Goodbye, gin. We’re drinking vodka again

When it comes to Indian booze, the last eight years have belonged to gin. Our craft distilleries championed the juniper shrub to the point where it turned into a full-blown cultural movement, with flavour experiments spilling over from novelty gins to the novelty tonics that accompanied them. Just as the botanical arms race started getting a little out of hand (seriously, some of those bottles read like an ingredient list to make biryani), other spirits—tequila and mezcal most notably—began muscling their way onto the bar counter.

Now, as we head to 2026, the battle of the clear spirits is set to get a little more interesting, with vodka making a comeback of sorts (and we’re not talking about the Trumps trying to revive a failed family brand they killed off two decades ago or Taylor Swift sticking to a vodka cran as her bev of choice in 2025). Having largely been relegated to the annual party punch, the occasional Bloody Mary or the nostalgic Cosmopolitan, things are starting to look up for the OG skinny drink.

November saw the launch of two premium brands in India, both backed by celebrities. Rangeela, fronted by Ranveer Singh and packaged in a bottle as colourful as his wardrobe, and Shelter 6, from the house of Cartel Bros in partnership with Indian rapper Badshah. Rangeela has been positioned as a triple-distilled, platinum chill-filtered vodka. The Shelter 6 release notes say it’s been distilled six times to make it “as smooth as water”. These come a month after Terai launched a craft vodka filtered through amethyst crystals, because why not? And director Aryan Khan introduced the UK to his D’yavol Vodka, which is distilled in Poland from 100 per cent winter wheat and then filtered through black pearls from Tahiti (we’re not kidding).

These bottles are priced in the ₹2,000-to-₹5,000 range, bookending the premium category, which is still dominated by Grey Goose, Absolut, Belvedere, and Ketel One (according to the 2025 What India Is Drinking Report, an annual survey on brand preferences).

So, does this mean the cool kids are ordering vodka at the bar again? Not really. “Globally, vodka is enjoying a resurgence as a sipping spirit, but in India its momentum is far more tied to the rise of the cocktail culture than to neat consumption,” says serial entrepreneur Vikram Achanta, founder of Tulleeho, 30 Best Bars India, and India Bartender Show.

This rings true: we might have our whiskey with soda and gin with tonic, but vodka? It’s always paired with orange juice. Sometimes to hide what we were drinking at weddings, but mostly to hide the taste of clean, unflavoured alcohol. Which is why the craft cocktail revolution has worked out perfectly. “Vodka’s great strength in cocktails has always been its neutrality, which lets bartenders push flavour boundaries without fighting the spirit. In a market like India, where palates often gravitate toward bolder profiles, that blank-canvas quality actually gives consumers clarity and balance in their drinks,” Achanta says.

This blank-canvas quality can be seen in the wide variety of cocktails across some of the top bars scattered around India. Delhi’s Sidecar serves Dilli 6, which pairs vodka with Rooh Afza. A favourite at Soka in Bengaluru is the Soka Represent, which combines Grey Goose with grapefruit, salt, and vegan foam. Mumbai’s Slink & Bardot uses Absolut with sake, umeshu and lychee to make Koli Echoes, a hat-tip to Mumbai’s fishing community.

It’s this kind of experimentation at the top end of the market that has also been driving up sales of premium vodka over the last few years, according to Neil Alexander, the resident mixologist at Diageo’s Flavour Lab in Bengaluru. “You can make a cocktail with Smirnoff and sell it for ₹500, but you use Ketel One and you can charge ₹1,000 for that drink. Keeping aside the economics of the bar, this is what people increasingly prefer as well. They’d rather have two or three very good drinks rather than many cheap ones,” he says.

Meanwhile, if international trends are anything to go by, we might see vodka get sipping status in India soon. Globally, vodka brands have spent the last couple of years quietly shedding vodka’s reputation of being blander than the potatoes it came from. People are making vodka with personality. Greece’s Kástra Elión leans savoury with its olive base. South Africa’s Vusa brings a soft sugarcane sweetness. Poland’s Chopin is a small-batch vodka that has versions made from rye and wheat. Japan’s Haku is distilled from rice, giving it an unexpectedly gentle, rounded profile (according to the brand preference report cited earlier, Haku has caught the attention of the Indian vodka drinker, establishing that the global affinity for all things Japanese goes beyond ramen, anime, and whisky).

This kind of experimentation is likely to go down well in India, where vodkas with character, premium or otherwise, have traditionally been popular. Smoke Lab, a small-batch vodka distilled in Punjab, is made from Basmati rice with citrus notes. Cashmir Vodka, launched earlier this year, uses water from the valley’s abundant springs and a heritage wheat known as the Golden Pearl. The makers of Samsara recently launched Amara, a pink vodka that’s infused with strawberries, rose petals, and cherry blossoms. As Alexander says, “We have more adventurous palates, we’re always craving interesting flavours.”