A Spirit for India

For decades, alcohol, globally, has been shaped around people with luxury, exposure and experience to savour it. As India’s premium spirits scene grew, Indian consumers imbibed the same playbook of tasting notes, swirling glasses and “appreciating the burn” that assume drinking is an acquired art rather than an act of celebration. That playbook is now overturned by Jigger Shots. Its Co-founder and CEO ANUBHAV Khanna tells VIBHOOTI Bhatnagar the brand doesn’t aim to imitate whisky or vodka, but definitely rethinks what a spirit should do for a nation whose drinking is communal and celebratory.

When Anubhav called Jigger India’s first “Anti-Alcohol, Alcohol”, he did more than coining a clever phrase. He issued a challenge to the age-old drinking ritual set by global connoisseurs. “Our goal was to remove the obstacles that get in the way of genuine enjoyment,” he says.

This is the project Anubhav and his Co-founder Jashan Pahwa set themselves on. “When we studied the market, we saw two dominant behaviours: drinking to savour, and drinking to celebrate. In India, the second group is far larger, and that’s who Jigger is for,” Anubhav says.

A Spirit With Guts

Anubhav’s life, shaped by displacement between Srinagar and Amritsar, the 2014 Srinagar floods that submerged his family home, and an abrupt H-1B visa denial in the United States, runs through the brand. Rebuilding his career in Canada with Deloitte, he reflected that those moments taught him resilience, but also softness, and to celebrate honestly whenever life allows it.

“In punjabi, ‘Jigger’ means guts, in urdu, it means heart. My entire life has been mix of both,” he says. This duality of courage and warmth are the lodestars of a spirit that is bold in ambition yet inclusive in purpose. Jigger becomes “a drink that doesn’t ask you to pretend. A brand that feels like home.”

Stripping Alcohol to its Joyful Core

The starting point for Jigger was an audit. Anubhav, a management consultant by training, and Jashan, an accountant, broke the typical drinking experience into five sequential moments: the initial whiff that stings, the burn down the throat, the acquired taste that eludes many, the tell-tale breath and finally the fun. The first four of those five, he concluded, were just friction points. “What if we remove four out of five; 80 percent of the drinking experience, and keep only the fun?” he asked.

R&D kicked off unconventionally in Anubhav’s kitchen in Vancouver, evolving into collaborations with scientists and flavour chemists across Canada, the US and India. “We started as outsiders to the distilling world, so we naturally approached the problem differently,” he explains, detailing a process of elimination: testing base spirits, filtration methods, distillations, extractions, muddling and flavour combinations.

Hundreds of iterations later, the team overcame their technical hurdle by inventing a full-strength spirit that was engineered to be enjoyed straight up. “We focused on eliminating the sting, the burn and the harsh aftertaste and breath that traditionally force consumers to drown a spirit in mixers and chasers,” Anubhav stresses.

The team had to then deal with a heavier question of taste. Market scanning, conversations with F&B leaders, bartenders, alcobev founders, distributors and food chemists, and a disciplined pattern of prototype tastings produced a clear cultural insight: “People’s eyes lit up when something reminded them of home,” Anubhav remembers. That observation became the brand’s “north star”, directing it towards nostalgic profiles that would translate across generations.

Dressing the Drink

If the liquid invites familiarity, the packaging stages it. “We decided to dress the bottle the way India dresses up for a night out: expressive, layered and full of character,” Anubhav says. His team worked with artists and designers across India and the UK to create “a visual language inspired by how modern India celebrates”: a choker-like neck band, polka dots nodding to a phulkari blouse and stripes draped like a saree on the main label, a shimmering ankletinspired base and a flowing golden drape on the back.

A gold coin crowns the cap, symbolising luck and festivity.

Every tactile detail has a rationale. “Before someone even tastes Jigger, they should feel what it stands for — joy, nostalgia, courage, colour and the unmistakable energy of the modern Indian celebration,” Anubhav says.

Jigger’s Nostalgic Winter Variants

Meetha Paan: The signature sign-off of every successful Indian celebration like the wedding dinner, the festive meal, the late-night street food feast.

Coffee Toffee: A universal childhood memory of the “bachchon ki coffee” conjures a specific, comforting warmth of the forbidden candy millennials loved back in the 90s.

Litchi Rose: Evokes the delicate sweetness of ice golas enjoyed under the afternoon sun.

Future Amid Regulatory Gauntlet

Jigger is pitched as a movement rather than a product. And the makers’ commercial strategy reflects that ambition: seed the product state-bystate with storytelling and partnerships that place it where Indian celebration already happens. “We’re currently available in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, with launches in Delhi, Haryana and Goa to follow soon,” informs Anubhav.

But the road ahead is not frictionless. India’s excise regime is a patchwork of state rules; distribution networks are fragmented; and creating a new category requires sustained consumer education. “But we see these challenges as the necessary proving ground for innovation,” he adds.

Additionally, Jigger eyes global markets. “We do see a significant opportunity to contribute a spirit built with this unique Indian sensibility and flavour profile to the global market,” Anubhav affirms, and notes that early exploratory work in select markets is already underway.