India is over-represented when it comes to hard liquor despite its warm climate, said Suraj Shenai, founder of Goa Brewing Co. Most Indian drinkers prefer to get high faster for the price they pay for the drink. Whiskey, vodka, rum, gin and brandy are categorized as hard liquor.
Shenai spoke to Nikhil Kamath in the latest episode of his podcast ‘WTF is’, along with other experts from the alcoholic beverage industry including Abhishek Khaitan, Managing Director of Radico Khaitan, Minakshi Singh, Co-Founder of SideCar, the only Indian entry in the list of the world’s best bars, and Shuchir Suri, Co-Founder of Gin Explorer’s Club.
India is the only country in the tropical zone where consumption of hard liquor and beer is equal. In countries like Vietnam, beer consumption is much higher than hard liquor, given the climate, they said.
Shenai explained that one of the reasons why India consumes so much hard liquor is the psychology of the situation. “Urban India is very unlivable. One of the categories that IMFL gets its volumes from is the after-work, home-coming period, where four people with different jobs get together and sit in a small room. theka“Enjoy this break and go back home. And if you consider the travel time in cities, you have very small windows. So this break in your routine is really short. That’s why the style and pattern of consumption has also evolved around that,” he said. Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) refers to all foreign liquors like whisky, rum, vodka and gin produced in India, excluding local drinks like feni, toddy and arrack.
India is really over-indexed on 180 ml bottles, they said. For the uninitiated, 180 ml bottles are called 375 ml bottles or half bottles are called pints, and 750 ml bottles or regular bottles are called quarts.
Khaitan said that a paua or a 250ml bottle of semi-premium alcohol is usually the preferred choice. « They’ll buy a drop, go to a ahata“Finish the bottle and go home,” Khaitan said. Ahatas are small open spaces for drinking beverages, adjacent to alcohol outlets.
« So if you have an hour and you drink two beers, the effect wears off faster, as opposed to a six-ounce sip, » Singh said.
WHY INDIA DRINKS
When Nikhil Kamath asked why Indians drink, Suri said that the country’s liquor drinkers mainly drink because of the price and because they want to get high at the lowest cost. These drinks have an alcohol percentage of between 26 and 42 percent.
“Country spirits taste good because of their low ABV,” Suri said. ABV or alcohol by volume is the measurement used to measure the alcohol content of a drink. “A typical whisky has an ABV of 42 percent while a tharra has about 28 percent, making it drinkable straight unlike a whisky that needs to be mixed. Country spirits also have local flavours like orange and saunf,” he said.
« Drinking on a large scale is a quick way to get high for the money spent. Their life is so hard that they would like to escape it, » says Minakshi Singh.