Crafting Indian Gins the World Wants to Drink Written by Anand Virmani, Co-Founder & Master Distiller – Nao Spirits & Beverages If gin can be crafted everywhere from London to Tokyo, why not India? Especially when many of those gins being poured globally were already leaning on Indian botanicals — cardamom, clove, turmeric, black pepper. That was the question that stayed with me in 2014–2015. Gin shelves across the country were filled with international labels; why didn’t we have one to call our own? That question became the spark for Nao Spirits. The beginning was as scrappy as it gets. My wife and business partner Aparajita and I were distilling in a spare bedroom at home with a tiny pot still. We tested over 120 botanicals, isolating them one by one, then building combinations. Nights blurred into days, and our house smelled perpetually of juniper, citrus, or coriander. At the time, I was working at a wine bar that doubled up as a coffee shop by day. This became a perfect testing ground, whatever we distilled the night before would be handed over to guests and bartenders. They weren’t our guinea pigs but were definitely our first sounding boards. With no marketing budget, conversations were our currency.
It took a few years of tinkering before Greater Than was finally released in 2017. The decision was strategic: Hapusa, our Himalayan Dry Gin, had actually been developed first — but we wanted Greater Than to lay the groundwork for India’s gin category, to become India’s favourite home pour. Hapusa would wait its turn until 2018. From day one, we were clear about how we wanted to present ourselves. We weren’t going to plaster our bottles with elephants or peacocks. We focused on honesty and clarity for Greater Than, a gin that spoke of a modern India in two words. That simplicity struck a chord with people who weren’t just looking for what was in their glass, but for authenticity behind it. Hapusa, our second release, was born from a very different journey. While exploring spice markets in Delhi, I stumbled across a variety of juniper I had never seen before — bigger berries, far stronger in aroma. A shopkeeper told me its name: Hapusha, Sanskrit for juniper. That moment changed everything. We foraged more, experimented with how the juniper reacted to other local botanicals, and built a gin that tasted like the mountains themselves. Hapusa became the world’s first Himalayan Dry Gin. We’ve always believed in experimenting, even if it meant making mistakes. Some of those mistakes became our best-sellers. When the power went out mid-distillation, we ended up with what later became Juniper Bomb. Too much late-night coffee led us to creating a G&T with cold brewed coffee, which then led us to steep beans into spirit — and No Sleep was born. Our limited strawberry release Punk Gin saw the entire team slicing through 700 kilos of fruit by hand.
Craft, for us, isn’t static. It’s restless, playful, and willing to get things wrong to discover something unexpected. But spirits alone weren’t enough. We wanted to create a culture around craft — ways for people to engage with gin beyond the glass. So we launched IPs that gave us room to play. Bar Wars - a competition that spotlights both the bartender and the server, Forager’s Journey and Forager’s Championship where bartenders forage ingredients and create drinks rooted in their surroundings. Crashing Greater, an open-door tasting that turned strangers into regulars. Bitter People’s Club, where you vent about life while learning to make a Negroni. Even our April Fool’s pranks became lore — like the fake “Juniper Bomb Toothpaste” announcement that snowballed into real demand. We also found our footing in over 20 international markets, from Singapore to the UK to Italy. As our brands grew, so did outside interest. Early conversations with global players in 2019 were a reality check: our entire annual output was what they considered a monthly requirement. We were too small for them — but their attention was a signal that we were on to something. "At the end of the day, scale is meaningless if it washes out identity. We’re not trying to make a gin that could come from anywhere. We’re making spirits that taste like India — modern, bold, and unmistakable." Three years ago, Diageo India came in with a minority stake. Their brief was simple: “Keep doing what you’re doing. We’re here to support you, not change you.” That partnership gave us access to distribution muscle and opened up more markets.
Those three years of working together and understand our synergies has deepened the partnership today. What reassured us was their clarity — our identity stays intact. We continue to drive the ship. They don’t want to take the craft out of the brand; they want to help it travel further. Internally, we’ve kept the same spirit. Our “strategy table” is a table-tennis table in the distillery. Our copper pot still has a name, Agotha. Mondays through Wednesdays, our office turns into a bar in the evenings. We don’t have an IT department. If something breaks, chances are I’ll be the one fixing it. That’s what keeps us real — scaling up without losing the scrappy, playful heart of a startup. At the end of the day, scale is meaningless if it washes out identity. We’re not trying to make a gin that could come from anywhere. We’re making spirits that taste like India — modern, bold, and unmistakable. Because in the end, our spirits aren’t just drinks. They’re proof that Indian craft can not only hold its own on the world stage, but also set new benchmarks for it. You Might Also Like...
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