Indian whisky

Indian whisky is a New world whisky that is mostly Indian-made foreign liquor and is labelled as "whisky”. Blends based on neutral spirits are commonly distilled from fermented molasses with only about 10 to 12 per cent creating traditional malt whisky. Outside India, such a drink would more likely be labelled a rum.

Molasses-based blends made up 90 per cent of the spirits consumed as "whisky" in India in 2004, although whisky wholly distilled from malt and other grains, was also manufactured and sold. By 2004, shortages of wheat had been overcome and India was one of the largest producers. Amrut, the first single malt whisky produced in India, was launched in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2004. After expanding in Europe, it was launched in India in 2010.

Indian single malts comprised 15% of the local market in 2017, increasing to 33% in 2022. In the three years to 2022, sales of Indian malts increased by an annual average of 42%, compared with 7% for imported rivals.