Diageo on taking Indian single malts global

The chief innovation officer of Diageo India shares how the company created a single malt that aims to put the country on the world stage.

Through its Indian arm, United Spirits, Diageo has been building its spirits portfolio in the country, creating and investing in local brands.

The drinks giant took a 10% stake in United Spirits in 2013, and increased its stake in the business to 55.8% in 2020.

In April 2022, Diageo India released Godawan single malt whisky, which was matured at a heat of more than 100°F and made from six-row barley grains that are unique to Rajasthan. It has been finished in ‘special casks’ that contain two Indian botanicals: rasna and jatamansi.

Vikram Damodaran, chief innovation officer of Diageo India, said: “When Diageo took over the United Spirits business in India, there were two primary reasons that drove that decision. One was the opportunity base for total beverage alcohol [TBA] in India, which has continued to grow over time. The TBA in the country represents 25% of TBA across the world. So today, India adds 20 million new consumers every year. That’s one quarter of the total number of consumers added every year worldwide.”

The second reason was India’s economic growth, he explains.

“The Indian economy fundamentally contributes to aspirations at all socioeconomic spectrums. People who are extremely affluent want experiences that are bespoke and can stand on their own feet anywhere in the world, and people in the lower socioeconomic spectrums fundamentally are aspiring for far higher value for the money they put down on the table.

“India continues to be on that inflection point of creating more value for consumers and aspirations on the other end.”

‘Way ahead of its time’

United Spirits used to have an Indian single malt more than 30 years ago under its McDowell’s brand, a limited batch produced in Goa. It lasted less than six months with only 1,000 bottles made, Damodaran said.

“It was a great liquid, but it was too much too soon, it was way ahead of its time. The appreciation of single malt and the volume of single malt didn’t exist at that point. So it just remained an experiment.

“But having said that, one of the things that we were absolutely clear of as a business was not only would we want to bring the global giants to India, and really reinforce that position in the country, like the Johnnie Walker’s of the world, but we also had to start building local gems that could fundamentally move from India to the rest of the world.”

United Spirits has the largest footprint of distilleries in India, Damodaran said. The company has seven distilleries across the country, providing United Spirits with an “advantage in the form of the diversity of geography, the terroir, and climatic conditions”.

Godawan’s inception

The Indian single malt category was established more than 20 years ago with the launch of Amrut, while Paul John followed in 2012.

“Indian single malts as a category was already well established. People knew that India was capable of producing good single malts,” says Damodaran of the journey to launching Godawan. “We wanted to create a single malt out of a location in India that would surprise people about the quality of the single malt, the quality of the provenance and the terroir that it came from.”

Damodaran said Diageo chose Rajasthan as the setting for creating Godawan because of its desert environment.

“There’s hardly any water – it’s dry and arid,” he explained. “And for us to be able to create a good whisky and let alone a single malt coming out of an environment that is so harsh, at its extremes with temperatures anywhere between five degrees Celsius to 50 degrees Celsius, fundamentally had to test the makers, artisanal values, the processes, the design that went into the cask architecture – every single touch point that makes Godawan what it is had to really stand the test of bespoke experiences.”

The brand uses a cluster of six farms in the northwest of Rajasthan for its six-row barley. It also uses a technique called slow-trickle distillation, which uses less water, while the maturation cycle is around three-and-a-half to four years.

“While we don’t have an age claim on the product, what this does is it gives us an opportunity to cycle the liquid between extremely low temperatures and extremely high temperatures and that gives Godawan its unique flavour,” he explained.

“So at 50 degrees for about four months in a year, the kind of flavours and the aromatics that the liquid is able to extract from the wood is very different from the kind of flavours and aromatics that extract from the wood at a five to eight-degree temperature for the remaining part of the year. So I think that cycling between 50 and five is what makes the liquid so interesting.”

Godawan’s 01 Rich and Rounded expression is matured in Pedro Ximénez Sherry casks for nearly six months, while the 02 Fruit and Spice whisky is finished in cherry wood casks.

The brand also released the limited edition Godawan 100 in May 2023, which was matured in American ex-Bourbon and European oak casks. Only 100 bottles were released.

Godawan 100 was awarded this year’s Taste Master title at The World Whisky Masters – the highest accolade in the competition.

Market expansion

To date, Godawan has launched in India, the US (in 17 states), Dubai, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia. A UK launch is also planned for the end of 2024. After its debut in India, the whisky was unveiled at Cannes Film Festival in 2022. The brand returned to the event for the third year in a row in 2024 through a partnership.

Damodaran sees the category growing in markets like the US and Dubai, as well as in France, the UK and Singapore. The brand is hoping to enter France after its UK debut.

“Our focus markets will continue to be the US, France, Singapore, in that order, and the UK primarily for brand building, because at the end of the day, we want to share the table with the best of Scotch.”

As a small brand growing from zero, Godawan has seen double and triple-digit growth rates since launching, he noted. Due to its small-batch nature, however, he called the growth “meaningless because the volumes we do are true to the claim of being crafted artisan”.

“We’ve been very, very measured about how we want to scale the brand, keeping its brand purpose and ethos alive,” he explained.

The total volume of Indian single malt sold globally is approximately half a million cases, according to Damodaran – an “extremely small number”.

Diageo is also aiming to “push the boundaries” when it comes to sustainability – described as a “fundamental core narrative” for Godawan.

“Everything that we’re doing on Godawan fundamentally revolves around an improvement to ESG metrics. Ours happens to be the only distillery in all of Asia to have the Alliance of Water Stewardship certification. That’s a massive step forward for us.

“So the idea is to also push innovation boundaries on the processes, on technology that goes into the production of high-quality single malts, while staying true to the brand.”