Indian Whiskey

Heat drives spirit in and out of the wood much harder than a cool climate does, so cask influence arrives quickly and forcefully. The cost is evaporation. Warehouses in Goa or Bangalore lose a far greater share of each cask per year to what distillers call the angel's share than a Scottish warehouse does, and because those conditions are humid as well as hot, more alcohol than water evaporates and the strength in the cask falls. That is why Indian single malts carry low age statements or none, and why long ageing rarely pays.

A large part of the domestic market is spirit distilled from molasses, then blended and sold as whisky under Indian rules. The European Union and several other markets would not accept that definition, because they require whisky to be made from cereal grain. This is why volume figures for Indian whisky and the reputation of Indian single malt sit so awkwardly together: they describe two different products. The bottles exported as Indian single malt are malted barley, pot stills and oak casks, made the same way a Scotch malt is. The two are easy to confuse by name alone.

Amrut, in Bangalore, put an Indian single malt in front of international judges and was taken seriously for it. Paul John followed from Goa, and Rampur came out of a long established distillery in the north. Between them they settled the question of whether barley matured in Indian heat could produce something worth exporting. The category remains small in bottle terms next to Scotch.

Because the whisky is ready sooner, and because holding it longer costs too much stock. Judging these bottles by the number on the label misreads them, so taste is the better guide.

Not necessarily. Fast oak extraction tends to bring vanilla, tropical fruit and a resinous spice, which reads as rich rather than sugary. Some releases are peated, using imported peated barley, and those head in a smoky direction instead. Standard bottlings usually sit between forty six and fifty percent alcohol, while cask strength releases run to around sixty percent and above, so a few drops of water are usually worth trying first.

The weight and the spice stand up to strong flavours better than a delicate malt would, so a cask strength Indian malt holds its own next to meat off the coals. It also works in a highball.