Single malts now have Bangalore on a high
AFTER-HOURS at the country’s quintessential beer capital is not just about guzzling the world’s most popular alcoholic beverage. Of late, Bangalore’s liquor downing crowd has developed a taste to what many refer to as the highest benchmark in Scotch whisky appreciation—single malts.
Bangalore today is major market for 10, 15 and 18-year old single malt Scotch, on a par with Mumbai and Delhi, thanks to the city’s cosmopolitan culture, say industry analysts. The market is growing very fast though on a very small base for single malts in Bangalore, as is the case elsewhere.
Single malts, being ‘image products’, have emerged as the talk of town today. For instance, Glenmorangie, UK’s top brand and among the leading five in the world, launched in India about year ago, has made deep inroads into the Bangalore market. “Glenmorangie has made significant progress in Bangalore in the last six months. The whisky’s USP is that it is available in seven variants—distributed in 10, 15, and 18-year-old varieties, apart from offering whisky finished in Sherry, Port wine and Burgundy casks,” says Moet Hennessy MD Ashwin Deo.
Also, in a marked shift, the target audience for whiskey today is the youth; for, drinking a single malt is more of a style statement. “Most of us want to try something aspirational. A few year’s ago it was any blended Scotch whisky. Today, it has to be a single malt,” says Ashish Misra, VP, marketing, Mason & Summers Alcobev, Bangalore, whose brand Glen Drummond is another strong contender in the single malt segment.
Countrywide, the market for single malts is very small—under 20,000 cases annually, with the overall whisky market estimated at around 69 million cases. But everyone’s talking about malts and the segment, according to industry analysts, is growing over 100% year-onyear. And the industry hopes this talk will convert to volumes over the next two years as it has happened in wines. Also, single malt consumption would go up in a big way if prices come down.
Written by Linu on June 3rd, 2007 with
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