Unfolding in Mumbai’s Jio Gardens BKC is the world’s first home bar festival, which is celebrating several breakthroughs: Fine spirits that you have never tasted before, and mixology evenings with three of the world’s best bars — Paradiso from Barcelona, Le Club from Japan, and Lost & Found Drinkery from Nicosia, Cyprus.
Mumbai is playing host to world’s first home bar festival — Vault Home Bar Festival, on 25 and 26 February.
Intrigued about what a “home bar festival” entails? A host of craft and fine spirits brands and three of the world’s best bars have travelled to the city to offer its people a front-seat view of the magic they can create with spirits, at home, while hosting friends and guests.
Vault Home Bar Festival, by Keshav Prakash’s Vault Fine Spirits (which curates craft and fine spirits and experiences around them), celebrates how people drink and entertain at home now. Yes, we continue to patronise bars and love an evening out at some of the buzziest bars in our cities.
But what’s changed is the way we entertain at home. “During Covid-led lockdowns,” says Prakash, “we began discovering new spirits by going online or ordering them home. People had time and mental space to explore new spirits, read about them, and learn about them. Then, when things began opening, people invited close friends and family home, and that became an opportunity to share the new spirits and wines they had bought or had ordered online.”
Vault Home Bar Festival is a nod to this dramatic shift in consumer behaviour, a way to celebrate adventurous lovers of fine and craft spirits and the home bar segment.
Prakash debuted The Vault Biennale in 2019 to a lot of interest. The home bar festival is a logical transformation in a world changed by Covid.
Many firsts at world’s first home bar festival
The festival at Jio World BKC brings together distillers and craft brands from across the world, industry experts, F&B pioneers, and handpicked spirits.
Here is what you can experience at the festival:
- World-class bars: We are most excited about the evening sessions hosted by some of the sassiest world-class bars. There is Barcelona’s Paradiso Bar, which has been judged the #1 bar by The World’s 50 Best Bars. And then there is the award-winning Lost & Found Drinkery, billed as an ‘effortlessly cool, cosy and trendy bar’ from Nicosia, Cyprus.
- Japanese cocktails: The team from Le Club in Matsuyama, Japan is known for creating fantastical cocktails inspired by Japanese cuisine.
- Cognac worth its weight in gold: The most expensive spirit by the bottle at the festival is a 35-year-old cognac, Chateau Montifaud Cognac XO, which may be priced at about Rs 60,000 per bottle.
- Amrut limited edition single malt: 400 limited edition bottles of Amrut festival single malt can be pre-booked at a steal of a price.
- An interesting gin line-up: Among the gin brands at the festival, there is Giants Basalt Rock Gin, the first spirit from James Richardson and Martha Garbe’s Basalt Distillery, which is linked to the geography and heritage of the nearby Giant’s Causeway. Procera is considered a kick-ass gin from the heart of Africa. The Kenyan gin was launched in 2019 to bring the best of African botanicals and gins to the world. Procera is featured on the cocktail list at Duke’s in London, as a trade-up from its world-famous and already rather premium Martinis.
- Rum and whisky salon: The salon features six whiskies and six rums handpicked by Keshav Prakash. You can go with your coupon and taste any three.
- Workshops: Collaborations with chocolatiers such as Ether’s Prateek Bakhtiani, whose chocolates are a sensory delight. Sessions on the world of sensory experiences by the Aroma Academy, UK.
- Love the chakhna? A fun session on bar snacks or chakhna by Krish Ashok, author of Masala Lab and Matt Daniels, a partner in Verandah Restaurant and Bar, Goa. If you have ever wondered about the science behind the chakhna or bar snacks that makes us want to keep on drinking, this is the session for you.
- For the love of coffee: Like your espresso martini? There is a lot more you can do with coffee and spirits, as the collab between Subko coffee and Godawan Single Malt shows.
Q&A: Keshav Prakash on how Vault Home Bar Festival is breaking new grounds.
1. What was the genesis of the festival? How long has it been in the making?
The pandemic brought a great shift in consumer habits across alcoholic and even non-alcoholic beverage categories. The festival, however, has been in the making for 10 years. Vault Fine Spirits was started to share finer things around spirits, which can ultimately lead to a finer life and slower living. In 2019, we hosted Vault Biennale, an experience festival for people to come in and have fun. It has now evolved into Vault Home Bar Festival.
2. What were your learnings for the Vault Biennale 2019?
It was fabulous to see the response to the very first one. Today, the most expensive commodity is people’s time and interest. To have around 900 people show up and engage with us was overwhelming.
The takeaway? We realised that as much as brands want to connect with consumers, which is what they are paying us for, consumers wanted brand information. They wanted to meet distillers, they wanted to have a conversation, and they wanted to experience spirits and spirit pairings.
3. So, how did Vault Biennale evolve into Vault Home Bar Festival?
People have begun understanding the little nuances underlining the work of mixologists and bartenders. There is a growing culture of experimenting with cocktails at home. Much of our home bars reflect our personalities and tastes. The festival celebrates all this and more.
The birth of the Home Bar Festival was sparked by my observation about how home consumption exploded during the pandemic and the depth of knowledge that people garnered. When the situation was slightly under control, what did we do? We asked people over for a drink.
People entertained at home because it was safer, and the bars and restaurants were shut. Those evenings sparked off conversations about spirits, sparked off questions such as ‘Have you heard of Mezcal, or have you tried that new rum’?
Luckily the government allowed some apps and websites to come up during Covid. This has helped push the ceiling higher as we were able to discover newer spirits.
Today’s home bars are a reflection of people’s personalities, as much as their home kitchens are. I think there is a new report that India has overtaken France in the amount of scotch we import by volume. And this is just the beginning. We will soon be one of the world’s biggest markets for at-home consumption of fine spirits.
There are plenty of reasons. We have beautiful homes. We are very welcoming as a culture. We are blessed to have staff, blessed to have a lot of recipes of snacks we can serve up at home, we have everything that complements home entertainment. In an evolution, home bars are now an essential part of our home décor.
What is the home bar market in India? From what I know it is very unorganised…
Even if you talk about 1% of India who consumes spirits at home, it is a huge market. At least 25% of that 1% buys some amount of alcohol at home, whether it is for self-consumption or entertaining people. Then there are the millennials who have just come of age, who may have just got married, who are setting up homes and are entertaining far more at home. The market size is humungous.
Is it easy for us to access great craft and fine spirits in India or order some home?
Ordering spirits home is still a distant dream. But people, somehow, manage to get stuff delivered to their homes. We are a long way off before we have a proper D2C delivery service. If the government were to allow ease of business since they are already allowing the sale of alcohol, brands will double their sales.
What can a consumer expect to experience at the Vault Home Bar Festival?
Ours is not a ‘drinking’ festival. It is about conversations and experiences. It is a festival for enthusiasts to come together, learn, and converse.
The festival is designed for the curious, but the connoisseur will also fit in. We have close to 30 brands and more than 125 spirits taking part. We have invited Paradiso, the world’s #1 bar, to come here, with two other incredible bars. In the evening parties, people will discover what mixology is all about through what these bars put out.
We have the largest UK contingent of British brands coming down, about 26 of them. Then, we have indie brands such as Hapusa and Paul John. The most exciting thing about the festival is the launch of 400 limited edition bottles of Amrut festival single malt, being sold at the steal of a price.
There are also exciting collaborations. There is Ether’s Prateek Bhaktiani doing chocolates and spirits pairing. There is Subko doing something with coffee and spirits.
What is that one talk or workshop you are excited about?
I think Krish Ashok’s chat on the science of chakhna. I put myself as a moderator for that one. And then, there is one around the gourmet bar by Aditi Dugar (Masque). Gauri Devidayal (The Table) is leading a conversation on ‘Home bars are the new fancy cars’, which goes into design, décor, and accessories.
Speakers are talking about rum, about how to throw a mad gin party, about food and bar snacks. There will be a launch of the first Vault home bar collection. We are debuting Birdy. by Erik Lorincz, a glassware brand from Japan, on Tata Cliq Luxury at the festival. These are like exquisite pieces of jewellery sitting in your bar.
All the information related to the festival is available on https://vaulthomebarfest.com/
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