Bagpiper
From The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails
, a leading Indian “whisky” brand, was launched in 1976 by Vittal Mallya’s United Spirits Limited (USL). It is a blend of Indian and scotch malt whisky and neutral spirit made from molasses. This places it outside the internationally recognized definition for whisky.
Mallya bought United Breweries in 1947 and began to move into distilling in the early 1950s, initially with the purchase of McDowell’s. ISL was taken over by Diageo in 2014; Mallya has since been removed from control of the business.Bagpiper sells in the region of nine million cases a year. Any consideration for moving into export was thwarted in 2016 when Diageo stopped selling it outside of its home market. This was as a result of concerns raised by the scotch Whisky Association regarding the use of “Scottish names” on non-scotch whiskies.
Woodard, Richard. “Indian Whisky: Why It Matters to Scotch.” Scotchwhisky.com, April 12, 2016. https://scotchwhisky.com/magazine/in-depth/8924/indian-whisky-why-it-matters-to-scotch/ (accessed January 29, 2021).
By: Dave Broom
This definition is from The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails, edited by David Wondrich (Editor-in-Chief) and Noah Rothbaum (Associate Editor).