TULLEEHO: A SPIRITED
JOURNEY THROUGH
INDIA’S DRINKING CULTURE
From Features Desk
The year was 1999. At a dining table in New
Delhi’s Basant Lok, we were sipping Bushmills
10-year-old Irish whiskey, lamenting the lack
of excitement in our corporate jobs. As the
drinking continued, the conversation turned
to the absence of any reliable guide to
drinking out in India. Where could one find a
good bar? Where was our “Time Out” or
“Zagat Guide” equivalent?
Why don’t we review bars? We thought.
Although neither my partner nor I had
experience with either liquor or bars, except at the drinking end of a glass, the idea
seemed intriguing, but only as a concept.
Publishing a magazine or book was beyond
our budget, but the World Wide Web had
just arrived. And so, a website it would be.
My wife, amused by our enthusiasm, said
“tum sab tullee ho”, and the name came to
me in that moment: www.tulleeho.com. With
a name as catchy as that, dreams that
typically die the morning after stayed alive.
We began our task in earnest by visiting
Delhi’s bars: Mezz and Pebble Street in New
Friends Colony, Turquoise Cottage in
Adchini, M-52 in GK 2, and Thugs at the
Broadway Hotel in Daryaganj. We passed our
amateurish verdicts on Blue Lagoons, Bloody
Marys, Mojitos, and Long Island Iced Teas,
and “borrowed” drinks menus as we went
from bar to bar.
Building the Platform
When we travelled across India, our work continued, and although our opinion may have been suspect, our prose sparkled. We found Babul Gogoi, an Assamese designer working out of Press Enclave, who built our first site using Microsoft Front Page. It featured an Urdu couplet I’d heard from Bade Mian of Tunde Kebabi in Lucknow:
When we travelled across India, our work continued, and although our opinion may have been suspect, our prose sparkled. We found Babul Gogoi, an Assamese designer working out of Press Enclave, who built our first site using Microsoft Front Page. It featured an Urdu couplet I’d heard from Bade Mian of Tunde Kebabi in Lucknow:
“Sadakat khud-b-khud karti hai shauhrat
zamane mein, Munafa utna ho jitna ho namak
khane mein”
Literally translated, it means:
“Goodness by itself will give you fame in this
world.
Profit should be as salt in food.”
Bade Mian had said these words to me when
I asked why he had left a lucrative post at
Radisson’s Great Kebab Factory. We used his
words in jest, but they’ve unfortunately rung
true.
From Content to Experience
With India being a media dark market for alcohol in 2000, and the web still being the Wild West, from a regulatory standpoint, our investors, Mahesh Murthy and Arun Pai of Passionfund, encouraged us to build tulleeho.com into a community for tipplers, first in India, then globally. The idea was to scale through user-generated content and entice liquor brands to advertise or sponsor features on our website.
With India being a media dark market for alcohol in 2000, and the web still being the Wild West, from a regulatory standpoint, our investors, Mahesh Murthy and Arun Pai of Passionfund, encouraged us to build tulleeho.com into a community for tipplers, first in India, then globally. The idea was to scale through user-generated content and entice liquor brands to advertise or sponsor features on our website.
We knocked on many alcohol company doors
to get their ad dollars, but the pickings were
thin. Lady Luck finally smiled on us in 2002,
two years after we had started tulleeho.com.
“Ask Tulleeho” was a section on our website
where visitors sent alcohol-related queries,
which we answered via e-mail. This was also
one of our very first sponsored features.
Bruno Yvon, the then country manager of
Veuve Clicquot, agreed to give a bottle of
VCP yellow label to the best question linked
to wine or champagne, with Bruno himself
answering all those questions.
The thought, however, grew in our minds
about the mundane nature of an e-mail
answer for a subject as exciting as alcohol.
We consulted Shatbhi Basu, our Tullee Guide
to Mumbai (Yangdup Lama was our Tullee
Guide in Delhi), and asked the La Grande
Dame of Indian bartending about how we
could bring “Ask Tulleeho” to life. What then
emerged was the “Tulleeho Bartending
Masterclass”, a day-long workshop wherein
we would invite consumers to come and mix
up some cocktails under the guidance of
Shatbhi and Yangdup, and learn everything
there was to learn about setting up their
home bar.
We also planned two two-day workshops for
NCR bartenders, one for hotels and the
other for independent outlets. To subsidise
fees, we approached Smirnoff and Borosil.
Both readily agreed, with Smirnoff especially
excited; their brand manager, Atindriya
Bose, saw it as the perfect platform to
showcase Smirnoff’s versatility as a cocktail
base, both to bartenders as well as
consumers.
Strategic Shift
The workshops were a hit and led to our epiphany: rather than chase an online model, we would approach alcobev companies and offer to them our services as a marketing services agency, helping bridge the gap between them and the end consumer. This move saw immediate success with Smirnoff rebranding the workshops as Smirnoff Tastemaker Session, while tasking us with engaging thousands of consumers throughout the year across India. The campaign was so successful that it won Darpan Kaur, Smirnoff’s new marketing manager, a global Double Eagle award.
The workshops were a hit and led to our epiphany: rather than chase an online model, we would approach alcobev companies and offer to them our services as a marketing services agency, helping bridge the gap between them and the end consumer. This move saw immediate success with Smirnoff rebranding the workshops as Smirnoff Tastemaker Session, while tasking us with engaging thousands of consumers throughout the year across India. The campaign was so successful that it won Darpan Kaur, Smirnoff’s new marketing manager, a global Double Eagle award.
This also led us to release in 2011, the
Tulleeho Book of Cocktails, published by
Westland, with easy-to-make cocktails,
drawing upon easily sourceable ingredients
and written in a user-friendly manner. At the
same time, our work with Diageo deepened,
and we partnered with Bacardi Martini to run
the Bacardi Martini Grand Prix, India’s first
branded bartender competition.
Knowledge and Certification
By 2009-10, we pivoted to knowledge-centric initiatives: education, consulting, training. With hospitality booming and demand for certifications rising, becoming an Approved Programme Provider for WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) was a natural step in 2009. We have since become India’s largest provider, certifying over 4,000 professionals and enthusiasts across India and the Maldives.
By 2009-10, we pivoted to knowledge-centric initiatives: education, consulting, training. With hospitality booming and demand for certifications rising, becoming an Approved Programme Provider for WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) was a natural step in 2009. We have since become India’s largest provider, certifying over 4,000 professionals and enthusiasts across India and the Maldives.
Our advocacy work helped launch global
programmes like Maison by Pernod Ricard
and ground-up initiatives like Heineken Bar
Stars, which helped launch Heineken in India.
Tulleeho also supported market entry for
global brands through partnerships with
Bord Bia, UK Department of Business and
Trade, the EU, Sopexa, and Santander
Navigator. In 2024, we also began representing the California Wine Institute in
India via the Capstone California
programme.
In 2017, I became Consulting Editor of Brews
and Spirits, a B2B publication, soon after
Tulleeho became a knowledge partner for
the Brews and Spirits Expo in Bangalore,
running its conference since its inception. In
2019, we co-founded “30 Best Bars India”,
now in its sixth edition, the country’s most
prestigious bar-ranking platform. In 2023, we
launched the “What India Is Drinking”
report, an annual survey of consumer trends
across top bars.
Expanding the Ecosystem
In 2023, we began managing Diageo’s World Class competition, the world’s most prestigious bartender competition, which has sent India’s winners to global finals in São Paulo, Shanghai, and Toronto over the past three years.Meanwhile, our hospitality consulting arm has helped bars like Loulou in Goa, Latango in Delhi, and The Flying Elephant in Chennai craft standout cocktail menus.
In 2023, we began managing Diageo’s World Class competition, the world’s most prestigious bartender competition, which has sent India’s winners to global finals in São Paulo, Shanghai, and Toronto over the past three years.Meanwhile, our hospitality consulting arm has helped bars like Loulou in Goa, Latango in Delhi, and The Flying Elephant in Chennai craft standout cocktail menus.
In 2024, we launched Tulleeho Tequila Club,
bringing agave lovers together for tastings,
bar takeovers, and curated pairings. In 2025,
we co-founded “India Bartender Week” (now
India Bartender Show), and the “India Drinks
Retail Awards” to celebrate and recognise
India’s fast burgeoning alcohol retailers.
Representing Indian Spirits and Looking
Ahead
As Tulleeho’s founder and CEO, I have served as a Global ambassador for Indian
Spirits.I have also served as India
ambassador and judge at “Spirits Selection” by CMB (Concours Mondial de Bruxelles)
in
Renhuai (China) and Jalisco (Mexico), and
hosted workshops at “Bar Convent Berlin” in
2024, “Athens Bar Show” in 2025, as well as
online seminars with WSET (Wine & Spirit
Education Trust).
After 25 years of ups and downs, strategies,
and countless contributions to redefining
how India experiences drinks, Tulleeho has
now worked with over 300 clients, 500 brand
partners, and nearly 300,000 bar
professionals, becoming a trusted name for
leading brands both in India and beyond.
And I, for one, cannot wait to see what’s next.
In 2024, we launched Tulleeho Tequila Club,
bringing agave lovers together for tastings,
bar takeovers, and curated pairings. In 2025,
we co-founded “India Bartender Week” (now
India Bartender Show), and the “India Drinks
Retail Awards” to celebrate and recognise
India’s fast burgeoning alcohol retailers.
Representing Indian Spirits and Looking
Ahead
As Tulleeho’s founder and CEO, I have served as a Global ambassador for Indian
Spirits.I have also served as India
ambassador and judge at “Spirits Selection” by CMB (Concours Mondial de Bruxelles) in
Renhuai (China) and Jalisco (Mexico), and
hosted workshops at “Bar Convent Berlin” in
2024, “Athens Bar Show” in 2025, as well as
online seminars with WSET (Wine & Spirit
Education Trust).
After 25 years of ups and downs, strategies,
and countless contributions to redefining
how India experiences drinks, Tulleeho has
now worked with over 300 clients, 500 brand
partners, and nearly 300,000 bar
professionals, becoming a trusted name for
leading brands both in India and beyond.
And I, for one, cannot wait to see what’s next.
