 billion spirits market
    

        * 
      Pernod, Diageo launch Indian whiskies as local brands
expand
    

        * 
      Global awards, greater wealth, COVID curbs spur boom
    

  
    By Arpan  Chaturvedi, Aditi Shah and Aditya Kalra
       INDRI, India Dec 17 (Reuters) - Oak casks, once used to
store bourbon and wine, are stacking up in a distillery near New
Delhi, filled with ageing whisky as workers churn out almost
10,000 bottles a day of Indian single malt Indri, recently named
the world's best whisky.
    Sugarcane and mustard fields, not peat bogs, ring the
distillery, where the two-year-old Indian brand's owner
Piccadily is ramping up production and building a three-hole
golf course to lure connoisseurs and tipplers in the
whisky-loving nation.
    As India comes into its own as a maker, not just consumer,
of whisky, its single malts are reshaping the country's $33
billion spirits market.
    Established global brands such as Glenlivet, made by
France's Pernod Ricard  PERP.PA , and Talisker by Britain's
Diageo  DGE.L  fight for shelf space with local rivals Indri,
Amrut and Radico Khaitan's  RADC.NS  Rampur.
    Unlike many Asian countries where beer dominates alcohol
sales, India is predominantly a whisky-drinking nation. Global
awards, increased affluence and a mass of drinkers trying new
brands while cooped up during COVID-19 have rocked India's
whisky landscape, industry executives and analysts say.
    Aditya Prakash Rao for years drank foreign brands but now
increasingly buys Indian malts for himself and for gifts during
festive seasons. 
    Indian whisky gives Rao a sense of national pride - and goes
well with Indian food - the lawyer said. "Nothing beats Indian
malts in pairing with our kind of food, which is spicy. I love
it."
    Indri's $421 Diwali Collector's Edition won "Best in Show"
at the Whiskies of the World Awards blind tasting in San
Francisco in August, beating Scottish and U.S. rivals.
    In response to the drink-India trend, global brands that
have focussed on single malts aged in Scotland are looking to
Indian whiskies to tap the boom in one of the world's biggest
whisky markets.
    With Bollywood stars and Indian music, Pernod on Wednesday
uncorked its first made-in-India single malt, the $48 Longitude
77, with plans to expand sales to Dubai and then the rest of the
world.
    "We are extremely bullish about this category. It has seen
unprecedented growth," said Kartik Mohindra, Pernod India's
chief marketing officer.
    
    'CATEGORY OF THE FUTURE'
    Diageo, Pernod's larger rival, last year launched its first
Indian single malt, Godawan - named after a large, endangered
Indian bird - that sells in five foreign markets, including the
United States.
    "We seem to be moving from whisky in India to Indian whisky
- within India and globally," said Vikram Damodaran, Diageo's
India chief innovation officer.
    Pernod's Glenlivet, long India's top-selling single malt,
grew 39% by volume last year but was dethroned by Amrut, which
spiked 183%, Euromonitor data shows.
    Indian single malts soared 144% in 2021-22, beating the 32%
growth in Scotch, data from IWSR Drinks Market Analysis shows.
For the period until 2027, it predicts, consumption of Indian
malts is set to grow 13% a year compared to Scotch at 8%.
    Indri maker Piccadily Distilleries hopes to expand capacity
by 66% to 20,000 litres (5,300 gallons) a day by 2025, reaching
beyond the 18 foreign markets that make up 30% of its sales,
said founder Siddhartha Sharma. 
    It plans to double the number of casks to 100,000 at the
sprawling distillery in a farm belt 160 km (100 miles) north of
India's capital. 
    The local brands are not cheap: Indri starts at $37 a
bottle, Amrut $42 and Rampur $66 in shops near New Delhi. In
comparison, Pernod's Glenlivet retails from $40 to $118,
depending on age.
    At the Longitude 77 launch, Pernod served CEOs, diplomats,
celebrity chefs and other invited guests the new single malt and
cocktails made with it, combined with local ingredients like
Kashmiri saffron and Alphonso mangoes.
    Radico expects Rampur sales to double each year and will
focus more on expanding the domestic market, as foreign sales
contribute 75% of its business, said Sanjeev Banga, president of
international business.
    The biggest endorsement of the category, he said, "is that
you have both Diageo and Pernod coming up with an Indian single
malt."
    "Otherwise, they were only talking about their mainstream
foreign brands," Banga said. "They realise this is a category of
the future."

 (Reporting by Arpan Chatruvedi and Aditi Shah in Indri, Haryana
and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by William Mallard)
 ((aditya.kalra@thomsonreuters.com; @adityakalra;))