Tag: Hyperlocal

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A Tequila Sun-Rising

Amid the agave spirits renaissance, a phenomenon sweeping the globe, India welcomed the debut of a true global titan in the NCR with Don Julio Tequila. Bearing the name of its illustrious founder, Don Julio Gonzalez-Frausto Estrada, who was a pioneer, with a backstory as rich as the spirit he crafted.

The story unfolds in the Mexican town of Atotonilco, Jalisco, where a young Julio Gonzalez presented the simple townsfolk with an audacious dream to establish his own distillery. This naturally met with some skepticism at the time, but failed to deter Julio, who confidently asserted that he would secure the necessary funds. Having been the sole provider for his household since his teenage years, Julio had so far honed his tequila-making skills at his uncle Jose’s distillery. He went on to establish the “La Primavera” distillery in 1942, and the rest as they say reshaped the tequila landscape. The distillery produced some of the finest tequilas under the moniker of ‘Tres Magueys’, eventually transitioning to the revered ‘Don Julio’ label.

THE LUXE FACTOR

Agave spirits are notorious for their luxury and expense, because of their extensive production process, namely the ripening period of agave plants, that ranges from seven to up to 25 years in certain varieties. Just the fact that a Tequilero (maker of tequila) spends years nurturing the plant, goes to show that they don’t see a penny in their till until the turn of the decade when it finally blossoms into a bottled spirit.

Don Julio’s agave plants, thriving in the mineral-rich red clay soil of the Highlands, underwent a distinctive growing process driven by a passion for quality rather than profit. Julio strategically spaced his plants—distanced more than usual—to enhance nutrient absorption, resulting in larger, sweeter agave fruits. This deliberate approach, paired with a prolonged maturation period of 7-10 years and planting less agave plants was defying industry norms back then itself.

At the India launch, we savoured two exquisite expressions of Don Julio’s labour: the Don Julio Blanco and the Don Julio Reposado. The Blanco, often referred to as “Plata” or “Silver,” represents the unaged tequila, serving as the foundational liquid for all other variants. Ideal for crafting Margaritas and Palomas, it sets the stage with an unparalleled cocktail experience.

Next up, the Reposado, meaning “rested”, mandates the spirit to be rested upwards of two months up to a year in barrels. Their Blanco was aged for eight months in American white-oak barrels. The result: an amber liquid with a mellow varietal flavour and a blissful aroma that captivated the senses. Whether enjoyed straight up, in an Old Fashioned, a highball with sparkling water, or indulgently over ice, the Reposado proved to be a sublime liquid and a personal favourite, just like it was for Don!

As for the bottle shape, in the earlier days, most tequilas were dispensed from long, obstructive vessels, hindering conversations and interactions at tables. This prompted them to introduce a small, round bottle as a practical solution to this unique predicament.

As the evening wore on, the spirits became feisty with Latino music and flamenco performers, which served as attractive entrées before the main course, reserved for the distinguished variants: Anejo, Rosado, Don Julio 70, and the extraordinary Don Julio 1942. While the burgeoning enthusiasm among agave enthusiasts is only scratching the surface currently, given the innovation that the world of agave has yet to unveil, it’s definitely poised to shake and stir passions as well as poisons.

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BROWN GINS?! Seriously?

The science of distillation is India’s gift to the world. We enlightened the world with the study of botanicals, spices, citruses and their application as medicines, saving precious lives around the globe. Ayurveda literally means ‘the knowledge of life’. Ergo, we were bound to be proficient at making gins. Since the first Indian craft gin landed on our shelves, just five years ago, we now have approximately four dozen expressions. And, having gained confidence from creating and expanding this space, surviving the pandemic and altering the habits of the drinking classes, these craft elixirs are becoming experimental, even to the extent of changing colour. They are taking on the uber-attractive brown spirits market (rums, brandies and whiskies), of which we are champions too! I call them ‘Brown Gins’. With several examples released, they’ve ignited conversations worth having, and raised a few questions: Is it just bonne chance? Is the brand-loyal, price-sensitive Indian public ready for this intruder into their drinks territory? Is there space on your shelves for these gems?

OAK BARRELS

An oak barrel can add a great deal to an alcoholic beverage — nutty flavours, aromas of coconut and/or sweet spices, slow maturation, partial oxidation, character from previously used barrels and, of course, an alluring hue. However, barrels occupy space, need careful maintenance, and put a dent in your bottom line, all of which are drawbacks for a gin producer.

Enter Oak Chips. They have the same effect on the liquid. Whichever type of oak you use, oak adds a captivating vivacity. Gin makers looking at keeping their market excited with new variants, collectibles and limited releases have more than one reason to deploy the benefits of wood to their already tasteful liquids. Apart from the play of colour and flavours, oak allows them to open the door to the larger dark spirits market, in which India is already a presence among leading producers and consumers. There’s barely any limitation to what a gin-maker can throw into gin’s botanical mix. So why not oak as well?

INDIAN BROWN GINS

Pumori introduced Ascent, Greater Than brought out Broken Bat, Nilgiris experimented with peated and unpeated cask-ageing for a few months, and now Stranger & Sons has contributed to the arsenal. While Pumori and Nilgiris mature their gins in barrels, and Greater Than infuse theirs with toasted Kashmiri willow shavings, Stranger & Sons is rising to new heights with their India Spirited Gin which is matured in ex-Oloroso and Amontillado sherry barrels. It is then brushed with wild honey and cascara influences, making it a unique proposition that India hasn’t yet experienced.

So what do these gins taste like? Perhaps unsurprisingly, they all have different personalities. Nilgiris carries only a slight suggestion of oak, while Ascent is the true-to-style barrel-aged gin. Broken Bat is a different personification of gin with a toasty, grippy mouthfeel while the Stranger &Sons exploratory spirit is something of a departure from true gin. It’s a curious mix: concentrated oak meets savouriness from the sherry influence, while husky cascara adds to the earthiness and honey provides a candied roundness to the palate — all this while maintaining the warmth and spiciness of the traditional gin. However, to call it a gin would be a tad tricky. It can be better described as a sloe-styled gin (a fruit-based gin steeped with sloe berries) done differently or a gin Old Fashioned with a twist. If the latter, this will be the second cocktail in a bottle by this producer.

DO WE NEED INDIAN BROWN GINS?

Arrange all these innovations in a tasting flight and they provide an interesting study of what India can produce. Although the question arises: Is this the time for Brown Gin? Does India need it?

To answer this question, a dual approach is required taking into account the gin world’s simple response as well as the argument presented by the darker world. The former will simply ask, why not do it? It adds to the bandwidth of Indian gin makers, displays their craftsmanship with courage to experiment, and offers excitement and variety to local palates. There’s more. India likes storytelling, and no one has done a better job of putting India in a bottle and charming palates better than Indian gins.

DARK SPIRITS ARGUEMENT

From the other side of the argument come some simple observations. Firstly, dark spirit imbibers are rather strict about the definition of whiskies, rums, and brandies. Whisky imbibers don’t solicit influences outside quintessential sweetness and oaky flavours. For brandies, added flavours are a strict no no. Rums do flirt with flavours; there are several flavoured white rums and RTDs, while their darker siblings ride solo or at most have a spice mix. Playing with flavours outside of this spectrum isn’t really encouraged or appreciated. Add a mix of citruses, herbs, roots, barks, seeds, spices and juniper, although it might not fly, at least in theory.

THE OTHER CONUNDRUM

Then there’s the other concern: how are they to be served? In a Bar, drinking G&T (gin and tonic) is close to ceremonial. So is vodka-soda or vodka and juices. Whisky goes with water, and/or soda, unless it’s an Irish whiskey, which might attract ginger ale, or an American with, maybe, a cola. Rums are best with a splash of cola, water or neat. But brown gins have this puzzle which is still unsolved. Do we serve them neat? Ideally, yes. However, Indians are yet to fully catch on to this drinking style. The day they do, they’ll know what they’ve been missing. Until then, we wait.

If we serve them in a Martini, a Negroni, or a Highball, known as the ‘trio test’ in tasting circles, they reveal very little of their original selves or the influences added to them. A Negroni easily overshadows the oak’s subtlety, and definitely that of the gin’s junipery spine. A Martini might show right, but it will only be the finer palates who can appreciate it this way and view the experiment as a new pursuit rather than as a loss. As for Highballs, they just don’t gel with brown gins, because this experimentation takes away equally from the joy of drinking a Bushmills’s Ginger or a Jim Beam Cola as it does from a crisp Gin and Tonic.

This would tend to mean that Brown Gins only work as collectibles or limited releases. And all the effort of figuring it all out, developing a palate and a liking for just a small batch that’s simply a passing fad on your palate journey, is pretty futile.

WHAT'S THE VERDICT, THEN?

Although we are yet to find a balance and define our relationships with brown gins, they do offer an eyebrow-raising curiosity, and a conversation worth an evening over a few gin tonics or young malts. I personally wouldn’t mind an occasional Greater Than Broken Bat with ginger ale and lime, or a Stranger & Sons Barrel Aged Gin as a twist on an Old Fashioned or a Boulevardier, along with some adjustments on the amaro, vermouth and garnish.

These two are the ones available in the market now. And whenever they appear of an evening, they’ll carry the promise of sparking a conversation that’s sure to be enjoyable, even if it’s left inconclusive as to whether India could befriend Brown Gins as a style and category unto itself.

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ELIXIRS OF EXCLUSIVITY

You’ve just launched a fabulous spirit. The market is buzzing. Everyone is rushing to grab the bottle and post about it on the Gram and earn a spot of social currency. Your social media team is acing the content game. You’re the talk of the industry and the aficionados for a couple of months. Then, the very next brand that’s launched grabs your market’s attention. Brand loyalty stays, but the excitement diminishes. The onus is now on you to win back their attention and keep the excitement abuzz. And this is how life, read brand cycle, comes full circle…

With a virtual tsunami of spirits being launched, brands have to stay on their toes not only to retain their share of the pie, but to do so creatively. That’s where the play of ‘limited releases’ comes in, breathing renewed interest in the brand, while according an opportunity to spread their net a little wider. These limited releases thus become collectibles—they infuse the right dose of curiosity and dopamine to spark an entire conversation around the hows and whys. Why were they created; how to drink them, and most importantly, whether to enjoy them or hold them for their future rarity value as a noteworthy investible.

THE RAISON D’ETRE

What makes a limited release a trending proposition? How does a brand conceive a limited release? The idea is simple: keep the market excited, show your experimental prowess, and add to your share of the pie from other similar markets. International brands have already paved the way with endless examples—Hendricks Gin has an entire range of Bathtub bundles, and even Elon Musk had a go at it with his Tesla Tequila. But the inevitable question is whether it’s just a fad or a play for the long run?

Limited releases are an intelligent response to what a brand has learnt over time and their propensity to bottle it. It is a sensitive play since there’s a lot that can go awry. To begin with, in India, we have a ‘problem of plenty’. There are too many distracting influences. That new gin that was just released, it could’ve been made in a thousand possible permutations of botanicals. Of course, the one they ended up with was the expression that proved the best fit at the time, give price sensitivity and the maturity of the market. That said, each year they can flirt with their botanicals even if they use the same, they can simply alter the proportions to create new renditions just like Greater Than’s Juniper Bomb, which used three times the juniper compared to the original Greater Than. Voila! The world goes chasing after it.

PLAY OF TIME, PLAY OF CHARECTER

On the other hand, a whisky distiller could just fill their mash bill with a plethora of grains. More importantly, age them in a particular cask shape, size, build, duration, or exposure that the country hasn’t seen before. And you have a collectible whisky. Glenfiddich’s Winter Storm was Scotch whisky aged in Canadian Icewine casks, Glenmorangie’s Nectar d’Or had a Sauternes dessert wine cask finished whisky, Amrut has exclusive Port pipes aged whiskies, Tamnavulin aged their spirits in a Rioja Tempranillo cask…the list is endless.

 

For an agave spirit maker, toying with a special wine cask could add a hue, tannins, and terroir that the spirit could have never experienced by itself. That’s precisely what Pistola Agavepura, an Indian agave spirit, did when they rested their spirits in a specially sourced Cabernet Sauvignon barrel from KRSMA Wines from Hampi, birthing their Rosa Select edition. Rakshay Dhariwal explains this union simply: “There’s a certain complexity and special character that a wine barrel can add to a spirit that no other cask can add. We are making good wines in India; we are crafting brilliant spirits in the country. It only makes sense that the two meet”.

It’s not just the barrels and what they deliver to the spirit, sometimes it’s also the duration of the ageing. India’s proximity to the equator makes it among one of the hottest places to age a spirit. Our spirits age four times faster than those in Japan, Ireland, or Scotland. So if something is aged in India for 12 years, it is equivalent to a 50-year-old Scotch. That’s half a century, have you seen one that old yet? Then again, who was thinking about ageing a spirit for that long in India 12 years ago? Last year Camikara Rum stunned everyone with its introduction of a rare 12-year-old example, sparking off a serious conversation about India’s distilling prowess, more importantly about sturdy rums in the country.

And it’s not just about gin and whisky, there’s so much that can be done with our favourite wines, beers, meads, and other spirits that settling for just one should be, deemed a crime, at least socially. It’s a fantastic way for the brand to remain relevant, keep the consumers guessing, and the creative juices flowing with storytelling that weaves fantasia and not just fluff.

THE CONSUMER WINS

More than for a producer, limited releases are for the consumers—tiny offerings that are like surprise gifts from Secret Santa. Moonshine Meadery, Asia and India’s first of its kind setup, collaborated with Subko Coffee for a remarkable coffee mead. Nitin Vishwas, owner and cofounder of Moonshine, saw this as a great way to grab the attention of the specialty coffee drinkers and draw them into the mead market. Coffee enthusiasts often seek information on the product’s origin, its fermentation style, roast levels, grind grade, and the brewing methods. A similar query is relevant in case of honey’s origin and the process that transforms it from a natural product to a drink worth relishing. And the same applies to wines, chocolates, teas, fruits, and a lot more, promising a congenial marriage with a happily ever after for the palate.

A Liquid Interpretation

Whether it’s the trend of the time, say the revival of pink gins and spiced rums, or capturing the moon landing in liquid form, these limited releases encapsulate a moment, a philosophy or a concept. Take a leaf out of the Indian single malt whisky success of Goa-based Paul John Whiskies, which has aced their collectable series programme. Whether it’s the once a year limited release called the ‘Christmas Edition’, which has a cult following now, or their even ‘more limited’ Constellation series that has yielded gems such as Kanya and Mithuna. Even rarer is their Mars Orbiter—a tribute to ISRO for their successful launch of Mangalyaan in 2013, a once in a lifetime event that merited a unique celebration. These spirits have become a global phenomenon now, and done much to prove that India is a mature market for such niche collectibles, single-handedly nudging the shelf price of Indian whiskies close to upwards of a lakh. Diageo’s recent Indian international whiskey, Godawan released a 100 bottle batch of what was unimaginatively called Godawan Century and came with a price tag of ` 1 lakh. And its rarity value will only hike the price from here on.

Personally, my favourite interpretation of India’s collective love distilled in a bottle was the Broken Bat by Greater Than gin, released at the end of 2022. The 2023 cricket World Cup was being hosted by India, everyone was bleeding blue, and they launched the gin that singlehandedly ignited the gin revolution in the country with a single masterstroke—a gin that was macerated in Kashmiri Willow from the bats that once scored the winning runs on the streets of India. While oaky gins might have been a point of contention among its aficionados, a spirited homage to the second greatest love of the world’s largest population proved to be quite the charmer.

While not all limited releases are exciting and some are even undeserving of a welcome on the shelf, but they endeavour to serve our ever-increasing appetite for experimentation. Till we have a palate that can be teased and tantalised, a mind that can appreciate creative storytelling, and a desire for the finer things in life, limited releases will continue to add exciting twists to our favourite elixirs. To the sun in the sky and the amber in our glass, we say: “Tomorrow is another day”.

Originally written for India Today Spice

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Articles Spirits

India’s First Hyperlocal Gin

Mid-day musings: who turns down daytime, midweek indulgence? And that too for a new Gin that promises the provenance of the misty hills of the picturesque Kumaon, in a bottle? Too good to be true; we didn’t believe it either till we sampled Kumaon & I. The heart and hard work behind the gin is the same as behind other labels that wooed us such as Jin Jiji and Kamet Single Malt Whisky—Ansh Khanna. Touted as the country’s first hyperlocal provincial gin, Kumaon&I prides itself in sourcing botanicals that are native to the region. Putting together a gin in India presents a unique problem, the problem of plenty. You ask for a citrus fruit, and we have a library of more than 100 limes alone. The humble ginger can take shapes and forms that’ll make your head spin. And then comes the herbs, roots, flowers, seed, teas…you get the idea. With an ocean to pick from, it’s only fitting that Kumaon&I opted to keep it regional, since Kumaon has a rich history of foragers, cultivators, and distillers. This provides a peek into the rich agricultural spread of the region, and also supports the local community. Now that’s a gin with a cause! The backbone holds strong and stands tall with the rustic earthiness of the Himalayan juniper—India’s introduction to the world—supported by ten other botanicals. Timur is the Himalayan equivalent of the Schezwan pepper with an electric zing, Black turmeric adds an alluring mouthfeel, Galgal (pahadi nimbu), and Kinu fills the spectrum with bright citrus freshness, walnuts act as a binder, coriander seeds with their citrus spice twang is unmistakable, and then come the ethereal aromatics of Rose, Thuner leaves, and Kalmegh. The last two are Ayurvedic ingredients often used in local households. The bottle design too accentuates the regional heritage of Aipan, a local hand-painted art form, drawn on a smooth surface of wet red Geru mud with a white paste made by grounding cooked rice in water, called Bisvar. The black round designs symbolise coming full circle and is a nod to their sustainable credentials that embody the spirit of farm to bottle. Each bottle is a result of a nine-hour distillation process, on the bed of a rice-based spirit. We sampled Kumaon&I in three formats: neat, with a dash of water, and with a splosh of Indian tonic water. Each revealed distinct facets of the spirit, while respecting the dominant Himalayan juniper notes as its lynchpin. Here’s toasting another exciting chapter in the evolution of the Indian craft spirits landscape.