Tilaknagar Industries is a spirits company that transformed itself from a brandy-first, South-India player into a pan-India, pan-category alcohol business in a single stroke - by acquiring the Imperial Blue whisky franchise from Pernod Ricard in December 2025. Founded in 1933 as a sugar mill, it exited sugar in the 1970s to make Indian Made Foreign Liquor, and spent the next five decades building Mansion House into India’s largest premium brandy and the world’s second-largest brandy brand. The recurring approach is premiumisation - moving drinkers up the price ladder - combined with cross-leveraging distribution muscle: every new brand, whether built in-house or bought, rides the same network of state corporations, distributors, and 40,000-plus outlets. # Business segments A single alcoholic-beverages engine with three reinforcing layers - a brandy foundation that still supplies most of the volume, a newly acquired whisky flagship that rewrites the company’s geography and scale, and a craft-and-mixers layer that bets on where drinking habits are heading. ## 1. Brandy: the volume engine that built the house **Mansion House Brandy sells over 10 million cases a year and is India’s top-selling premium brandy - a “millionaire brand” whose repeat-purchase loyalty generates the cash that funds everything else.** - **India’s brandy leader** - the company holds roughly 25% of the Indian brandy market (excluding Tamil Nadu) and about 30% within the Prestige & Above segment, with brandy contributing over 90% of total sales volume in FY25. - **A brand ladder, not just one bottle** - Mansion House Brandy anchors the Deluxe/Prestige tier; Mansion House Chambers Brandy sits at a 50% price premium above that; Mansion House Reserve sells only in Tamil Nadu and gained more than 300 basis points of market share in its price segment in FY24; and Courrier Napoleon Brandy, the second “millionaire” brand, spans Deluxe to Super Premium with variants priced from 20% below to 30% above the Mansion House base. - **Flavoured brandy created a new category** - Mansion House Flavoured Brandy (“Flandy”), India’s first premium flavoured brandy, comes in five flavours and had already captured over 5% of Mansion House Brandy volumes in its launch states by March 2024, supported by a digital campaign that generated 292 million impressions. - **Luxury as a signal** - Monarch Legacy Edition, India’s first luxury 100% grape brandy, blends French grape spirits aged up to eight years in French oak with Indian grape spirits distilled in coal-fired copper pot stills, priced at INR 6,750 for a 750ml bottle in Maharashtra. ## 2. Whisky: the acquisition that redrew the map **Imperial Blue is the third-largest IMFL brand in India and the ninth-highest-selling spirits brand globally - bought outright in December 2025, it instantly gave Tilaknagar a pan-India whisky franchise with an 8-9% market share in Indian whisky.** - **Bought, not built** - the slump-sale acquisition from Pernod Ricard included the Imperial Blue, Imperial Black, and Imperial Red trademarks globally, two owned manufacturing units, two exclusive sub-leased units, and a transition-services agreement to keep the business running while Tilaknagar took over operations. - **Scale that arrived overnight** - the acquired business sold 22.4 million nine-litre cases in the year to March 2025; under Tilaknagar’s ownership, Imperial Blue contributed 4.6 million cases in Q4 FY26 alone, making up 57.5% of the quarter’s total volume even with only four months of ownership. - **Transition with a clock** - by the end of Q4 FY26, 75% of Imperial Blue volumes had already moved off Pernod Ricard’s transition-services arrangement and onto Tilaknagar’s own operations, with full exit targeted by March 2027. - **A whisky portfolio above and below** - Imperial Black covers the Deluxe/Prestige segment; Mansion House Whisky and Mansion House Gold Barrel Whisky were relaunched in the East and North-East in 2024; and Seven Islands Pure Malt Whisky, a blend of two Indian and two Scottish single malts, launched in late 2025 at INR 5,200 for 750ml, marking entry into luxury whisky. - **A tariff tailwind** - the India-UK free-trade agreement cut customs duty on scotch imports from 150% to 75%, which management estimates will add 60 to 100 basis points of margin on the combined business. ## 3. Rum, vodka, gin, and the craft bet: the future pipeline **Through a 20% stake in Spaceman Spirits Lab and a usership agreement to sell its brands, Tilaknagar has placed a bet on craft spirits - gin, rum, and vodka at luxury price points - without having to build them from scratch.** - **A stake with a path to control** - Tilaknagar invested INR 9.75 crore in March 2023 and a further INR 13.15 crore approved in September 2024, taking its stake to 20.02% on a fully diluted basis, with an option to acquire more shares at a pre-agreed valuation once Spaceman hits certain milestones; management has said the end game is majority ownership. - **Distribution rights, not just equity** - under the usership agreement, Tilaknagar sells Spaceman’s Samsara Gin, Sitara Rum, and Amara Vodka through its own distribution network in India and abroad, earning a royalty while giving the craft brands instant access to 40,000-plus outlets. - **Small volumes, premium prices** - Spaceman sold 46,000-plus cases in FY26 across 10 domestic states and nine international markets, with products like Amara Vodka (made from Bangalore Blue Grapes and rice, five-times distilled) priced between INR 2,500 and INR 4,500 for a 750ml decanter. - **Legacy labels fill the regular-price slots** - the company’s own Madiraa Rum and Blue Lagoon Gin (available in orange, lemon, and plain) sit in the Deluxe/Prestige segment, while White House Rum covers semi-premium in Kerala; together, rum, vodka, and gin contributed about 4.5% of sales volume in FY25. # Manufacturing and supply chain **Production runs across 40-plus units - a mix of owned distilleries and third-party contract bottlers - so the company can place capacity close to demand without tying up capital in bricks and mortar.** - **Asset-light by design** - as of May 2025, roughly 70% of all production went through contract manufacturing units, an industry practice that keeps fixed costs low and lets the company scale volumes up or down with demand. - **The mother plant and the subsidiary that came back from liquidation** - the Shrirampur plant in Maharashtra houses a 100 KLPD grain-based distillery and a 50 KLPD molasses-based distillery; Prag Distillery in Andhra Pradesh, a wholly-owned subsidiary revived from liquidation in 2023, was expanded six-fold to 36 lakh cases per annum and now covers about half of the company’s Andhra Pradesh requirements, saving an estimated INR 10 crore a year in bottling costs. - **Imperial Blue brought its own factories** - the acquisition added two owned units in Punjab and Maharashtra, two exclusive sub-leased units in Telangana and Punjab, and access to shared units during the transition period, expanding the manufacturing footprint from 21 to over 40 units. - **Raw-material exposure managed through multiple suppliers** - Extra Neutral Alcohol, which makes up half of raw-material cost, is sourced from more than one supplier, as is glass packaging; ENA prices are tied to grain and molasses and swing with the monsoon, rising from about INR 67 to INR 72 per litre over the course of FY24. # Group structure and partners **Tilaknagar Industries is the listed holding company with five subsidiaries, three associates, and a defining partnership with Pernod Ricard that predates the Imperial Blue acquisition.** - **Subsidiaries consolidating around the parent** - Prag Distillery, Vahni Distilleries, and PunjabExpo Breweries all manufacture IMFL; in May 2026, the board approved merging Vahni and PunjabExpo into Tilaknagar to simplify the structure, while a new subsidiary, Grain & Grape Works, was incorporated in July 2025 to make alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. - **Associates extend into adjacent categories** - the 41.45% stake in Round the Cocktails (Bartisans) adds non-alcoholic cocktail mixers that complement the spirits portfolio, while the 20.02% stake in Spaceman Spirits Lab brings craft gin and rum with a path to majority control. - **Pernod Ricard is both seller and customer** - Tilaknagar bought Imperial Blue from Pernod Ricard but also has a 10-year manufacturing agreement (effective April 2021) to bottle Pernod Ricard products at its Shrirampur facility, with production running since February 2022 and the possibility of expanding to more states. - **A cleaned-up balance sheet and institutional backing** - the company achieved net debt-free status in H1 FY25 after restructuring debt with Edelweiss ARC and refinancing through Kotak Mahindra Bank; institutional investors include Capital Group, Singularity AMC, Abakkus, and Bandhan Mutual Fund.