Liquor brand Old Monk cannot sell or market its product as “rum”, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has reportedly told the Bombay High Court.
The regulator told the court on Thursday that Old Monk cannot be sold as “rum” because the product is made using neutral spirit and artificial rum flavouring, according to a LiveMint report.
FSSAI’s counsel clarified that the issue is not merely about labelling but the fundamental nature of the product, saying it cannot be sold as “rum”, the report said. The drink could instead be categorised as a “rum-flavoured spirit”, the regulator’s counsel told the court.
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Old Monk has submitted revised labels, while FSSAI has sought more time to review them. The next hearing is scheduled for September 11.
When rum isn’t rum
The Old Monk controversy, however, raises a larger and rather curious question: In India, what exactly qualifies as rum, whisky or any other spirit sold under those names?
For generations, Old Monk has been revered as a quintessential Indian rum. So the idea that the iconic brand may not even be able to call itself “rum” has left many consumers feeling cheated. Its sale in Maharashtra has been halted, with the brand reportedly losing around Rs 1 crore in business every day. Other liquor brands have already capitulated and are getting their labels redesigned.
Mohan Rocky Springwater Breweries, the Old Monk producer and an affiliate of Mohan Meakin, has also complied with the labelling requirements. But the dispute has now moved beyond what is written on the bottle. FSSAI’s position before the Bombay High Court is that the product cannot be sold as “rum”.
A legacy built differently
For years, Indians have been told that what they drink as whisky is whisky and what they drink as rum is rum. But there is a curious twist to that story: Some of the assumptions around these categories are simply not true.
And this confusion is much older than Old Monk. Its roots go back to the pre-Independence era, when the Indian-Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) category was created and India began producing and selling alcoholic beverages modelled on whisky, rum and other foreign spirits. That system laid the foundation for the classification debate that continues today.
Mixologist and author Shatbhi Basu told India Today“The issue has been going on forever”, which is why Indian spirits were not recognised by the EU, UK and the US. The issue has come to the fore as laws are being amended and enforcement becomes stricter.
Across the world, whisky, rum and brandy are made by fermenting their respective raw materials and then distilling the resulting liquid. Indian mass-market alcoholic drinks, by contrast, are generally made from extra neutral alcohol (ENA) or grain neutral spirit (GNS), with flavouring and colouring agents added to make them resemble whisky and rum.
India is, in fact, the world’s largest consumer of whisky. Ironically, much of that whisky may not be whisky. So what is the way forward? There are two aspects to consider — consumer rights and a business worth billions of dollars every year.
What qualifies as rum
The story of Old Monk is, in many ways, the story of most IMFL beverages, minus the legacy value.
Rum is traditionally made exclusively from sugarcane, its fermented juice, molasses – the thick, dark syrup left behind after sugarcane is processed – or other sugarcane by-products. Its defining taste and aroma are expected to develop naturally, while most rum is matured in wooden casks for a period of time to round out its flavour.
The Indian market has historically followed a different path from the way global standards define the identity of spirits and alcoholic drinks. During the late British period, the Indian-Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) sector emerged, producing domestic versions of Western spirits.
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But distillation and barrel maturation are expensive and time-consuming. There are also the fluctuating costs of raw materials and excise duties. So, instead of fermenting grain for whisky or ageing sugarcane for rum, the mass-market IMFL industry took a different route — extra neutral alcohol (ENA).
ENA is produced by boiling fermented molasses or other agricultural produce to extract alcohol, which is then distilled to achieve a minimum purity of 96%. What emerges is a highly rectified, colourless and flavourless product.
Globally, ENA is used as the base for vodka and gin. In India, it forms the base of most IMFL. Add artificial flavouring compounds to it and you get a drink that resembles whisky or rum, but is not the spirit in the traditional sense.
And since most Indian whiskies are made from molasses, they would qualify as rum in many international markets.
What Indian rules allow
According to the FSSAI Food Safety and Standards (Alcoholic Beverages) Regulations, 2018, whisky can be made either from malted grains or from neutral spirit.
It says: “Whisky is an alcoholic beverage made by distilling the fermented extract of malted cereal grains such as corn, rye, barley, or using neutral grain spirit or rectified grain spirit, or neutral spirit of agricultural origin, or their mixture.”
For rum, too, the regulations permit the use of neutral grain along with sugarcane products, but add that it should retain its characteristic taste and aroma. “They shall not contain any colouring matter other than caramel,” the regulations say.
The section on rum reads: “Rum is an alcoholic distillate obtained from fermented juice of sugarcane, sugarcane molasses, or any other sugarcane product, and shall not contain any colouring matter other than caramel. It may also be prepared from neutral, rectified, distilled spirit of agricultural origin. Rum without colour shall be designated as white rum. Rum shall possess the characteristic taste and aroma associated with the product.”
FSSAI tightens scrutiny
In early August, the FSSAI barred the sale of certain variants of popular liquor brands, including Old Monk, Antiquity Blue Whisky, Royal Challenge Whisky and Bagpiper Deluxe Whisky, over the use of artificial flavours, according to a Reuters report.
“There is no internationally recognised manufacturing practice whereby rum flavour is added to rum or whisky flavour is added to whisky,” the regulator said. The FSSAI said the main objection was not the labelling of “7 years old blended” and “very old vatted”, but the very nature of the product.
Why Old Monk matters
“Wow! All along, Old Monk hasn’t been a rum at all, but a ‘rum flavoured spirit’, based not on sugarcane juice or by-products, but a cheap, neutral base spirit, caramel colouring and additives to pass it off as a dark aromatic rum?” wrote celebrated edutainer and content creator Siddhartha Basu on X on September 4.
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To understand the disappointment, one has to understand what Old Monk means to its drinkers. It is far more than just another rum. Social media is awash with posts and videos capturing its place in people’s lives, the memories associated with it and the cult following it has built over generations.
“It does feel wrong though, being cheated about the one thing that you drank when you felt cheated,” Joy Bhattacharjya, author and sports producer, wrote on X in August, when the dispute over Old Monk’s contents first emerged.
The story of Old Monk is, in many ways, the story of most IMFL beverages, minus the legacy value.
A question beyond rum
The Old Monk controversy has opened up a much bigger conversation about what Indians have been buying and drinking, what those products are made from and, ultimately, what they can legally be called.
For consumers, the issue is about knowing exactly what is inside the bottle. For an industry worth billions of dollars, it is also about how Indian spirits are defined, regulated and marketed in a market where generations have grown up with familiar names for familiar drinks. The September 11 hearing may offer another answer in the Old Monk case, but the questions it has raised are unlikely to end with one brand.