Spirited Picks: What India's alcobev insiders buy when they travel
As owner of Pass Code Hospitality, which runs 20 restaurants and bars across the country, and co-founder of homegrown agave brand Maya Pistola Agavepura, Rakshay Dhariwal is always sampling new stuff — and recco-ing spirits. The latest addition to his sizeable tequila collection is a sotol from Flor del Desierto, picked up in Thailand. Sotol is a traditional Mexican spirit, like mezcal or tequila, but distilled from dasylirion, a spiny, desert-dwelling plant in the asparagus family.
'This one's a pechuga-style sotol,' says Dhariwal, referring to a rare distillation method in which meat, typically chicken or turkey breast, is added to the still during a final distillation, often alongside fruits and spices. It adds body and complexity, says Dhariwal. The 'Snake Pechuga' he bought includes rattlesnake meat in the distillate, along with local botanicals. 'It's got outstanding flavour and aroma,' he says. If a serpent in your drink feels like a step too far, he suggests the more conventional Fortaleza, a tequila he calls 'one of the smoothest I've ever had.' Flor del Desierto.
Currently holidaying in Vietnam, Uday Balaji is all praise for Sampan Rum, an agricole-style rum made by Distillerie Indochine near Hoi An. 'It's made entirely from sugarcane juice and has this lovely fresh, floral character,' says the Coimbatore-based whisky educator. For those heading to Southeast Asia, he also recommends keeping an eye out for Glenglassaugh Portsoy, a coastal single malt from the Brown-Forman portfolio. 'I feel it's a much-overlooked gem,' says Balaji of the peaty dram. 'I've come across it at several duty-free outlets in the region, especially at Changi Airport and in the Philippines.' Also on his radar, if Europe happens this year, is Smogen, a bold Swedish whisky. 'It holds its own against several Scottish single malts,' he says. Glenglassaugh Portsoy.
Mayukh Hazarika's Cherrapunji is one of India's standout gins — smoky, rainwater-distilled in Meghalaya, and infused with botanicals from the North East, including second-flush tea from the Lushai Hills in Mizoram. But gin isn't the only thing Hazarika likes to sip after a long day. At times, he turns to Calvados or Armagnac. 'I've mostly picked up the Calvados Chateau du Breuil and Pays d'Auge, from Berlin, and they never disappoint.' The Chateau du Breuil, he says, is smooth and rounded; the Pays d'Auge, sharper and more structured. For Armagnac, he turns to Janneau, which is soft, slightly spiced, and always dependable. If you're in Holland, he recommends picking up Rutte, a 'benchmark' gin distilled at a 150-year-old facility in Dordrecht, about 100 km from Amsterdam. Rutte.
Kasturi Banerjee's Maka Zai, launched in 2021, was one of India's first homegrown craft rums. Since then, the former banker has expanded her portfolio with Mesma, a limited-edition barrel-aged expression that leans on aromatic complexity. When she's travelling, Banerjee makes a point of seeking out local spirits, especially rums that experiment with indigenous ingredients. 'I look for flavoured rums, especially those using indigenous fruits or spices, and how distilleries are experimenting with not just traditional Asian crops like sugarcane, but also less common ingredients like cashew.'
She is particularly fond of the agricole-style Samui Rum, which is distilled by the Magic Alambic Rum Distillery (La Rhumerie de Samui) on Koh Samui's quiet southwest coast. Dos Maderas Luxus, a rum aged in the Caribbean and then finished in casks that previously held 20-year-old Pedro Ximénez sherry in Jerez, Spain, is another favourite that she picked up in the UK. Her latest find is Rosemullion Honey Rum, from Frankfurt. Made in Cornwall, the rum is infused with local honey and herbs. Her whisky picks are rooted in Ireland, and she especially recommends Redbreast for its elegance and Connemara for its gentle peat. Redbreast.
Vinayak Singh, co-founder, Dram Club
As co-founder of Dram Club, a community for spirits lovers, Vinayak Singh often leads whisky tours to Scotland, and never returns without a bottle of Highland Park 18. 'It's consistently good… I have no idea why it's overlooked.' Another label that never fails to impress is Octomore. 'We recently had a tasting of the super heavily peated Octomore 9.3 — it was a big hit.' Both brands, especially the Highland Park, are often available at duty-free shops in Southeast Asia, says Singh. Highland Park 18.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NDTV
6 hours ago
- NDTV
Pick Up Trash, Get Free Stuff: Copenhagen's 'CopenPay' Rewards Tourists
Mexican tourist Rocio Gomez spent an hour boating on Copenhagen's canals free of charge in exchange for picking up trash in the water, part of a city programme for rewarding eco-friendly tourists. During her tour on an electric motorboat, which normally costs around $95 an hour, Rocio collected trash in the Copenhagen port. "You're doing something helpful and you're also having a good time," she told AFP. The 34-year-old who works in sustainable development said she planned to take advantage of other similar deals offered in Copenhagen during her visit. From mid-June until late August, the CopenPay initiative offers around 100 activities in exchange for free or reduced prices on a selection of experiences. Participants can get a coffee, pastry or concert ticket in exchange for an hour of picking up trash; money back on a restaurant dinner if they do some gardening; or a free guided tour for those who stay in the city longer than three days. "We saw that four out of five people actually want to do good, but only one does it. So we wanted to see how we could bridge that gap and inspire more people to do good," said Rikke Holm Petersen, head of communications at the Wonderful Copenhagen tourism board. The initiative was tested on a smaller scale last year, when 75,000 people took part. This year Wonderful Copenhagen expects at least twice as many. The number of companies and institutions taking part, and getting no financial gain in return, has increased four-fold. The campaign targets tourists but applies to anyone who wants to participate. At the motorboat rental company GoBoat, as at many other places, the offer is limited. "Around 60 people can come every Tuesday and Thursday morning" after signing up on a CopenPay website, said GoBoat's Isabel Smith. A marine biologist, Smith is in charge of analysing the trash hauled by CopenPay users, averaging two kilos (4.4 pounds) per boat, most of which is plastic. "I measure the plastic by width and length, then identify the type of plastic," she said. "This will contribute to our current understanding of the role of the harbour and plastic pollution." Spreading abroad? The programme has proven popular with tourists. "When you are travelling to different places, you want to experience different things. And I found that this is pretty amazing," Gomez said. "At the beginning, it was pretty clean -- extremely clean -- but then we found certain corners that were pretty dirty." "And then we started to pick up all the trash from the corners with bamboo nets." Also in her boat was Marta Reschiglian, an Italian student visiting Copenhagen with a group of friends on an Erasmus university exchange programme. "Since we are students and we are sometimes on a really tight budget, it's so nice to be able to do these things, to combine a bit of a sustainable, friendly behaviour and also a way to get things for free," Reschiglian said. "Lots of cities should start to adopt these kinds of initiatives," she added. "We are seeing all over the world that there are so many problems with mass tourism." The project could spread to other cities outside Denmark. "We've been sharing insights with 100 destinations all over the world," said Petersen at Wonderful Copenhagen. In the Danish capital, the initiative could become permanent in the future, with a winter programme as well. Around four million tourists visit Copenhagen each year, the majority in summer.
The Hindu
a day ago
- The Hindu
Author Prajwal Parajuly tries Chatti in New York and eats his words
I am often asked what I do when I want Chennai food in New York. I matter-of-factly say I go to Semma — the best-known Indian restaurant in America — like getting a table there isn't an ordeal. In truth, though, I have long dismissed people who live between countries and hanker for one place when they are in another. This applies to those fools who complain about the lack of good pizza in Delhi while they eat at an Indian restaurant in London every third day. Ditto for those craving the perfect filter coffee in San Francisco and then crying about the inauthentic Mexican food in Pune. One of the privileges of actually living between cities is that you don't have to miss a particular food for too long. Besides, why would I want to eat Indian food outside India, I have often argued. All that was, of course, until I started seeing someone who has taken it upon herself to convince me that no cuisine can quite measure up to Indian. After countless battles about where to eat, especially when we travel, we have come to a compromise. Because my deliciously alliterative name would be well accentuated with a middle initial — Prajwal P for Pretentious Parajuly — I have consented to visiting an Indian restaurant abroad only if it has at least a Michelin star. So, yes, I'll allow myself to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to one of the seven starred Indian restaurants in London or to the above-mentioned Semma, the lone starred Indian place in New York, all the while feeling smug that I have come out far ahead in the bargain. Sometimes I'll altruistically make exceptions for non-starred restaurants: Bungalow, Dhamaka and Kanyakumari in New York (fair, good, good). Chutney Mary in London (very good). And the just-opened Chatti in New York, the first foreign foray of Chef Regi of the Kappa Chakka Kandhari fame, which is too young to earn a star. Now, I have been a KCK fan for a while. The food that's served at the Nungambakkam, Chennai, establishment is what your nonagenarian Malayalee grandmother might whip up. Everything I have eaten there — the lobster fry, the coconut prawn, the duck mappas — is wholesome. But my relationship with the restaurant is somewhat mangled by the cloud pudding — that ridiculous, magnificent tender-coconut dome. The blancmange is as light as a cloud, fluffy as a cloud, luminescent as a cloud. It feels like you're consuming air, if air were filled with whimsy and delight and agar agar. As a novelist, I am wary of PhD theses finding symbolism in my books where there's none, but I see, after the many times I have intellectualised a damn pudding, how the temptation might arise. Still, I now realise I've done KCK a disservice by being fanatical about the cloud pudding, which is just one exceptional item on a menu bursting with exceptional foods. I'd have to redeem myself at Chatti. First, the size hits me. I've been told it's toddy-shop food, so I expect the restaurant to look a bit distressed, down-market even, but the two-storied Chatti is a ritzier iteration of KCK. There are marble tables, teak chairs and conches on every placemat. The 90-seat restaurant, a hop and a skip from the hell that is Times Square, is ambitious all right. Despite its being just four months old, tables are hard to come by. I'd know because I have gone twice in 10 days. The first time, we went as a twosome. Greedy to try out more food, we cobbled together a group of four to return. Getting a Saturday-evening reservation involved some dexterously placed phone calls. The tablemats show off a mind-boggling array of appetisers; we tell Chef Regi our order is in his hands. Plates of perfectly spiced prawn pouches steamed in banana leaves materialise. These are followed by scallops, mini appams, curry-leaf mushrooms and a slow-simmered seafood moilee soup. I pop in my mouth the flavour bomb that's the Calicut mussel, seasoned with curry leaves, coconut oil, chilli, coriander powder, turmeric, and lemon juice. It's sensational. Others are distracted by the Ramapuram chicken curry. Many variations of 'homey' are thrown around. The rice dumplings in coconut milk are unlike anything I've had before. The overnight-fermented clay pot fish curry is unusual in that it is served at room temperature. I fall for the black-chickpea kadala curry. It's so light. The snapper — spiced with tender peppercorn, gooseberry, Kandhari chilli and turmeric — makes me want to cry with joy. And there's ghee rice. How can rice — rice! — be so magical? It smells of cardamom and ghee and tastes exactly like it smells. It's toddy-shop cuisine, so the drinks can't be far behind. The Malayalee Old-Fashioned — embellished with toasted coconut, bitters and jaggery — is theatrically revealed, but it's the tequila-based Kandhari drink, in which the flavour of the lethal Kandhari chilli has been playfully captured, that does it for me. The clarified sambar drink—appropriately named Sam Bar—is someone else's favourite. 'Will it get a star?' one of us asks. I think it will. It better. This is good, sincere food. It's quality food. It's happy food. It's food that transcends what's on the plate. It's food that tells stories. I am eager for others to experience the dessert, my slice of Chennai, the divine dome of KCK. The cloud pudding — an eye-wateringly expensive $16 — pinches me hard because I have eaten it in Chennai for 125 rupees. Our group is divided. Two of us declare the pudding sublime. The other two pronounce the jaggery palada superior. It doesn't matter. We order another cloud pudding. It's worth every one of those darn sixteen dollars. The chef sends us yet another. Prajwal Parajuly is the author of The Gurkha's Daughter and Land Where I Flee. He loves idli, loathes naan, and is indifferent to coffee. He teaches Creative Writing at Krea University and oscillates between New York City and Sri City.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Time of India
Mexico slaps cruise passengers with new tourist tax, fee set to quadruple by 2027
Starting this week, cruise passengers arriving in Mexico will be hit with a new tourist tax, a move that has stirred tensions between the cruise industry and the Mexican government, and left some local business owners fearing for their livelihoods, as per a report. New $5 Cruise Passenger Fee Begins This Week in Mexico The $5-per-passenger fee, which applies every time a cruise ship docks at a Mexican port, is set to gradually rise to $21 by 2027, as reported by New York Post. The charge will be folded into the price of the cruise, similar to how airlines include Mexico's tourist tax in airfare, according to the report. Rubén Olmos Rodríguez, who has participated in the tax talks and runs advisory firm Global Nexus, told the Wall Street Journal, 'The Mexican government's perspective is: 'OK, fine, you bring prosperity. But you need to pay accordingly, like other tourists pay when they come via an airplane,'' as quoted by New York Post. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Play War Thunder now for free War Thunder Play Now Undo Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association analysed that the new tax will be in addition to the port fees that cruise lines have already paid for years, which is an average of $28.85 per passenger in Cozumel, as per the report. The Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association estimated that approximately 3,300 cruise ships are projected to stop in Mexican ports this year, bringing about 10 million passengers with them, as reported by the New York Post. ALSO READ: Oracle stock soars after revealing massive $30 billion annual cloud deal in filing Live Events Cruise Lines Push Back on the New Tax While the tax has been reduced from the original $42 proposed by officials, major cruise operators Royal Caribbean and other cruise operators are pushing back by arguing that it drops off passengers who patronise Mexican businesses, as reported by New York Post. Local Business Owners Worry About Impact Meanwhile, the local business owners have voiced their concerns that the tax could discourage tourists from booking cruises that stop in Mexico, according to the report. Carmen Joaquín, who owns a duty-free shop and serves as president of Cozumel's business coordinating council told the New York Post, 'We, as business owners, were very concerned, because Cozumel lives on cruise tourism,' as quoted in the report. ALSO READ: Iran bans Elon Musk's Starlink, users now face prison, fines, even flogging According to the report, the cruise operator for months had worked together with local officials over taxation, hiring and local investment requirements, as government officials pressured the company to employ more Mexican workers and use more Mexican products across its supply chain. Tourist Tax To Help Avoid Social Program Cuts However, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has highlighted that, the new tourist tax is a way to lower the nation's budget deficit without having to cut social programmes, as reported by the New York Post. ALSO READ: Peter Thiel faces backlash for backing Palantir — key facts Americans should be aware of FAQs How much is the new tourist tax in Mexico? It starts at $5 per passenger this week and will rise to $21 by 2027. Why is Mexico charging cruise passengers a new tax? The government wants cruise tourists to pay the same kind of tax that aeroplane passengers already do, as part of broader efforts to boost public revenue, as per the New York Post report.
