Indian whiskey claims to be a consumer – Kommersant FM

The Russians will be offered even more whiskey from India. Alcoholic Siberian Group, known for the Five Lakes and Husky vodka brands, has become a distributor of the Indian company Radico Khaitan. It produces hard alcohol. According to the Drinks International rating, the company is in the top 10 global manufacturers in terms of sales. Two types of whiskey will enter the Russian market – blended, worth 2.2 thousand rubles. per bottle, and single malt, its price starts from 6.5 thousand rubles. Will they be in demand among the Russians? Daria Fomenko found out.

After the outbreak of Russian hostilities in Ukraine, the whiskey market lost, perhaps, the largest international players. A year ago, not everyone was able to find familiar names in retail. And importers gradually began to pay attention to manufacturers who had not previously reached Russian retail. Radico Khaitan will probably be among those now. True, whiskey connoisseurs should not have high hopes for products from India, says Ast CEO Leonid Rafailov:

“By British standard, this product cannot be called whiskey, it is not aged. From the point of view of a sophisticated consumer who has tasted Scotch whiskey or a product from other more advanced regions, the Indian drink certainly leaves much to be desired.

He can compete only with Russian producers, but I am sure that Russian whiskey producers will not be inferior to him in quality and will definitely be cheaper in price, therefore, from my point of view, the prospect of obtaining large volumes of Indian whiskey sales is rather vague.

Radico Khaitan, according to experts, produces about 60% of the world’s whiskey. But the company’s brands have not been noticed in the Russian market before. The manufacturer himself intends to supply at least 1 million bottles to the country in two years. But in order to sell them, he or the supplier will either have to offer competitive prices or make significant investments in advertising, says Alexander Lipilin, chief executive of Fortwine. However, the first successes are unlikely to be noticeable in the coming years, he believes:

“The whiskey market is a brand market. And the work to promote them lasts for decades, if not centuries, when we are talking, for example, about Scotland and other leading producers. For a Russian manufacturer, Indian brands that will come are an absolute noname. And if the price suits the consumer, it is better than that of analogues, then this product will be bought. And the price there is not the biggest advantage. This means that the manufacturer will have to do a lot of work to promote this whisky. If there is success, it will be somewhere in the horizon of three to five years.”

WineRetail estimates that whiskey imports to Russia have halved in 2022. The Ministry of Industry and Trade included alcohol in the list of parallel imports about a year ago. Since then, the business has managed to purchase brands familiar to the consumer from the same Scotland. And the entry of Indian players to the market probably turned out to be not so timely, says Alexander Stavtsev, head of the WineRetail center:

“Indian whiskey is quite an interesting, but still niche position. Moreover, there is no shortage of certain categories of whiskey, as it was in the last quarter of 2022, on the market. Since the beginning of 2023, under the parallel import mechanism, a fairly large amount of whiskey of those companies that have left the Russian market has been imported, primarily Scotch whiskey, which occupies the largest market share. The Indian drink will have to compete with well-known scotch brands.”

Last year, Russian companies also got involved in the production of whiskey. Allegedly, the Irish began to be made, for example, in St. Petersburg. According to studies, alcohol is almost the last category on which Russians would be ready to save. Especially during a crisis.

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