Kerala banned arrack in 1996. It did not ban memory. A generation later, the same liquid—unaged, cane- or jaggery-coded, labelled in Malayalam as nadan vaattu—sits on shelves in Ontario, Northampton, and, soon, Poland. The people who put it there are not state distillers. They are engineers, chefs, and restaurateurs who left Ernakulam, Vaikom, and Kochi, leased stills under Canadian and British law, and treated Craft Vaatte Canada and its cousins as a category the home state refused to license. Mandakini Vaatte is the best-known proof. It is not the only one. Together these diaspora liquor brands are the commercial case that global buyers will pay mid-premium prices for a high-end Kerala spirit if someone else is allowed to make it.
Mandakini: the first legal bottle
In August 2021, Abish Cheriyan, his brother Elias (Alias) Cheriyan, and Sareesh Kunjappan—Kothamangalam and Moovattupuzha natives settled in Ontario—launched Mandakini Malabari Vaatte through Last Straw Distillery in Vaughan. They did not own a still. Canadian licensing is slow and expensive; contract distillation was the only path. Last Straw, a family craft house already making whisky, gin, and moonshine, ran a long wild-yeast ferment of cane and jaggery, double-distilled it in pot stills, and bottled an unaged spirit at 46 per cent alcohol by volume. The label carries desi daru, nattu charakku, nadan vaatte. The name Mandakini was chosen because it is instantly recognisable across India. The geographic claim is Malabar.
Demand arrived first from Malayalis. The founders planned 2,000 bottles in six months and sold out in two weeks; people drove across provinces. By late 2023 they were reporting roughly 3,000 bottles a month and cumulative sales around C$1.2 million. List price in Ontario has hovered near C$40 for 750 ml. The line now includes Original, Ginger-Cardamom, Pineapple-Mango, and Malabari 65, a high-proof expression. Distribution reached Toronto, Calgary, Alberta, Illinois, and Texas. Awards followed: USA Spirits Ratings silver in 2022; London Spirits Competition silver and 91 points in 2025, with notes of raw sugarcane, grassy herbs, and a firm dry finish. Abish Cheriyan, now identified with Oxford Beverage Group, has spoken of approaching a million dollars in a later year after export expansion. Those are small-craft numbers, not tequila numbers. They are enough to show that a SKU exists.
Honest tasting notes matter here. Independent reviewers have called the original light, sweet, and closer to a softened cane spirit than to village pot-still heat—partly because some batches include a measure of neutral spirit. That is the diaspora bargain: legal, consistent, exportable, and slightly tamed. The category proof does not require every bottle to taste like a shed in 1995. It requires a consumer to finish the bottle and buy another.
Taika, Manavatty, Charayam: a map, not a monopoly
Mandakini was first, not unique. In late 2022 Ajith Padmakumar of Vaikom and chef Sajish Joseph of Vaduthala launched Taika in Ontario from a leased distillery, working from a family recipe Sajish had revived during lockdown, when home brewing is legal in Canada. Taika uses fruit, spice, dates, and jaggery. The label is a nostalgia machine: caparisoned elephant, Western Ghats, KSRTC bus. Price sat around C$50–55. The first market was again the Malayali pocket of Ontario, with ambitions toward LCBO listing and even a conversation, at one point, about Dubai and Bevco—the latter still a political fantasy.
In the United Kingdom, Kochi-born John Xavier founded London Baron Ltd in 2019 and built Manavatty, the old Kochi slang for a bottle of drink, first as a house pour in his Northampton toddy-shop restaurant, Kallu Shappu. By 2025 the spirit was in more than 250 off-licences, priced around £30, and listed at Kochi duty-free at a mid-premium rupee tag. Campden BRI has verified composition claims of no added colour or preservatives. In 2025 Manavatty took bronze at the London Spirits Competition and a Spirit Bronze at the International Wine and Spirit Competition. Xavier’s argument is the same as the Canadians’: every country has a native distillate it is proud of; Kerala’s was banned after it was adulterated, not because the method was incapable of quality.
Poland is the newest node. Midhun Mohan of Kodungallur, already known for the herbal liqueur Ayurvod, prepared a brand simply called Charayam for a launch timed to the thirtieth anniversary of the 1 April 1996 ban, produced in Poland at a traditional 33 per cent strength, with vintage-style 90 ml “podikkuppi” packs and pre-orders from Indian hubs in London, Northampton, and Malta. He has described taking samples back to Kerala for blind comparison with memory. Whether the liquid matches 1995 is less important than the date on the calendar: the ban’s anniversary is now a marketing asset in Warsaw.
Around these bottles sits a wider Malayali beverage diaspora—Kalikut beer, Malayali beer, Maharani gin—that proves the same entrepreneurial pattern. Arrack is the sharpest case because it is the one product that cannot be made at origin.
What “ready” actually means
Modern Indian craft spirits in the West still sell first to the diaspora. That is not a failure. Tequila and mezcal also travelled with migrants before they became generic luxury. The Western consumer who is “ready” for Vaatte is, so far, a mixologist who wants an unaged tropical distillate that is not rum, a curious drinker who has already accepted soju and baijiu, and a Malayali who will pay C$40 for a legal version of a forbidden taste. Duty-free at Kochi is the hinge: the spirit can be bought on the way out of the state that still forbids making it.
The proof of concept is regulatory as much as sensory. Canada and the UK allow contract distillation, laboratory verification, competition medals, and retail listing. Kerala allows toddy and a Bevco queue. The brands are not a substitute for a licensed industry on the Malabar coast. They are evidence that when the still is legal, the name Vaatte can hold a price, an award, and a second bottle.
The limit of offshore success
None of these companies has yet built a category the way mezcal did. Volumes remain craft. Recipes diverge—cane and molasses rather than fresh toddy, sometimes a neutral cut, sometimes fruit and spice. Critics who wanted village brutality will not find it in Vaughan. Farmers in Kerala do not yet see a sap premium. The state still collects its liquor revenue from IMFL.
What the diaspora did is narrower and more useful. It registered trademarks, survived licensing, put Mandakini Vaatte and Manavatty in front of judges who had never heard the word charayam, and demonstrated that “indigenous Indian liquor” is a sellable line on a Canadian shelf. If Kerala ever writes a standard instead of only a ban, it will not be inventing demand. The demand already drives between provinces for a bottle that says nadan vaatte in five scripts. The new-age wave is not a rumour from a tasting room. It is a set of SKUs, medals, and invoices issued everywhere except the place the flavour claims to come from.
A Kerala toddy tapper. Diaspora brands sell the idea of this craft under Canadian and British licences because the still itself remains illegal at the foot of the same tree.
The Malabar coast that gives Mandakini its geographic name. The liquid is now distilled in Vaughan and Northampton; the story still has to point here.
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