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05-07-2023
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI: Whenever Rahul Nair orders a daiquiri or a dark ‘n’ stormy at a craft cocktail bar in India, he pays close attention to his drink.
The 32-year-old graphic designer says that he likes to ask the bartender about the rum added to his cocktail, or still better, try and guess the brand of the rum himself.
And that’s because in the past couple of years, a host of homegrown brands – like Short Story, Maka Zai and Camikara have been sprucing up India’s rum scene in remarkable ways.
They’re experimenting with the way the spirit is made, its flavor profile and the ways it can be enjoyed, pushing consumers to get curious about rum and ditch stereotypes they might have about the spirit.
For long, rum has been relegated to the bottom shelf of bar cabinets around the world with whiskeys, cognacs and gins taking prime slots. In India, rum has been a popular drink because it’s cheap and easily available. But it’s not a spirit that has seen a lot of experimentation but this is changing as rum undergoes a revolution or sorts, mainly because of rising incomes in big cities and people being open to experimenting with their alcohol.
“Distillers are innovating with the spirit like never before even in countries like Japan, Thailand and Malaysia – which are conventionally not associated with rum making,” says Arijit Bose, a mixologist and founder of Countertop India.
India is one of the fastest-growing alcoholic beverages markets globally, with an estimated market size of $52.5bn in 2020, according to the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.
Rum contributes 11% to the total volume.
The spirit has its roots in the Caribbean – slaves working on sugar plantations discovered that molasses could be used for making alcohol, but colonization and trade took the spirit to countries around the world.
In India, Old Monk has been the most popular rum brand for decades. This inexpensive, sweet dark spirit has come to define what rum should taste like for generations of Indians. But this is changing now.
