"The alcohol fades, but the moment stays,” says Parag A. Shastry.
On a regular evening, he reaches for a glass of whisky—neat, or with a splash of water, soda, or a twist of citrus. But writing Madira (Rupa Publications) over the past three years has made him more attentive to what goes into that glass. “Not in a very technical way,” he says, “but I’m more aware of the small additions.”
The book brings together over 101 cocktail recipes featuring Indian spirits such as mahua, kallu, feni, and neera toddy, but it also pushes a larger idea. “It’s about the memory you sit with,” say Shastry. Madira has been written for, what Shastry calls, “the curious reader”. The recipes become entry points into thinking about drinks—their ingredients, origins, and stories.
“How do you bring a slight shift in how people think?” he asks. “Where is this drink coming from? What does it represent? Is there a story to what you’re drinking?”
A life in motion
The son of a bank employee, he moved frequently as a child, attending nearly ten schools across states including Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and West Bengal. As an adult, he has lived in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, and Bengaluru, and is currently based in Indore, while travelling through smaller towns like Nemal, Malwa, and Gwalior.
Shastry keeps the language deliberately simple, drawing from his decade-long background in the alcobev industry, rather than as a trained mixologist. He draws from his work in alcohol innovation and product strategy vertical, which required him to understand how Indians engage with food and drink across regions.
Many of these experiences find their way into the book—college experiments with tequila, tamarind paste, and chaat masala in a hostel room; memories of meetha paan-flavoured toddy from his grandfather’s hometown in Khandwa, and encounters with urban speakeasies.
Initially conceived as a personal journey, the book moved away from an autobiographical format. “I didn’t want it to revolve around one character—me,” Shastry says. “I wanted the focus to remain on the ingredients, places, and experiences.” Instead, the stories unfold in the third person, allowing readers to step into the moments and form their own connections.
Delhi, in a glass
What does Delhi’s drinking culture look like from his book? In Madira, Delhi finds its way into the narrative through two recipes. One is a Chaat Masala Bloody Mary. Instead of the usual Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce, the story’s protagonist, Aarav, takes a distinctly Indian route—adding chaat masala, kala namak, muddled green chillies, and black pepper, leaning into the city’s unapologetic love for bold flavours. “It’s brunch in Delhi. With masala. With fire. With absolutely no apologies,” Shastry writes in the book.
In another, Shastry introduces Nidhi, who recalls summers in her dadi’s kitchen, making a cooler with mangoes, mint, and black salt—a memory she recreates at a café in Delhi as a Mango and Mint Summer Cooler, blending nostalgia with the city’s flavour palette.
For Shastry, Delhi stands apart—not so much for its ingredients, but for how drinking itself plays out across the city’s on-trade spaces, for both consumers and establishments. As a city with a deep love for food, Delhi’s drinking culture is constantly evolving—from thekas scattered across neighbourhoods to secretive speakeasy bars in Vasant Kunj and Greater Kailash. Alongside this are vinyl bars, where music and drinks collide, and omakase-style cocktail experiences offering curated line-ups.
“It’s not moving in one clear flavour direction,” he says. “There’s a contrast.” There are drinks that feel familiar and comforting, alongside cocktails that are more layered, sometimes leaning bitter. In Delhi, he observes, the drink itself matters deeply—but so does how one drinks it.
Undoing the colonial palate
Beyond Delhi, he sees a broader shift underway. “People are travelling more, experiencing different formats, and wanting that in India,” he says. “At the same time, there’s a deeper interest in craft.” Running through the book is a quiet pushback against the dominance of Western cocktail traditions. Shastry traces this to colonial conditioning, when Indian practices—including local alcohol traditions that were dismissed or overlooked. Across India, local spirits vary dramatically every few hundred kilometres. Yet, unlike food, where regional variation is celebrated, non-standardised alcohol is often viewed with suspicion. “That’s colonial baggage we still carry,” he says.
At the same time, he acknowledges the need for a degree of standardisation—especially if local spirits are to reach wider markets. Safety, hygiene, and consistency are essential to building trust. The challenge, he suggests, is balance: preserving local nuance while creating frameworks that make these drinks accessible.
“There is a way to standardise without losing the story,” Shastry says, pointing to models like Scotch whisky, where shared processes coexist with strong regional identities.
Beyond the bar
Having written about drinks and cocktails, Shastry isn’t done with the subject yet. He is currently working on a multi-part series documenting indigenous alcohol practices across India—travelling to capture processes, people, and the emotions tied to them. A second book is also in the works, exploring how alcohol brands build deep consumer loyalty despite being unable to advertise openly—a study of what he calls a “media-dark market”, where identity is constructed through subtle cues.
In the end, Madira is less about perfecting a drink and more about paying attention to it—because, as Shastry puts it, it is never just the alcohol, but the moment built around it.