Allied Blenders leans on premium customers as mass consumption slows

In March, the Mumbai-based distiller launched a premium and luxury spirits subsidiary, ABD Maestro, in partnership with Hindi film actor Ranveer Singh. The company is expecting to close FY26 with a revenue of ₹100 crore annualized run rate (ARR) and aims to double that in the next financial year, Alok Gupta, Allied Blenders’ managing director, told Mint in an interview.

ABD Maestro is home to Allied Blenders’ premium brands, including small batch gin brands Zoya and Pumori, vodka brand Rangeela, and Yello, a whiskey the company launched just last month.

“What we have been working on is to figure out what the forward consumption is, where the consumer is likely to go in the sipping and cocktails terrain,” Gupta said. “We are trying to stitch up a portfolio which is future-ready. A lot of the work we are doing today is on how consumption is likely to happen in the next three-five years.” ABD Maestro crossed ₹40 crore in annualized revenue.

Allied Blenders is focused on building curated products for premium Indian customers who are keen to ditch imported alcohol for high-end goods made in India, Gupta said. “People are drinking premium white spirits, but they are also buying into the stories and want to know what makes the product unique,” he added. This includes a shift in ‘sipping culture’ from just whiskeys and single malts to tequilas and rums, where consumers pay extra for a premium or luxury that has character and is known for its taste. For instance, Zoya and Pumori sell flavoured gins.

Allied Blenders is investing ₹525 crore to expand its capacity during the FY25-27 period, the company informed analysts in late 2024. It spent ₹72 crore to acquire an extra neutral alcohol plant in Maharashtra's Aurangabad in FY25, which is expected to be fully operational by FY27. The company is investing ₹75 crore in setting up a single malt whiskey plant in Rangapur, Telangana and will launch its first single malt whiskey in 2029.

Battle for bottom line

ABD’s premium and luxury expansion efforts are in line with its domestic competitors. Radico Khaitan, makers of mass brands 8PM whiskey and Magic Moments vodka, launched a number of premium products last year. In July, it launched a premium vodka, The Spirit of Kashmyr, and in August, it announced a partnership with actor Shahrukh Khan to launch a premium tequila under the actor's D'Yavol brand.

‘Prestige & Above’ products brought in more than two-thirds of the company’s total revenue from Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) in the first half of FY26. For Allied Blenders, prestige & above segments accounted for just over 46% in volume in the same time, up from just over 37% in FY24.

This premiumizing trend coincides with stagnation in mass-segment alcohol brands. That has prompted Allied Blenders to nudge mass consumers towards slightly more premium products. After launching Iconiq White Whiskey in September 2022, the company is also experimenting with new prototypes of its flagship mass-market whiskey Officers’ Choice, which it plans to launch in the current financial quarter, Gupta said.

“This is a price point where a lot of people of legal drinking age are coming in for the first time. They do not see a brand that talks to them,” Gupta said, adding that Iconiq’s success lies in deviating from typical branding tropes of its mass competitors, such as red, blue, and green colouring and symbols like a coat of arms. Iconiq competes with brands like Royal Stag, Blender’s Pride, and Imperial Blue, which ABD rival Tilaknagar Industries acquired from Pernod Ricard for ₹4,150 crore.

Mass market issues

“...the brand [Iconiq White Whiskey] has delivered exceptional performance—clocked 5.7 million cases in FY25, thereby becoming the fastest-growing spirit brand globally (in CY23/24),” brokerage JM Financial wrote in a note on Allied Blenders last month.

“Momentum has strengthened in 1HFY26 (volumes at c.4.9m cases) and seeing month-on-month improvement in markets where it was launched less than 1 year back and even in markets like Maharashtra, as per our checks. This apart, launch of variants…and expanding global footprint, will help drive strong double-digit growth over FY26-28 (estimated).”

Despite this, the mass segment may continue to be a drag on Allied Blenders’ fortunes in the coming quarters. Brokerage Choice Institutional Equities estimated in an August 2025 report that while volumes of the company’s prestige & above segment will grow by 15% compounded annually until FY28, its mass brands are likely to grow by only around 2%.

Meanwhile, annual volumes for Officers’ Choice have fallen from around 9 million cases in FY19 to 3.6 million in FY25, per JM Financial’s estimates. However, Allied Blenders’ Gupta says he is focused on growing volumes for the mass brand without compromising on a gross margin of over 40%.

“We have moved out of CSD [canteen stores department] as a channel, we have moved out of Uttarakhand, there are markets where we moved out entirely, or we took price hikes and a knock on market share,” he said. “Today, the gross margin on Officers’ Choice is equal to that of any P&A (Prestige & Above) brand, more than 40%. I think what we are sharply focused on is how do we get single-digit growth but continuously maintain a 40% gross margin. We can pick up market share, but it will impact the gross margin.”

In the last year, shares of Allied Blenders have grown over 24% compared to an over 10% growth in the benchmark Nifty 50 index and an over 15% decline in shares of rival United Spirits. Rival Radico Khaitan, however, outperformed ABD with a rise of more than 29% in its shares.