A dash of luxury at Absolut's first Elyx Lounge in India

India's first Elyx Lounge is set to redefine the vodka drinking experience

Absolut Elyx, the single-estate luxury vodka launched by Pernod Ricard in 2011, aims to elevate the category of vodka to the level of “high-end craft”, which, so far, has been associated with beer, whiskey and tequila. Since it’s a step up in cost and quality from other Absolut (and vodka) products, it is being associated with the experience of luxury and hospitality. While the company has launched Elyx Houses across New York, Los Angeles and Sweden (its home country), it made its foray into India through the Absolut Elyx Filmfare Glamour and Style Awards, which were held in Mumbai in December 2015. Now India’s first Absolute Elyx Luxury Lounge, situated above the S-Bar in Greater Kailash, New Delhi, has been unveiled, with more to follow across India.

Unlike the New York and Los Angeles “Houses” that are choc-full of Gustavian chandeliers, flamingo punch bowls, plush velvet sofas, a copper “disco ball” and tons of Swedish bric-a-brac, the image portrayed in India is far sleeker and more cutting-edge. It has left behind the sumptuous and homey for the understated colours and style of the Elyx bottle, which is transparent with shards of copper running through it. The decor is designed in hues of copper to bring alive the copper distillation and is all about copper edgings, backlit pineapples and sleek fonts.

But the most important unchanging symbol across the world for the Elyx brand is its container of choice for cocktails. These handcrafted copper pineapples (the universal symbol of hospitality, they say) are available wherever the vodka is sold. And in the US at least, they’ve found value beyond their handcrafted, blemish-free appearance. The US arm of the brand has tied up with an NGO called Water for People, through which they will provide one week’s worth of water (140 litres) for the next five years, anytime anyone buys a bottle of Elyx.

  And for every Elyx Pineapple of Hospitality sold in the US, one month’s worth of clean and safe drinking water (560 litres) will be provided to someone in need. In India, so far, this initiative hasn’t been launched. The brand remains associated with luxury alone.

But one may ask what Elyx is and why it is special,  especially if one is a vodka novice like me. It is a highly refined vodka made from the winter wheat harvested once a year from the Råbelöf Castle in Sweden. This is mixed with the water from Åhus, one of the best preserved medieval towns in all of Sweden. The local water is sweeter than usual because it is filtered through limestone bedrock. The mash is passed through four different copper stills that were created in 1921 and are fitted with new copper rings that are only used once. These copper rings are then re-used in the production of regular Absolut vodka. The copper helps remove a greater number of impurities.

The end result is handcrafted single-estate vodka that is crisp, sweet and citrusy, with a touch of butterscotch, macademia nuts and caramel. Most importantly, it has a smooth silky finish, which means it’s worth drinking on the rocks or in a martini, rather than in a cocktail, even if it is a fancy cocktail served in a copper pineapple.

It is also 84.6 proof, with a retail price in India of around Rs 4,500, double that of the usual Absolut vodka. This should help luxury party-goers in India enjoy their pure and exclusive tipple more than ever.