Indian whisky: why the category that keeps the global whisky market in growth is more complicated than it looks

India is the largest whisky market in the world by volume. Not a growing whisky market, or an emerging one – the largest, by a significant margin. It has been for decades. What is changing now is which parts of the Indian whisky market are growing, who they are growing for, and what those shifts mean for producers operating both inside and outside India.

Three things happened in the past month that make this the right moment to map the category properly. The UK-India Free Trade Agreement entered into force on 15 July 2026, cutting the import tariff on Scotch whisky from 150% to 75% and setting a path to 40% over the next decade. Radico Khaitan – one of India’s largest listed spirits companies – reported its strongest quarter in company history, with Prestige & Above volume growing 36% in Q1 FY2027. And the FSSAI enforcement action against United Spirits and other producers over flavouring practices opened a window into how Indian regulators are thinking about production standards at a moment of rapid category evolution. Together, these are signals about the same market moving simultaneously on multiple axes.

The size of the market – and why the headline number is misleading