After having scoured the 2 KM radius around my hotel looking for a place to buy beer, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the mixed-use building immediately next door to the hotel houses a ‘Government Wine and Beer Shop’.

These no-frills shops have a modest selection of beers (about 5 or 6 types at any given moment, with the selection changing based on what’s available), spirits, and maybe a couple of dusty bottles of wine in the back part of the shop.  For the drinker on the go, there’s a service window on the exterior wall of the shop where the locals tend to get their 180 ml pounders for a single boozin’ session. Despite signage indicating stiff fines for public drinking, you can usually see an indignant local pounding a Kingfisher Strong 8% 500 ml can within feet of the door, and there’s usually a nice array of discarded booze packaging to step over on the way into the store.

Old Monk: ’7 years old blended’, ‘Matured XXX deluxe rum’:  42.8% ABV

Several of my tippling co-workers cited this bottle as their swill of choice, and I can understand why: This bottle cost me 210 rupees, which as of today is about $4.02. It is the cheapest 750 ml bottle that I saw in the store. Given what I know about the Indian Liquor tax structure, Assuming a 150% state tax on wholesale liquor price and a 12.50% VAT, this bottle is likely sold by the distillery for a whopping 71 and change rupees ($1.36).

First Impression:

From the packaging, this appears to be marketed as a dark aged rum ala Meyers or Goslings, and says that it’s aged 7 years, but I seriously doubt that it ever touched any oak (or any wood for that matter). Even if it was mellowed for any length of time, I’m not aware of any truth-in-claim laws that govern Indian spirits… so I’d be skeptical about the age statement. There’s a little rectangular box on the front label that informs the consumer that the rum ‘Contains permitted natural colour and added flavours’. It’s likely that we’re dealing with an artificially-darkened flavored rum here.

Nose:

The Nose is heavy on molasses and vanilla… in the way that something that had molasses and vanilla extract added to it would smell. There’s also a tiny bit of gingerbread spice there, and there’s definitely a rough ethanol piquancy… as one would expect in a bottle of rum that cost 4 bucks.

Flavor:

This stuff came across as pretty damn sweet on the first sip, but after coming back to it it seems a bit drier… not sure what’s up with that. It might happen to  be due with the fact that I poured about 10 ml out of the very top of the bottle after it had been sitting for a bit, and subsequent pours may have consisted of a more-homogenized liquid… who knows when you’re dealing with flavored spirits of questionable quality. The vanilla and Molasses present on the nose were still prominent, but the quality of distillation steals the show here: it’s pretty rough.

Obviously, anyone who is disappointed with the quality of a neat spirit that likely was sold to the retailer for a about a buck is either naive, delusional, or both.

So I had it in a little coke and I’ll happily admit that it was pretty damn good. It tasted like that (Failed?) vanilla coke that came out a couple of years back.

Some of the Indian “malt whiskies” that I’ve tried that cost about 50% more than this stuff  are what I’d call ‘God Awful’, so given the price and the drinkability when mixed I will go on record and say that I will probably drink A LOT of this stuff during my 6 month stint in Delhi.

I even bet that it would make a kick-ass Nui Nui… I’ll let you know how that goes as soon as I get the chance.

This bottle costs about as much as 3 500 ml cans of kingfisher, so I’d say it’s a great deal for a totally drinkable rum.

Would I buy this bottle if I were in the USA at the lowest listed price (that I could find) of 12.99 USD? Probably not… there are better dark rums at that price.

So, budget travelers, Drink Up!

Old Monk’s got your back; even on a hostel-priced itinerary.

Cheers!