My goal is to make Mahua India's national spirit: Desmond Nazareth

Nazareth's home-grown tequila brand, DesmondJi 100 % Agave, has been enjoying a 'good reputation', as he has expanded his reach to sell his products in Maharashtra, Puducherry, Karnataka & Delhi

When Goa-based Desmond Nazareth, margarita lover and all-round cocktail enthusiast, returned to India from the US in 2000, he was disappointed with the unavailability of tequila in liquor stores across the country. For someone who had gained a reputation as an amateur cocktail creator, tequila was a must-have. “Why is tequila made in just one country?” became a burning question and Nazareth’s obsession, leading to four years of research on the production of tequila. The result: Agave Industries India, launched in 2011, which makes agave-based spirits from a cactus-like plant responsible for Mexico-made tequila as well as DesmondJi 100% Agave.

Nazareth’s tequila project took him to the Deccan Plateau, a semi-arid area that shares latitudes with Mexico’s agave-growing regions. As climatic conditions may be similar along the same latitudes, it was not long before Nazareth got his hands on Indian agave. Today, Agave India has an “environment-friendly” micro-distillery in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh as well as a bottling and packaging plant in Goa.

Nazareth’s home-grown tequila brand, DesmondJi 100 % Agave (Rs975 in Goa and Daman), has been enjoying a “good reputation”, as he has expanded his reach to sell his products in Maharashtra, Puducherry, Karnataka and Delhi. Nazareth also sent his first export batch to the US three months ago. The spirit, touted by Nazareth as a “fierce competitor to Mexican tequila in Indian markets we are available in”, uses agave indigenous to India which has its own unique, sweet and pleasant aroma. 

According to Nazareth, agave arrived in India a little over a century ago. Thanks to the Columbian Exchange, the period in the 15th-16th centuries which saw a massive transfer of cultural habits, people, plants and animals between the Americas and Europe, agave eventually made its way to India too. The Indian agave has now become a differentiator in markets abroad and is being considered an authentic product, not to be confused with Mexico’s GI (geographical indication) tequila. Nazareth plans to export DesmondJi products to Europe after assessing its US debut.

DesmondJi Mahua (Rs975 for 750  ) and DesmondJi Mahua Liqueur (Rs1,275 for 750 ml) are two recent releases, which transform the mahua flower found in Central Indian states such as Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh into a high-end spirit fit for flavoursome cocktails.

The process of creating mahua of an international standard has been five years in the making. Releasing the product required a large number of permissions. “As mahua has historically been considered a country spirit, it cannot be sold outside the state in which it is made,” says Nazareth. To make mahua a national and international “sensation”, it had to be categorised as Indian-made Foreign Liquor (IMFL). Currently, DJ Mahua is only available for sale in Goa.

“My goal is to make Mahua India’s national spirit,” says an ebullient Nazareth. He aims to make DJ Mahua and DJ Mahua Liqueur spirits that can be enjoyed across India and later, the world. His transformation of what is considered a very local tipple into a high-end, international-standard adherent spirit, rides on the reputation created by 100% Agave. The production process of this spirit, termed “Forest to Bottle”, may be on  been making mahua for centuries.

Nazareth promises that DJ Mahua will retain traditional tribal flavours, crafted in pot-stills, making it highly refined and standardised. In fact, he has contributed to FSSAI alcohol standards to make pot-still distillation a regular feature in the existing processes prescribed by the authority.

What’s next for DesmondJi? A “sparkling Mahua” to compete with Champagne, produced solely in the eponymous region of France. The wait will be worth a toast.