Don’t say cheers, say Adipoli

Drinks entrepreneur Gautom Menon is all set to launch the ‘Adipoli’ drink, which is aimed for the millennial crowd

By Shevlin Sebastian 

Three years ago, Gautom Menon, the founder & 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 the duty-free shops at Dubai and Muscat airports. “It’s 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 so much, and instinctively realising its marketing potential, he registered it as a trademark for his company. And come March, Gautam is launching the ‘Adipoli’ dark and white rum. It has an attractive design which is already drawing rave views on Gautom’s Linkedin page and has gone viral. 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 auto-rickshaw, and the Adipoli sign: the thumb and forefinger meeting at a point, with the three fingers upraised. Incidentally, the design has been done in-house, by talented 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, 60 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 for the millennial crowd, says Gautom. “And so far, no one has dared to market Kerala along with a drink. Through ‘Adipoli’ we wanted to do that. I have noticed that Malayalis all over the world have a lot of pride in their state. So I wanted to give them a reason to embrace something from their neck of the woods and be proud of it. In other words, I want them to forget the word ‘Cheers’ and say ‘Adipoli’ instead.” 

Made of dark rum, ‘Adipoli’ is 100 percent molasses-based and uses pristine Indian sugarcane. The flavours are vanilla and toffee. The 750ml bottle is priced at Rs 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 will say it is from our distillery situated in Pampadi, Thrissur.” 

(The New Indian Express, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram)