For more than a decade Modi Illva, a joint venture between Delhi-based spirits producer Umesh Modi Group and Italy’s Illva Saronno, owner of Disaronno and Tia Maria, has been building its own domestic brands specifically for the Indian market.

The company’s first launch was Artic Vodka before it moved into whisky with Rockford Reserve and Rockford Classic. Modi Illva now has six brands within its portfolio across whisky and vodka, but has ambitious plans beyond just production.

“The idea when launching this joint venture was to use Illva Saronno’s deep knowledge of the spirits industry in return for our deep understanding of the Indian market,” says Abhishek Modi, managing director, Modi Illva India.

He explains that Umesh Modi Group produces the spirits while Modi Illva takes care of the marketing and brand building in India, and with Rockford Reserve and Classic now worth 2.5 million cases combined, the success is evident. “The products we’ve launched so far have been specific to the Indian market to compete with Pernod Ricard and Diageo,” adds Modi. “But now we’re in a position to start making products with a more global appeal.

“The scenario has changed in 15 years. Back then India saw only premium brands as those which are imported, but now the country has its own premium gin, whisky and rums which are starting to demand a more global audience.”

The latest example is Singhasan, a blended whisky made from 100% Indian malts which Modi says is competing with Johnny Walker Red Label in terms of quality.

“We’re telling the domestic market that they don’t need a Scotch, they can have an Indian product instead, which at first can be difficult to convince them, but it’s happening slowly,” says Modi.

“We’re an established company with an established route to market, but now that we’re starting to launch our own premium brands in India with interest both domestically and internationally, Illva Saronno’s distribution links may become very useful for us.”

New distillery

But for Modi just selling premium Indian whisky wasn’t enough. The company is currently building its own malt distillery, which is due to be up and running this year.

“Indian single malts are here to stay. Diageo and Pernod Ricard have some of the biggest international Scotch brands yet they still invested in their own Indian distilleries. I think the sales will be largely domestic to begin with, but I can see an export strategy for Indian single malts in the future.

“We’re currently buying in our malts, but because the volumes are significant enough, we want to start to control our own production and the quality too. We also want to launch our own single malts, which is difficult to do without our own distillery.”

Beyond building brands, a new malt distillery and eyeing an export strategy, Modi is in the process of building an imports company. The goal is to bring premium spirits from beyond just Illva Saronno into India, despite historically harsh import tariffs on foreign spirits.

“We work across 22 of the 30 non-dry states in India. The only ones I’m not in aren’t worth being in because they’re either low volume or not premium, but there are still lots of international brands not available in India so it’s a big opportunity,” adds Modi.

In May this year the UK and India agreed a historic trade deal which saw tariffs on whisky and gin halved from 150% to 75%, which will subsequently fall to 40% after 10 years.

“For me, the import tariffs are irrelevant. India is the largest importer of Scotch [by volume] in the world, despite always having steep import tariffs. The super-premium spirits market in India is still dominated by imported brands and this will only increase as tariffs begin to reduce.”