Finding The Nectar of the Gods
feet above sea level and gets just 34 inches (86 cm) of rain annually. Just as bourbon does in the hot Kentucky climes, Amrut’s whisky matures very quickly under these conditions, so the floors of maturing houses have been excavated several metres below ground level. This lets the barrels rest in cooler environs, thus slowing maturation down a little. “India is different when it comes to maturation; it’s a furnace,” Surrinder Kumar told me. Surrinder, now a prominent distillery consultant, was the chief distiller and blender when I visited.
Each year, these 450 workers turn out 4 million cases of liquor by hand, and one-quarter of it is blended whisky, known locally as IMFL – Indian Made Foreign Liquor. They were producing a mere 10,000 cases of single malt when I visited. With so much done by hand, the bottling line is a blur of brilliant colour as dozens of sari-clad women dash to-and-fro, hand filling, labeling and packing bottles and single-serve pouches of whisky. Outside, workers carry sacks of grain to be milled. Instead of using augers, workers with adzes unload spent mash by hand, then shovel it manually into trucks that will cart it away to be used for animal feed. With fourteen million residents, Bengaluru is India’s third-largest city and the 27th-largest globally. Yet, despite having the country’s highest traffic density, its countless dogs and the occasional bullock, feel safe to wander its streets. And I did too. The people of Bengaluru are friendly, helpful and welcoming. Meandering around the colourful Krishnarajendra
BY DAVIN DEKERGOMMEAUX As we continue to trek around the globe with our ferocious leader Davin, we find him in India and his discovery of Amrut.
It was well past midnight when the plane from Frankfurt finally touched down at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru. Almost a full day in airplanes and airports across 9 time zones had left me bleary-eyed and stiff, but my nose was working fine. Outside the airport, a driver waved a paper with my name on it. “Those flowers smell wonderful,” I said, greeting him with a smile. “Parijat,” he responded, taking my suitcase. From the moment I arrived, everything in India was better than I expected, and it all began with the heavenly fragrance of night jasmine.
Although Amrut is well known to malt whisky aficionados now, the first four or five years were tough, Rick told me soon after I arrived. “We attended every whisky show we could.” At last, he and Ashok hosted a blind tasting at Glasgow’s famous Pot Still pub. “Jaws dropped when we revealed the source of the whisky,” he told me. “The room was filled with serious malt drinkers, and they thought they were
“Accept it if you like or don’t accept
it, but the whisky starts reaching its
peak in four years.”
Then you have to taste it regularly because, by five years, it starts to get too much tannin.” What’s more, Amrut’s hyperactive angels consume a full 11% of the volume every year. Fortunately, in Bengaluru’s dry climate, most of the angel’s share is water. As India’s tech “Silicon Valley,” Bengaluru is a city of stark contrasts where desperate poverty is juxtaposed with conspicuous wealth. Amrut consciously addresses this disparity in its employment policies. From the outset, in 1948, founder,
Market, I found spices, fruits and flowers I’d never before imagined. Their fragrances and flavours are now etched into my tasting memory, though they rarely make it to a tasting note, even when sampling Amrut. Yes, there are animal smells, as well, and milk, and fabric, and oh, yes, the glorious scent of the city.
My
host,
Ashok
Chokalingam, was introduced to Amrut in 2001, while helping his friend and fellow MBA student, Rick Jagdale, research potential Scottish interest in Indian single malt.
tasting a very good 12-year-old Speyside malt.” A great global epiphany followed in 2008 when a Blackadder-bottled Amrut pushed the Scots, Irish and Japanese aside to be named the Non-Plus- Ultra whisky of the annual Malt Maniacs awards. Connoisseurs quickly took note, and accolades for Amrut began pouring in. The temperate microclimate of Bengaluru – it was known as Bangalore before discarding its colonial name in 2007 and returning to the traditional “Bengaluru” – is a welcome respite from steamy India. Still, it’s warm – 17 degrees Celsius (63 Fahrenheit) in winter and up to 32 C in summer. Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka state in southern India, is also high and dry. It sits 3,000
Radhakrishna J a g d a l e (Neel’s father) decided against automation and later rejected most computerization so he could employ 450 people in the distillery instead.
Rick’s father, Neel Jagdale, was chairman of Amrut, and in 2004, when he decided to introduce Amrut to the global whisky market, he chose Ashok to lead the way. I had come to know Ashok, then Amrut’s global whisky ambassador, from various whisky events, and in 2010, while chatting at Whisky Live in London, he invited me to visit him at the distillery.
I stayed in the Mark Hotel, which was cozy, comfortable and friendly, with quick room service and a visitor-friendly manner. Ranks of autorickshaws parked outside provided easy and inexpensive access to all quarters of the city. In the humid heat of August 2011, I asked a driver to take me to the local watering hole
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the whisky explorer magazine
the whisky explorer magazine
SUMMER 2024
SUMMER 2024
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