From ERP to single malt whisky, Amrut Distilleries’ Ashok Chokalingam throws light on his trailblazing journey

The straight-talking Chokalingam didn’t just anticipate the Indian single malt boom. As head of international sales for Amrut Distilleries for two decades, and over the last six years, in an additional capacity as head of distilling, he is among the key people who built a thriving category that has a significant fan following both abroad and in India and has now attracted multinational liquor giants such as Diageo and Pernod Ricard.

Back in 2004, the mechanical engineering graduate, then a Jack and Coke-drinking ERP consultant and a friend and classmate of Rakshit Jagdale, Amrut’s current managing director, set up the company’s first international outpost in Glasgow “after three months of familiarisation with single malts in Bengaluru”. The story of Amrut’s astonishing rise has often been told, but it was Chokalingam who single-handedly fought in the trenches in, at the time, inhospitable lands, and it’s his account that is the most vivid. Amrut had no references, he says, reiterating the onerousness of the task the company had set itself; the only other single malt from outside of the traditional regions of Scotland, Ireland, and Japan at the time was Penderyn from Wales. “There was no world whisky category. Mackmyra from Sweden, Kavalan from Taiwan…all of these came in later,” he says.

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He reminisces about wearing out the tyres of his cars while driving across the UK with cases of Amrut’s single malt whisky; of revenues in 2007 amounting to just 20,000 pounds and of being given two years and a carte blanche to turn the division around. And finally, of the first signs of the tide turning in the company’s favour in 2010, with the championing of the Amrut Fusion by international whisky collectives such as the Malt Maniacs and its anointment as the world’s third best whisky by the influential whisky critic Jim Murray.

“The Fusion is our blue-eyed boy. It is solely the creation of NR Jagdale, our late chairman, and still remains the largest-selling Indian single malt. Without it, you’d probably not have an Indian single malt category,” says Chokalingam.

The 49-year-old, who shifted base to India from the UK in the second half of the last decade and trained under Surrinder Kumar, Amrut’s former master distiller, has both contributed to, and created, expressions of his own. The Amrut Kadhambam, he says, was inspired by the Kadamba sambar from Tamil Nadu, and the much-awarded Spectrum, which is produced in a barrel made out of wood from five different oaks, was the result of a brainwave he had late one night in Newcastle in 2012. “I remember I called up Rakshit at an unearthly hour and the next week I was at a cooperage in Spain, customising a barrel for the whisky.”

When I met him earlier this month at Amrut’s distillery on Mysore Road, an hour out of Bengaluru, Chokalingam was putting the finishing touches to a limited edition single malt that will be launched in June to celebrate the company’s 75th anniversary. “It will be super unique, something like this has never been attempted before,” he says. Other imminent launches include a new release under the Single Malts of India series, Amrut’s foray into independent bottling that highlights whiskies from different distilleries; an agricole-style rum, and Bella, a 100 per cent jaggery rum.

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Chokalingam says he is constantly experimenting with malts, casks, and finishings. “I have, like, this super freedom to do so. I always keep my bosses informed about what I’m up to, but sometimes I just do my own thing,” he says and laughs mischievously.

While Chokalingam concedes that it is easier to sell Indian single malts abroad today, the ebullient marketeer and distiller feels that selling single malts is still among the toughest jobs in the business. The average retail price of single malt whisky internationally, he says, is about $60 to $70 and even in the West, only a small percentage of the population can really afford single malts. “The competition today is fierce. I believe there are 80 to 90 single malt distilleries in America alone. You have a similar number in France, and about as many in England, and there is Australia… Then, you have bourbon. Now, imagine getting a consumer to try your whisky once at a retail store and then getting him to come back for a second bottle…”

Attracting consumer interest and retaining their loyalty is a massive challenge, says Chokalingam, and that’s among the prime reasons why Amrut is taking a measured approach to capacity expansion. The company, which distills about a million litres annually, is expanding capacity by 30 per cent. “It is easy for us to increase capacity from a million to about five million, but what are we going to do with that extra capacity? The last thing we want is to get into the bulk business. Amrut is in a great position at the moment. For the next four to five years, whatever we are going to distill is already sold out and that gives us time and energy to further build our brand,” he says.

As someone who played a pivotal role in the creation of an entire category, how does he view the recent proliferation of Indian single malts? Chokalingam says that while there is a growing acceptance of Indian single malts, they still do not constitute an established category. “We definitely don’t have the cache of, say, Japanese whisky; we have to prove ourselves consistently,” says Chokalingam. “But we can get there in the next five years — provided we don’t compromise on quality. You don’t want one bad apple to spoil the entire bunch.”

The author, Murali K Menon works on content strategy at HaymarketSAC.

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Published: 09 Mar 2024, 11:26 AM IST