Chasing Old Monk

Kapil Mohan, chairman, Mohan Meakin, the maker of Old Monk rum in India passed into the ages on January 7, 2018.
But his legacy drink still warms body and soul.
We revisit the time Dhruv Munjal set out to check the status of India's love affair with Old Monk...

Photograph: bass_nroll/Creative Commons

It is just past 7 pm in Delhi. A steady drizzle has ended and Connaught Place's inner circle is speckled with drops of rain. There is a thick crowd of people, and many are headed to the pubs and bars here for a sundowner or two.

Inside The Vault Cafe, amid elegant sofas and ornate lighting, a group of men -- almost all in white shirt and dark trousers -- are bonding over single-malt whiskey. At the table next to them, two young men are guzzling a pint each of a Spanish beer.

I am here on a mission: to find out if people still order Old Monk, the dark rum made by Mohan Meakins at Mohan Nagar in Ghaziabad near Delhi. A few days ago, there was a buzz in the social media that Old Monk would soon cease production -- something Mohan Meakins quickly denied. But that didn't stem the outpour of digital nostalgia, akin to what happened when telegrams and HMT watches were consigned to history.

I position myself close to the bar, so that I can see every time the barman reaches out to the line of bottles behind him and picks up the ubiquitous fat Old Monk bottle. In the two hours that I spend here, nobody orders Old Monk -- not even once. As I make my way out, the manager on duty lands an optimistic remark: "You should come in December. You'll find people drinking Old Monk then." That's a wait of over four months.

My next stop is My Bar Lounge where guests puff hookah and down copious amounts of beer. On a similar damp evening a few years ago, a friend had told me how Old Monk and warm water on such days lifted his spirits. His childlike enthusiasm for the rum seems like a story from some other age. Here too, Old Monk remains unordered.

Maybe it's uncool to have rum in a bar or lounge, maybe people want to be seen in public with a tall beer glass or a colourful cocktail, and maybe connoisseurs buy their rum in the market and drink it with relish at home with family and friends, I tell myself. A couple of days later I decide to hang around at a liquor shop in Khan Market to see how many people buy Old Monk.

It is evening and the upscale market is bustling with fashionable people. There is a steady stream of buyers at the liquor shop operated by the Delhi State Civil Supply Corporation. Old men clutch tiny bottles of cheap whiskey and head home. The attendant places chilled bottles of beer on the counter with the agility of a gymnast and the refrigerator empties quickly. A stack of neatly-lined Old Monk bottles in the background lies untouched.

Old Monk is no longer India's favourite rum. Sales have dwindled from 8 million cases (of 12 bottles each) in its days of market leadership to below 4 million now. It's placed second in the pecking order of dark rums after United Spirits' McDowell's No 1 (18.2 million cases). Old Monk's share in the dark rum market is now an abysmal 5 per cent.

One reason is that Indians now prefer beer and whiskey over rum. Mixologists concede that tastes have altered over time. According to Hemant Mundkur, a mixologist at Tulleho Bartending Academy in Bengaluru, "Old Monk has become a more end-of-the-month drink when people try to save money."

Also, he says Old Monk lacks the versatility that white rum can boast of. White rum, which is significantly lighter on the palette when compared to its dark counterpart, mixes well with most cocktails. White rum and Coke, in fact, is the most widely ordered cocktail in the world.

That perhaps explains the popularity of Bacardi in India: though it entered the market only in the 1990s, its three variants sold 18.1 million cases last year. That it comes in various avatars and flavours helps.

It's not easy to build liquor brands in India because advertising is a no-go area for them, which has forced liquor companies to take the surrogate route (playing cards, club soda, music CDs et al). Old Monk, it so happens, has received little advertising support. It's not that the company is in financial distress: Mohan Meakins reported a profit of Rs 3 crore in 2014-15, a radical improvement over the loss of Rs 19 crore in the previous year.

Shatbhi Basu, author and head of the Stir Bartending Academy in Mumbai, feels that the company's greatest fault lies in isolating itself from the very people who can champion its brand. "People still drink it, love it and are proud of it. But you will rarely see any promotion with Old Monk. In 35 years of being around, I have never met someone who came to talk to me about Old Monk. There was nobody I could speak to if I had a question," she says.

Back in 1954, when Old Monk was launched, it had everything going for it: competition was negligible, it was produced in the misty hills of Solan in Himachal Pradesh -- which had a stellar reputation for producing quality liquor -- and drinkers had found a tastier, smoother alternative to Hercules, the dominant rum in the market at the time.

"Old Monk was the rage back then. Its quality was unmatched and the bottle was unique. With the focus solely on quality, there was no stopping it," says Devin Narang, who previously headed the All India Distillers Association and is the former executive chairman of SABMiller.

At the Mohan Meakins factory in crowded and dusty Mohan Nagar, this history hangs heavy in the air. Your nostrils are greeted by the earthy smell of rum. A heap of glass bottles lies neglected in a corner as workers move bulky cartons from one place to another. A narrow alley opens into a sprawling space, which houses the factory where Old Monk is produced. The factory has an old-world feel about it. The paint is ordinary and the glass windows are barely imposing. It is well past its prime.

S C Sahai, sales manager, visibly jaded from a series of arduous meetings, agrees to speak with me. When I ask about the rum's dipping sales, Sahai's response is brisk: "Yes, sales have gone down. But we have come out with variants in the premium segment that have done well. That has balanced it."

Photograph: eopath/Creative Commons

And, as far as shutting down operations is concerned, the company's deputy general manager, S N Maingi, says that Old Monk will be the last of Mohan Meakins' products to be withdrawn from the market. "A lot of people are associated with the brand. It is our best product. There is no question of shutting it down," he says. Sahai waves me goodbye on a sanguine note: "Old Monk will be back."

What could help is the tremendous goodwill still enjoyed by Old Monk.

Amrit Kiran Singh has spent a lifetime understanding the intricacies of the liquor business, first as the director (Southeast Asia) of Brown-Forman (which makes Jack Daniel's) and now as the chairman of the International Wine and Spirits Association of India. Old Monk is the only domestically-manufactured spirit that proudly finds its place in his bar. "In terms of quality its right up there. It's made with great molasses spirit," he tells me over phone from Montenegro.

During his tenure at Brown-Forman, Singh had suggested to his board that the company buy Old Monk -- such is its brand equity. Obviously, the deal didn't work out.

Prahlad Kakar, ad film maker and an Old Monk lover, says there is little doubt that the rum needs to be nurtured back to health, but to put it in the same league as McDowell's No 1 is fatuous. "A single malt drinker will happily drink Old Monk. But do you think he'll be okay with drinking McDowell's?" he retorts sharply. "Yes, sales have dipped. But sometimes you have to look beyond that. Nobody can take away Old Monk's legacy."

Old Monk can probably take a cue from Royal Enfield. Almost two decades ago, the iconic motorcycle had found itself in a similar predicament. Affordable, fuel-efficient bikes had just entered the Indian market, and, Royal Enfield, combating a steady fall in sales, was contemplating shutting down operations. But the bike reinvented itself. Today, the cult of its Bullet bike is so gargantuan that you'll have to wait for six months to get your hands on one.

There are many who swear by the unique flavour of Old Monk. Ian Periera has been drinking Old Monk every day for 30 years. "I've tried imported rums. Nothing tastes like Old Monk. It's rich and unique," says the bearded photographer from Mumbai.

Chennai-based Jay Gopal, another Old Monk devotee, says he is still enamoured by its smooth caramelised taste, even though he has been drinking it for over two decades now. "It goes well with both Coke and water. And, it doesn't give you a hangover the next morning. What else do you need?"

Pereira and Gopal are both members of Comrade (Council of Old Monk rum addicted drinkers and eccentrics), a Facebook group that aims to bring together fans of Old Monk from across the world. For fans like Pereira and Gopal, Old Monk brings with it an inescapable nostalgia. They may tinker with their choices of drink once in a while, but Old Monk remains a constant companion.

The cult following for Old Monk comes in different forms. Available extensively online is Old Monk merchandise, ranging from coffee mugs to T-shirts.

Freshmonk, one such website, which allows buyers to design T-shirts, sold more than 200 hip Old Monk T-shirts within a week of rumours that the brand was planning to shut down. "Old Monk is ingrained in the mind of a lot of Indians. It is a legendary brand that will always do well," says Freshmonk Director Prashant Gulati.

Nostalgia alone cannot restore Old Monk's fortunes.

Meanwhile, my search for Old Monk aficionados finally takes me to an ahaata -- a less-than-legal place where you drink after buying alcohol from the nearest liquor store -- in Gurgaon. Three youngsters camped around a rickety plastic table are preparing a drink of Old Monk and Thums Up for themselves. The lighting is scant and the furniture shoddy, but they seem to care little.

While others gulp down large pegs of whiskey, these youngsters look all set to enjoy themselves. "Old Monk is cheap and tastes really good. With limited budgets, we cannot afford even decent whiskeys. So, Old Monk works for us. I've been drinking it for more than year now," says 21-year-old Karan Mehra, the leader of the trio.

There is hope for Old Monk.

Photograph: Thomas K V/Creative Commons