Tequila is the new gin, says Gauri Devidayal, owner of the fine-dining restaurant The Table in Mumbai.

Set up in 2011, it had four items in the tequila section of its bar menu, until 2019. In 2020, it added about 10 mezcal and tequila drinks to the list, some neat and others in cocktails.

“It’s the sort of drink that can be enjoyed neat,” Devidayal says. “There are now more brands available in India, which is both a reflection and a response to the demand. Growing domestic supply is making it more available to us. We are definitely seeing higher consumption of tequila.”

The wider trend at play, is agave.

Spirits such as tequila, mezcal, pulque and raicilla are made from the stem and bulb of different variants of the agave plant, which is a hardy, spiky succulent native to Mexico.

It was brought to India by the British in at least the early 1900s, and has grown abundantly here ever since, particularly in the hot, dry Deccan Plateau.

As the railway networks grew, “the British are believed to have used agave to fence off railway tracks and keep cattle away from them. Farmers still use it to fence off farmland,” says Conrad Braganza, manager of sales, exports and marketing at DesmondJi.

And yet, alcohol did not emerge from these plants until the year 2011, when DesmondJi was set up.

Why? A key reason is that this is a hard plant to process, says Braganza. The complex sugars have to be broken down before the juice can be fermented. The machinery required to do this is so expensive that DesmondJi remains the only distiller in India.

But not the only brand.

Since its first homegrown competitor emerged in 2022, DesmondJi has supplied raw, pure agave spirits to Maya Pistola, the brand set up by Delhi restaurateur Rakshay Dhariwal.

Last month, India got its third homegrown brand, Loca Loka, backed by actor Rana Daggubati. It sources its raw agave from Mexico, the world’s largest producer of these spirits. In an unusual marketing strategy, it has been launched in the US first, and will soon be available here.

What’s driving the sudden boom in agave in India? It can be traced, interestingly, to the pandemic. The prevailing theory is that, locked in at home, people were eager to try new things, and tequila — strong, versatile, unusual — became one of those things.

While that may or may not be the whole story, the numbers paint a clear picture.

About 30,000 nine-litre cases of agave-based spirits were sold in India in 2011. This rose to 39,000 by 2019. By 2022, that figure had shot up to over 68,000 cases. It has nearly doubled since then, with 123,000 cases sold in the current calendar year, says data from market research company International Wine and Spirit Record (IWSR). That’s more than triple the sales, from 2019 to 2024.

“The rise in agave’s popularity in India has been marked by a gradual shift in preferences at the higher end of the market, particularly in metro cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru,” says Raaj Sanghvi, CEO at Culinary Culture, which curates high-end culinary experiences for the elite diner in India. “Tequila and mezcal in particular are gaining traction. The use of tequila in restaurant cocktails has contributed to the rise, along with the perception that this alcohol results in fewer hangovers.”

It helps, Dhariwal adds, that agave spirits contain less sugar and fewer calories than most alcohols, and are therefore seen by young tipplers as a “healthier” option.

Body of proof

Now to zoom out a little. Agave may be on the rise — mainly tequila, truth be told, which makes up over 95% of agave-spirit sales in India -- but these spirits aren’t likely to outsplash the big four in India any time soon.

Alcohol consumption here at home remains dominated by whiskey (a huge market leader, with India, in fact, being the world’s largest consumer), followed by rum, brandy and vodka, in that order.

White spirits as a whole still account for less than 4% of India’s liquor market, Sanghvi says. But the boom in agave is clear enough, he adds.

That boom is what prompted Dhariwal to set up Maya Pistola.

With his restaurants shut in the pandemic, “we figured we needed a product that could get into people’s houses,” Dhariwal says. He and his team studied the figures and realised that people were experimenting with alcohol at home; tequila sales in particular were rising.

Maya Pistola was named after the Mexican goddess of agave, Mayahuel. From a single Reposado, its catalogue has grown to seven variants. Some have a smoother, more mellow flavour from being aged for up to six months; others are a sharper mixed of aged and unaged agave spirits, designed for cocktails.

“In the last financial year, we sold about 3,600 nine-litre cases,” Dhariwal says. “The next goal is to double that in a year.”

Exports could help. Maya Pistola Agavepura is now also available in the US, Thailand, and Singapore. DesmondJi’s pure agave has been available in parts of the US and Europe for a while.

Tipple effect

DesmondJi was set up, incidentally, by the Goan craft distiller Desmond Nazareth, who loved tequila, the story goes, and was tired of buying it at exorbitant rates overseas.

He decided to use agave grown in India, to keep costs down and give his brand a USP. He set up a distillery in Andhra Pradesh, and slowly built a loyal fan base.

This brand also saw sales boom in the pandemic.

“We used to produce at 50% of our distillery capacity (of 30,000 nine-litre cases) before the pandemic,” Braganza says. “Since October 2021, when we reopened after the pandemic, demand has been growing and we now produce at full capacity. As of September this year, we are making 60,000 nine-litre cases a year.”

What’s next? Watch the tequila sections of restaurant menus and you may spot the next spurt yourself.

The true challenge will be altering the average urban Indian’s home bar, Sanghvi says. “The discerning drinker may experiment with an agave-based cocktail at a restaurant. And there is a certainly growing appreciation for craft, small-batch and artisanal spirits in general. Like whiskey, agave spirits offer the sophisticated, slower-drinking experience that appeals to discerning consumer in India. And the make-in-India spirit helps boost interest in homegrown brands. But, in terms of price and prestige, it will be hard to beat whiskey and the others, given how deeply these spirits are embedded in Indian drinking culture.”

“Agave spirits do have the potential to carve out a significant niche,” he adds.

How significant? Keep an eye on the menus and you’ll know.

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