How Liquor Stores In India Went Premium

Across the country, buying liquor was a hush-hush affair. But in the recent years, a slew of premium liquor stores are changing that, one outlet at a time

- Priyanko Sarkar

36-year-old advertising professional Gaurav Gupta remembers the first time he went to buy liquor in Mumbai a few years back. The owner, an old man, was sitting and watching to make sure that riffraff didn't hang about his store while a couple of young guys were busy mouthing off prices of cheap Indian rum and whiskies that most people had come to the store for. I distinctly remember the owner's eye-popping when I asked to buy a bottle of my favorite Jameson Whiskey, he recalls.

Today, Gupta simply hops over to Mansionz by Living Liquidz to pick up his Jameson, an experience he says is as simple as picking essentials from any other store. Indeed, from metro cities like Mumbai to satellite towns such as Gurgaon, Bengaluru, and Tier 2 cities like Pune and Ludhiana to name a few, the change in alcohol buying through the experience of premium stores has been on a steady rise over the past half-decade.

Now, super premium stores, ones that boast of technology-assisted services, self-service areas to browse through the entire collection of spirits, bar room, and tasting facilities, and more are challenging the very concept of buying liquor. Indeed, these experiential stores offer a much better buying experience than even airport liquor stores.

Most premium liquor store owners say that ironically, it was Covid-19 that helped propel the change from corner shops to premium stores as state governments realized the benefit of having people buy alcohol whilst maintaining social distancing and increasing revenue for the state exchequer. The demand for alcohol went up during lockdown, and the benefit of a large retail store that doesn't draw in crowds was obvious, Dinesh Kathuria, one of the three founders of The Liquor Store at Belapur's Palm Beach Road, says.