If more people are drinking whisky in India than is being produced in the world, the contradiction is that very few Indians know anything about whisky at all. Most simply drink to get high, and with the European Union claiming that Indian whisky isn’t whisky after all, just rum in fancy packaging, it’s time to get into the spirit of things and find out a little more about Indians’ favourite brew. Check out an interesting review done by Business Standard

The person to do that might well be S S H Rehman, director with ITC Hotels, who last evening was named Wine Personality of the Year at the World Whisky Bar Awards, held at The Leela Kempinski in Gurgaon. It was a moot point whether it was to sample some of the finest and most expensive whiskies in the world, or the curiosity of checking out the soft-launched hotel, that kept the glamouratti coming in, but the awards proved what many already know. That the Golf Bar at ITC Maurya Sheraton in New Delhi is the best bar in the country (displacing last year’s winner Bombay High), while the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers, Mumbai, held on to last year’s win, by picking up the Best Whisky Hotel award once again. The Best Whisky Restaurant was grabbed by Dum Pukht, New Delhi, in lieu of last year’s Zodiac Grill, Mumbai.

The event, Whisky Live, is part of Whisky magazine’s South Asia representative Sandeep Arora’s effort to take whisky drinking to cult status, and if his contention that the very top-end of the market to which he caters numbers no more than 2,500 persons, last evening’s turnout should ideally have included a good part of them. But, of course, since the awards and the event also cater to the trade, who in turn serve this high-end market, it might be said that it was a teaser of the size and scale it might grow into.

While the Whisky magazine is to be launched some time later this year, Arora says the Whisky Live Awards event is aimed at identifying “the finest bars in India”, though only accredited bars can apply, which requires a fee of $230 and must conform to its select criteria. There are currently 60 accredited bars in India, and a list of the world’s award-winning Whisky bars is published in a directory annually in the magazine.

Source: Business Standard 

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