How Asia's largest liquor boutique, Tonique, plans to conquer the world

After a lifetime spent making mining and real estate deals, Hyderabad’s Anith Reddy realised it was time to face what he had long suspected: the city just didn’t have a place that offered him a choice of premium labels of liquor he or his friends wanted. “Our options for social gatherings and gifting were limited to common brands of liquor and alcohol, which is unfortunate because this is the city with one of the highest numbers of Rolls-Royces, BMWs and Mercedes,” says Reddy. Taking matters into his own hands, Reddy opened Tonique, a luxury liquor boutique in Hyderabad, two years ago.

There’s a huge gap for luxury retail in the country, feels Reddy. Combine that with factors such as being able to keep a store open late, and you have a winner on your hands. “Tonique Hyderabad is the only store in the country that has permits to stay open till midnight,” says Reddy. This was important, he found, since clients such as the head honchos of international business processing units would be released from their demanding jobs only after 10 pm. Though the late night hours are specific to Tonique’s branch in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, their first outing in Bengaluru is a standalone headline-grabber. It is Asia’s largest liquor boutique.   

The first thing that one notices on entering Tonique in Bengaluru is the massive space in which the combination of hardwood floors, mood lighting and gleaming bottles produce a rather dream-like effect. This is a fantasy broken only by the price labels of the bottles, for a lot of Tonique’s product is tony and aspirational. Nothing really prepares you for the sight of fine whiskies and premium wines, among other indulgences, spread out over 30,000 sq ft. The store occupies two sprawling levels, one floor being dedicated to wine alone. “We have over 800 labels of wine from across the world and this is a growing collection,” says Reddy. The outlet also has a wine-tasting room and will schedule events around whisky- and wine-tasting on its premises. For doubting Thomases wondering if this is a business model that works, Tonique reportedly had a turnover of Rs 100 crore last year.  

“We want to be the Louis Vuitton of the industry,” says Tonique’s founder. A labour of love and taste in equal measures, Reddy invested close to two years in research alone after he bought the plot for the first Tonique. By the time the first outlet opened in 2017, Reddy had already surveyed duty-free outlets and stores across the world to get a sense of what he wanted from the interiors as well as the labels Tonique would house. “At 15,000 sq ft, our first store was bigger than car showrooms in Hyderabad,” says Reddy, laughing. But that was only just the beginning of what he had envisioned for his passion project.

The wine section at the store

Future plans for Tonique include similarly smart outlets in Mumbai and Delhi, followed by one in New York’s Manhattan borough. To truly get a meaty bite of the liquor market, Tonique will also have at least five stores in smaller formats in the cities it has already zoomed in on, including Hyderabad and Bengaluru. “Anything over 10,000 sq ft will be Tonique. The smaller stores will be called Q by Tonique,” says Reddy.

At Tonique, the first and last shoppers of the day are usually women. “They make up 40 per cent of our clientele,” says Reddy. And while he feels Delhi and Mumbai are likely to be whisky and single malt-dominated markets, Bengaluru is specifically big on wine.

Tonique has a collection of 100 Indian wines alone, and almost all of the younger beer brands the country is coming to love, including Simba, White Rhino, Kati Patang and Bira 91. The outlet is also a source for specials such as King George V by Johnnie Walker (Rs 57,260), and a Remy Martin Louis XIII (Rs 2,32,000). The recipe for Tonique’s success is that it provides a luxury experience for everyone, regardless of whether your pockets are deep or verging on the empty.