Most people love to enjoy a good malt after a long day’s work or at a social gathering. Vinayak Singh, on the other hand, took his love for whisky and created a space for all enthusiasts, bringing together a community for people to appreciate whisky. In 2019, he launched The Dram Club, which he co-founded with Swati Sharma after taking a trip to the whisky distilleries in Scotland. He wanted to bring the passion and curiosity of whisky, which was present in Scotland, to the country by hosting several tastings pan-India. Since then The Dram Club has been hosting tastings and/with food pairings associated with different brands, restaurants, chefs and connoisseurs.
The Dram Club recently hosted a three-city tour tasting in Kolkata, Mumbai and Hyderabad with Indri X Radhika Khandelwal X The Dram Club. Held on July 30, at The Salt House on Shakespeare Sarani, Indri - Trini Single Malt Whisky was paired with the sustainable dishes curated by chef Radhika Khandelwal of Fig & Maple.
Before the tasting, we picked Vinayak’s brain about his knowledge surrounding malts. Edited excerpts from the conversation follow…
My Kolkata: What led you and Swati Sharma to conceptualise The Dram Club?
Vinayak: I was a banker for the longest time and Swati was working as well. We have been friends for seven years now and we met at a wine-tasting event. Both of us love our whiskies and when we went to Scotland for the first time, we were pleasantly surprised by the warmth with which people offer you whisky in Scotland. There was also so much science, craft and heritage about the whisky distilleries, which in 2019 was not spoken about in India. People in India treat whisky as a status symbol or a hallowed drink. There people offer whisky as if I have come to your house and you are offering me coffee or chai. They don't judge you for the whisky that you are drinking. So we thought, why don’t we find people who love whisky in Mumbai?
The Dram Club started with the idea of finding people in Mumbai who love whisky
“You can have whisky at any time of the day or fashion and should never be judged for drinking whisky.”
What was the objective behind The Dram Club?
Our idea behind The Dram Club was to make whisky more fun, democratic and inclusive. We want to make people look at whisky in new ways. You can have whisky at any time of the day or fashion and should never be judged for drinking whisky. It is a very subjective experience. An example I give to people is: 30 people are sitting in a room and I spray the same perfume on all of them but all of them will still smell different. So it’s okay to like different styles of whiskies. Don’t feel alienated by snobs, because there is no right way to like it.
When it comes to understanding whisky, how well do the Indian whisky lovers understand the drink?
I think that awareness has gone up remarkably in the last couple of years, post-Covid. There is a set of connoisseurs who have been drinking for some time, and they know their whisky. Also, there is a new customer group that has come up who are very curious. It’s like the same audience that is curious about the different styles of food and cocktails. People in India are becoming increasingly aware and are trying different styles of whiskies. If it was about four years ago, people would have looked down upon an Indian single malt. Now, that has changed. As long as it’s for the better.
Jack Daniel’s was Al Pacino’s pick of poison in ‘Scent Of A Woman’
What about you? When did you first start appreciating a good spirit?
For me, it was in 2008 when I took whisky seriously. I got fascinated by Al Pacino’s character in Scent Of A Woman, he used to have Jack Daniel’s. So that was the first whisky I started sipping. I was living in France at that time and my landlord had come for some repairs. So when I offered him a drink and he asked what I had, I said, “Jack Daniel’s”. He said, “No, come to my house. I will give you something else.” So we went and he gave me a Chivas 18 and that sort of changed my whole perception about whisky. It could be something so smooth, so rich, so elegant... it could be so tasteful.
“I have met a few whisky enthusiasts in Kolkata. People do know their whiskies; they love their whiskies.”
After the Hyderabad leg in August, what other plans does The Dram Club have, including in Kolkata?
The biggest thing we’re doing after this is taking a bunch of whisky enthusiasts to Scotland on a 10-day trip to some of the most iconic whisky distilleries. That is one of the biggest projects we have undertaken because people keep asking us why we haven’t taken them to Scotland. In terms of experiences, we are doing a lot of different brands like (The) Glen Grant’s Arbolaris. We want to do a lot more in Kolkata. I have lived here for two years between 2005 and 2007 and I think doing an event like this will go a long way in making brands acknowledge and notice Kolkata. Kolkata is also a thriving experience city and it is a market that deserves new experiences.
The Indri X Radhika Khandelwal X The Dram Club event was your second in Kolkata. What would you say about the city’s knowledge about whisky?
The first one was in December last year which we had hosted for the US Consul General. I have met a few whisky enthusiasts here. People do know their whiskies; they love their whiskies. There was this one lady I met who has been to Scotland a couple of times with her brothers. People here are very curious about cuisine and food, right? So I’m sure with experiences like these we can evoke their curiosity for finer spirits.
‘It's been a fabulous experience working with Radhika Khandelwal. We wanted a chef who could work with whisky and would be equally excited about it. Be it cinnamon, some nutmeg, spices... she paired it with dishes which accentuated the flavours,’ says Vinayak.
Indri was used in the tasting (in Kolkata). Why Indri?
Indri, launched last year in India is one of the finest Indian single malts. We personally like Indri quite a lot and I hand it to them because they haven't played safe with their first launch. Typically, when people launch their whisky in India, it’s an ex-Bourbon cask. But these guys are the first to launch in India, as their first whisky, a marriage of three different casks — ex-Bourbon, ex-cherry and a wine cask. So it was quite brave of them.
What was the response like to the event hosted in Mumbai?
The response in Mumbai was phenomenal. It was a 30-seater show but we raised it to 40 because of the overwhelming response. Despite that, 12 people were on the waiting list.
Radhika Khandelwal's special Old Fashioned
How would you compare Kolkata’s spending power with other cities?
It is there but it might not be where Mumbai or Delhi is right now. People are going out and spending and experiencing what others are making. It is there. It’s just that brands, experiences or restaurants have to come up and bring something new to Kolkata. When I used to live here, Kolkata was all about those Chinese restaurants in Park Street. We need more places like The Salt House so people can wake up to the fact that this city is not just about Chinese food. People have spending power; it just has to be presented in a way that revenue is spent with something different.
Name two home-grown brands of whisky that have done us proud.
Amrut for sure. It’s put India on the global single malt map. Indri is doing a fabulous job. There is also a whisky called Godawan (single malt whisky) by Diageo. Godawan is a bird that almost became extinct. So a percentage of the revenue and sales goes into the conservation of that bird. I am personally proud of that initiative because people are talking about sustainability.
