Now, Amrut Distilleries mulls premium rum

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Ajay Sukumaran: Bangalore, Oct 06 2010, 01:49 IST

Amrut Distilleries chairman & MD Neelakanta Rao R Jagdale is planning new blends of luxury spirits aimed for the global market. Over the past six years, the second-generation entrepreneur has been selling in Europe the single malt whiskeys distilled and matured in Bangalore, something that was hardly known locally till a British expert last year rated his latest product Amrut Fusion as the third best whiskey of 2010.

The whiskey, which has Scottish barley and grain from Punjab, has since been introduced in the US, Japan, Taiwan, Australia and Singapore, where Jagdale expects to sell at least 7,000 cases this fiscal.

“It was well appreciated in almost all the markets that we have launched,” Jagdale said. “We can easily double our capabilities in the next three years for sure. We can go to 15,000 cases.” The company also expects to sell 1,000 cases of Amrut Fusion in Bangalore where it started retailing at Rs 2,000 a bottle this year.

Globally, single malts – whiskey from a single distillery – constitute a small percentage of total whiskey sales which is dominated by blended whiskey. In India, retail sales of the niche whiskey category would be less than 5,000 cases dominated by brands such as Glenfiddich, said Siddharth Bannerji, MD, Kyndal India, a liquor distributor.

“Indian single malt is rather akin to the Japanese single malt. It is an experiment which is going on,” Bannerji said, adding the Japanese whiskey as a segment had established itself over some 50 years.

“It has

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