Actor Sanjay Dutt invests in alcobev startup; to import and sell liquor brands

The startup’s first product is blended Scotch whisky brand Glenwalk, which the company is importing from Scotland, to be followed by brands of vodka, tequila and single malt, said Mokksh Sani, promoter of liquor retail chain Living Liquidz and one of the five partners of the startup.

Other investors include Manesh Sani, also representing Living Liquidz, Jittin Merani of Drinq bar academy and Rohan Nihalani, promoter of Morgan Beverages.

Sani said Cartel & Bros has leased a factory in Scotland and that the company will price its products to make them accessible to a larger group of young consumers. “We believe our collaboration has the ability to offer consumers accessible Scotch,” he said.

But alcobev is a challenging business, with complex regulation, multiple state-level taxation and price-control. “Yes it is a regulated market, but regulations exist in every business. We’re looking at a bigger picture, and India is a young country where consumers are willing to experiment,” Sani said.

The development comes at a time when India has been ranked as one of the fastest-growing markets for alcohol sales. The country overtook France to become UK’s largest Scotch whisky market in terms of volume, with a 60% surge in imports in 2022 over the previous year, according to Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) data. The data revealed that India imported 219 million bottles of Scotch last year, compared to France’s 205 million, growing more than 200% in the past decade, fuelled by higher demand for premium whisky and a growing set of new consumers who wanted to experiment and innovate.

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The Maharashtra government had slashed excise duty on imported scotch whisky by half in November 2021, down from 300%.However, a free trade agreement (FTA) between India and the UK on imports of whisky and a few other categories continues to be in the negotiation stage, with disagreement over the import duty percentage.

Whisky companies with established scale businesses include United Spirits, Allied Blenders and Distillers, Pernod Ricard, Radico Khaitan and Jagatjit Industries.

The trend of Bollywood actors investing in startups has escalated over the past couple of years, with consumer-facing categories such as packaged foods, cosmetics, lifestyle, apparel and ed-tech being top draws. Dutt himself invested in sneakers marketplace DawnTown earlier this year.

Anushka Sharma has invested in plant-based meat startup Blue Tribe Foods and millet-based snack brand Slurrp Farm, Alia Bhat’s investments include personal styling platform StyleCracker and biomaterials startup Phool, while Ranveer Singh has invested in Sugar Cosmetics.