Ask anyone who has worked a bar in a metro for more than five years and they will tell you the same thing: the questions have changed. People used to order by brand. Now they ask what is in it, where it was made, and whether there is something similar for less.

Less volume, more attention

The shift is not abstinence. It is redistribution. The same money goes into fewer, better pours, and the bottle on the shelf at home is chosen rather than defaulted to.

What the industry did about it

Indian distilleries moved first, largely because they had less to lose. Single malts, small-batch gins and now agave spirits exist because someone was willing to bet on a drinker who reads the back label.

Whether that holds depends on pricing and distribution, neither of which moves quickly. But the demand side has already changed, and that is the harder half.