Distilling a bit of Brazil Published on: October 6, 2013 - 22:17
More in: Business and Commerce By Jason Soares | B&C Cachaça is to Brazilians as Feni is to Goans. However, the Brazilians coming to Goa during next year’s Lusofonia Games will surely not miss sipping their favourite local spirit, for they can raise a toast to their winning teams with DesmondJi Pure Cane, the ‘desi’ version of the Cachaça. “We plan to offer our product to the Brazilians visiting Goa and hope to pleasantly surprise them,” says founder of Agave India, Desmond Nazareth, who is the brain behind the Pure Cane product that was launched in Goa earlier this year. What is interesting about DesmondJi’s Pure Cane is that it is made from freshly pressed 100 per cent pure sugarcane juice, using a specially selected species of sugarcane growing around the company’s site on the Deccan Plateau. The cane extracts are then fermented and double-distilled in Agave India’s small batch pot-stills to produce a smooth, clear spirit that belongs to the international family of sugarcane spirits, like Brazil’s famous artisanal Cachaça and Rhum Agricole from the French West Indies. Surprisingly India, one of the world’s oldest and largest growers of sugarcane, was until now, not known for producing high-end sugarcane spirits, except perhaps in some unregulated ‘country liquor’ form. “We are making an artisanal spirit which has a completely natural flavour and odour, capturing it from freshly harvested cane and preserving it in our packaged designer bottles. We manufacture the Cachaça-style spirit, using processes and equipment similar to Brazilians, at a very affordable local price, while maintaining international quality,” explains the IITM techie turned spirit connoisseur. DJ Pure Cane is currently available only in premium retail stores in Goa, but will be launched in other markets like Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Daman and Puducherry from November – December onwards. “Goa is a great test and ‘fan-out’ market for DesmondJi products. People taste our products here and often take them home. We have been working on our Pure Cane product for the past five years,” Nazareth highlights. The Pure Cane represents a brand extension for the company in distilled spirits, says Nazareth. “In Agave India, we focus on creating liqueurs, spirits and easy-to-use alcoholic cocktail blends. We are planning to launch a few more products in the market, starting as always with home-base Goa. One of these is a charred oak finished spirit, to give the spirit unique sensory characteristics.” Agave India currently has production facilities in Andhra Pradesh and Goa. The agro-facility and micro-distillery arm of the operation is located at a 44-acre plot in the Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, while the bottling and packaging unit is located in South Goa. “We are targeting urban middle-class consumers, so we focussed more on making the ingredients of home-based party shots and cocktails, including those much enjoyed by the under-served women’s niche market. The DesmondJi brand has seven products in our current portfolio, which can be used to make several of the world’s most famous cocktails, including the ‘Cosmopolitan’. In just over two years, the DesmondJi brand has already made a significant national and even international impact. Interestingly, it attracted the attention of a famous but reclusive liquor baron, Switzerland-based Martin Grassl, who sources and markets super-premium spirits around the world under his own ‘Porfidio’ brand. Grassl tasted DJ 100 per cent agave abroad, and highly intrigued by the DesmondJi brand story, even visited Nazareth in Goa about a few months ago, to share experiences. “It’s been 13 years since I had the original concept for the products. We are now a guerrilla alcobev company, with an outsize brand that is up against powerful and deep-pocketed international companies and brands. DesmondJi’s popularity has spread mainly through consumer driven word-of-mouth, because of our affordability and quality vis-à-vis imported competitors,”says Nazareth as he signs off http://www.navhindtimes.in/business-and-commerce/distilling-bit-brazil
