This is a wine blog. I know. But when India’s single malt whisky making pioneers, like Amrut Distilleries, have taken nothing short of some remarkable strides to place India on the map of top whisky manufacturing nations, they do deserve some space.

Jim Murray holds forth on Amrut whisky at an event

I’ve known the Jagdales, the owners of Bangalore-based Amrut and their highly committed team for quite a while now. Watched them go from strength to strength in their quiet way, sweeping up the world’s topmost awards and medals even as they have been adding variant after variant to their ever-burgeoning portfolio of whiskies. Amrut, for those who don’t know, is headed by NR Jagdale, the much-respected family patriarch. Handling key portfolios in running the company are his son, Rakshit, and his son-in-law, Trivikram Nikam. Their master distiller is the low-key professional Surinder Kumar. And the task of marketing their brand overseas lies with Ashok Chokalingam, Rakshit’s university friend.

My latest meeting was with Chokalingam at their new office in the heart of Bangalore. (The distillery lies an hour’s drive out, on Mysore road.) The occasion was Chokalingam’s nomination – yet again – for Icons of Whisky, whisky ambassador of the year by Whisky magazine – a rare accolade. The first time he won the overall title was in 2012. This year, he has won Whisky Ambassador –Rest of the World and faces off against the two other category winners, Bernie Lubbers of Heaven Hills (USA) and Diageo plc’s Colin Dunn (Scotland). The overall winner will be picked from these three regional winners on March 17, 2016 in a glittering award ceremony.

“I didn’t expect to win whisky ambassador – the rest of the world (except US and Scotland) yet again. I don’t think anyone has won it twice.” He said. Considering his competitors were from big name companies like Diageo, Suntory and Glenmorangie, it makes the win all even more impressive. Of course, it helps that Amrut has scaled great heights very quickly since its inception – famous whisky critic Jim Murray rated the Amrut Fusion 97/100 points voting it the third finest whisky in the world in his 2010 Whisky Bible, putting  it ahead of 4,000 whiskies. He is quoted as saying the Fusion had “made his hair stand on end.” Amrut Fusion is also the only Indian whisky to feature in Ian Buxton’s ‘101 whiskies to have before you die’. Of course one loses count of the number of medals and accolades each new variant has picked up.

Amrut whiskies – Greedy Angels, Spectrum, Naarangi

I was interviewing him for a newspaper this time, and we chatted about his manic travel schedule for a bit before turning to Spectrum, Amrut’s latest sell-out baby. Spectrum is innovative – after 3 years in ex-Bourbon barrels, the whisky is matured in unique custom-made barrels made of staves taken from five individual wooden barrels – new American Oak, new French Oak, new Spanish Oak, ex-PX cask sherry cask and ex-Olorosso sherry cask staves. Like most Amrut variants, Spectrum sells only internationally. Indians have 4 variants  to choose from –Amrut Indian, Fusion, Peated and now Intermediate Sherry Cask.

Tireless troika: Trivikram Nikam, NR Jagdale and Rakshit Jagdale with their whiskies

Fans on social media might recall the Spectrum campaign from November 2015. It featured a tux-clad Chokalingam posing a la James Bond, a bottle of Spectrum in his hand instead of a Walther PPK. This was a cheeky take on the then-current Bond release of the moment, Spectre with Daniel Craig. But the idea of the whisky itself was novel. How did the idea of Spectrum happen? “It thought of the idea one night. I called Rakshit, and he gave me the go ahead. I jumped onto a plane and went to the cooper. ‘I want a barrel created from 5 different woods,’ I told him. He’d never heard of anything like that before! It was an experiment which worked. I personally believe the Spectrum tastes something like a 50 year old Glen Grant. No one will believe it’s only 6 and ½ years old at the time of bottling.” (more…)