KOCHI:Three years ago, Gautom Menon, the founder and owner of Wild Tiger Rum, was bar-hopping in Thrissur to talk about the newly-launched liquor brand. A few customers told him that they had already bought it from duty-free shops in Dubai and Muscat airports. “The drink is adipoli,” was the remark. Gautom is a Malayali, who grew up in Coimbatore. “At first, I thought they meant Adi puli (which means, hit the tiger),” he says. “But it was only later I came to know that it is a slang word which means ‘awesome’.”
He liked the word immensely, and instinctively realising its marketing potential, registered it as a trademark for his company. Come March, Gautam will be launching the ‘Adipoli’ dark and white rum.
It has an attractive design which has gone viral and is already drawing rave views on Gautom’s LinkedIn page. Says wine writer Ravi Joshi, “The bottle looks awesome!” The design is in yellow, red and blue. There are a couple of hashtags, squares, rectangles, and circles, two coconut trees, a black driverless autorickshaw, and the Adipoli sign: the thumb and forefinger meeting at a point, with three fingers raised. The design has been done in-house, by designer Paul George.
At the back of the bottle, there are details for two cocktails. One is called the ‘Adipoli Machaan’. The instructions are simple: Add 50 ml Adipoli rum, 16 ml of orange juice, and 15 ml of lime juice. Mix all the ingredients with ice. Stir and pour into a tall glass. Garnish with a fresh orange slice, and say “Adipoli Machaan” before you take a sip. Another cocktail is the Adipoli Libre. “There is a legendary cocktail called Cuba Libre, which is a mix of rum, cola and lime,” says Gautom. “We wanted to do something similar, with a fun spin, of course.”
The brand is aimed at the millennial crowd, says Gautom. “And so far, no one has dared to market Kerala through a drink. Through ‘Adipoli’ we wanted to do that. I have noticed that Malayalis all over the world take pride in Kerala. So I wanted to give them a reason to embrace something from their neck of the woods. In other words, I want them to forget the word ‘Cheers’ and say ‘Adipoli’ instead.”
Made of dark rum, ‘Adipoli’ is 100 per cent molasses-based and uses pristine Indian sugarcane. The flavours are vanilla and toffee. The 750ml bottle is priced at `910 and will be launched in the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, and a few African countries. This will be the main market, apart from Kerala.
Gautom has another ambition. “A lot of brands have made their towns famous,” he says. “For example, Absolut Vodka is made in Ahus in Southern Sweden. The company employs almost everybody in the town. As for Johnny Walker whisky, it is from a town called Kilmarnock in Scotland. Jack Daniels whisky is from Tennessee, USA. My long-term goal is that when people say ‘Wild Tiger’ or ‘Adipoli’, they also say it is from our distillery situated in Pampadi, Thrissur.”
Kerala’s very own
‘Adipoli’ dark and white rum, is set to be launched in March. The 750ml bottle is priced at Rs 910 and will be sold in the UAE, Bahrain, Oman and a few African countries apart from Kerala.