FROM MASS TO CLASS:EVOLUTION OF LUXURY SPIRITS & THE CONSUMER

It’s crazy how the world moves these days.  Everything is always moving into a new dimension.  And there should always be a superior product to every normal product or even every premium product.  It’s hard to believe that premium products in the market these days have a superior brand over it.  And these products or services get broadly termed as “Luxury goods.”  What are luxury goods all about?  They are those Products and services that are not considered essential and are associated with affluence.  The concept of luxury has been present in various forms since the beginning of civilization.  Its role was just as important in ancient western and eastern empires as it is in modern societies.  With the clear differences between social classes in earlier civilizations, the consumption of luxury was limited to the elite classes.

Every industry has seen this transition, an evolution of luxury goods in to their portfolio.  I was kind of shocked to understand a luxury item is an item for which demand increases proportionally as income rises, and is a contrast to a "necessity item", for which demand is not related to income. Here today right now I do not want to play around with such huge topic as I will be talking to you about this small segment that interested me and that’s nothing other than “Luxury Spirits.”

As I told you earlier normal has become an understatement for most who are living in this world and luxury has kind of become the in-thing.  People demand for more classic more finer and more glorious products .Consumers are continually looking at something which delivers more quality setting them apart from the rest of the world.  The word “Luxury” has transformed from not just being the price element but to quality, unique experience, satisfaction achieved and much more.

It’s a simple game.  When people have more disposable income and their lifestyle itself has changed from wanting luxury brands, the beverage market which was not a key market 15 years back, has to live up to the expectations of the luxury segment like every other market.  And mind you, this market where the consumers may be drinking less but better is going to be the reality for the beverage industry in some years to come.  The price part of this segment is rarely looked into as each luxury spirit brand has a story to tell, a perception and an experience to be lived and cherished.  As I told you there is a unique story attached to every Luxury spirit.  This story itself makes it special and worth all the money and sets it apart from everything else and that story itself forms a means to market it.

According to Rohan Jelkie, Training Manager at Tulleeho Beverage Innovations, Every luxury spirit becomes important or special because they use superior raw materials for its production, may have an extra distillation process, usually have a unique production process, a unique finish, high end packaging and the entire marketing spend for the final product would be around 25% of the total revenue.

Let’s take the example of one of the luxury spirit which has a story to tell.  Cognac has always been special to the world.  It was and still is a Gentle Man’s drink.  But if you happen to hear about the story of LOUIS XIII de Remy Martin which comes under the portfolio of Remy Cointreau you will be amazed.  I was amazed when Vincent Cleme, Brand Ambassador of Louis XIII, India shared it with me.  Well the bottle of Louis XIII is a Pine Crystal bottle whose neck is 24 carat gold plating and he says that it takes 4 days and 7 people to make just the bottle.  The spirit inside has a bigger story to tell.  Being a blend of over 1200 euax de vie , of which the least aged is at least 40 years old.  After the master blender blends this its aged for over a century that is the person who blends the wine will never get to see the spirit hitting the market and may be even their children won’t.  And this unique process gives it its tagline –“A Century in a Bottle.”  Going a step further the Louis XIII launched a new limited edition collection called the BLACK PEARL, which were 786 individually numbered Barracat crystal bottles which got sold out in 2 months within its launch.

There are more examples, the Tequila Ley .925, which hold the Guinness Record for the world’s most expensive tequila is yet another luxury spirit which is a 2kg show of gold and platinum.  Also the very famous gin, Martin Muller, makes a journey of 3000 km before its bottled.  It travels from England to Iceland where it  gets blended with the water from Iceland and back to England where it is finally bottled. The impressive story of Ron Zacapa, which is a rum produced in Guatemala, a place which borders Mexico is the only rum which is produced using the Solera system of fractional blending which is used in the production of Sherry.  Coming to vodka, my personal favourite -Grey Goose of Bacardi Martini carries the tag line “The world’s best tasting Vodka.”  Dimitri Lenzinska ,Global brand ambassador on up-selling grey goose vodka proudly tell us about the Grey Goose being the only vodka having a respected maitre de chai from cognac. Made with 100% winter wheat and respecting the quality of wheat and the distillation process creates all the flavours specific to Grey Goose Vodka, he says.

Every big producer, may it be Diageo , Pernod Ricard, LVMH, Remy Cointreau etc have extended a new portfolio as Luxury Brand which is superior to the premium brands in the portfolio and that’s how the wind of luxury has struck the beverage industry.  The luxury beverage market in India is booming at a very fast rate.  Indians are trying new and more expensive spirits to experiment or even demonstrate status and the latter is a good deal for us who are in the industry :P.  The ban on luxury advertising in India is a huge set back though .It takes away a major marketing tool I must say.  But I am sure the marketers and brand managers always come up with better practices and better ways to let the world know about their brands and its uniqueness through launch parties, tasting sessions and lot other means.

 I believe this trend in luxury spirit will live and enjoy the status in the economy for a real good time and until then don’t forget that "beer has become a bit boring now, there is more of a statement created when you walk into a bar and order for a Grey Goose Martini."

It’s a complex world of wines

I remember the first I time I walked into a wine cellar of a hotel. Yes, that dimly lit cold room, cozy And comfortable that no one really pays attention to, not really. It was during the initial days of my Industrial training at Jumeirah beach hotel Dubai, where I found out that this dim lit room (which is Colder than the ambient temperature) is my friend and my only friend in the hotel because no one Could see me inside and I was indeed happy spending time inside, clearing my head and busting

levels of stress by myself. Oh my! Don’t think I was miserable in life; it was just a getaway spot.

But slowly the bottles stacked on the unique shelves of the room kind of caught my attention and I always wondered why these bottles were kept tilted and some were horizontal and some were inside a Chiller inside the already cold room . Being a teenager there are no boundaries to questions that can just pop up in your mind. Why this, why that, why is it this way, why is it that way and so on and things like that. And the only person I could go to at that moment who had all the answers to my question was Miss Elena, who was the then asst outlet manager of Latitude, the multi cuisine restaurant cum coffee shop of JBH. People in the hotel used to call her a junior wine sommelier. For some odd reason my concept of a wine sommelier is a guy who walks around with a tasting glass hanging down his collar who wears a red tie and who has the authority to taste any wine before even the guest tastes it. She neither wore a red tie nor had the hanging cup nor did she taste any wines. Then it struck me, she was called a junior sommelier because she knew the complex world of wines.

So let me tell you my dear friends it is all part of the same old game. Starting from the plantation ,nourishing and harvesting and crushing, de-stemming, pressing and fermentation followed by filtration, clarification and bottling and aging was all what I thought is to a bottle of wine that anyone can grab from a decent wine shop. But fortunately the story of every single bottle is more intense

and sentimental like a life of a human being itself with lot of feelings and emotions planted in by the wine maker himself. Each bottle is crafted and nourished with that same sentiments and love and care like we give the whole world to our children. And to know about these sentiments and these intense feelings you should be able to travel deep down to the complexities involved in the process of wine making. Not just to the countries, the regions nor to the villages or the communes not even the chateaus but to the soil, the climate, the water, the sunshine and not to forget the wine maker himself which the French collectively call “the Terroir”. And so going back to Jumeirah beach hotel working with my manager, the “junior sommelier “ and spending my time in the stress busting room called the “ wine room” that’s all I did- break the complexities of wines, learn the terroir and try and figure out why in the world is it so difficult to understand the language of wines.

 

Each wine gets its distinctive character from the grape varieties that are used and when you blend the varietal with a different grape it’s give an entirely different flavour and guess what’s even more challenging, a sauvignon blanc grown in the cold terroir of France will differ significantly from a sauvignon blanc grown in south Africa and its exceedingly different from what is grown in new Zealand. Nobody ever said that it is easy to know or learn the language of wines. And it was indeed not easy for me too. I blabber a lot about wines about their characteristics, about how beautiful they are on the palate, how unique it is and how the terroir affects the production and so on and things like that but evidently I am just aware of 5 % knowledge of the complex world of wines and the rest 95% is still looking at me and smiling.

So basically the next time when someone tells you that I can get floral and black fruits in the wine or some dried nuts and tropical fruits, go ahead and give them another 100 things that you can taste in the wine. Because you are never wrong as it is your taste buds and they can’t disagree but when you know what exactly you are talking about and you know why and how such flavours develop in a wine and why such flavours become prominent. Then you can proudly say ,”yes I cracked the complexities of the world of wines”!!!

Cheers.

Osho – Nobody is here to fulfill somebody else’s expectations

Osho – The energy is perfectly good. Just one problem is there, that you don’t listen to your own voice; and that has to be done. Don’t be distracted by anything else – follow your own feeling. If you are feeling happy, be happy; don’t think of anything else. If you are feeling sad, be sad; don’t consider others, their expectations. Your energy is flowing perfectly well, but you consider others too much, so sometimes you repress, sometimes you become pseudo, inauthentic. You look into others’ eyes and then you try to fulfill their idea of you. Now this is the problem.

Nobody is here to fulfill somebody else’s expectations. And the person who tries to fulfill somebody else’s expectations will always be in misery because he will not be true to his own self. He will not be respectful to his own self, and to show disrespect to one’s self is to show disrespect to god. And the punishment is misery. Respect yourself! That does not mean that you become hard on others – that simply means that you become soft on yourself. Be tender towards yourself.

You immensely need to grow a kind of tenderness towards yourself. You are very tender towards others but very hard towards yourself. That’s what has been taught to everybody, to be hard on yourself and be soft to others; that is utter nonsense. If you are not soft to yourself your softness towards others is just a show, a pretension, hypocrisy. And it is not going to make the other happy either, because he will see through the game; and particularly those who are close to you, who are in love with you, will always be able to see through the game. So you become false and they are not satisfied with your falsity, because falsity can never satisfy anybody. To be really tender and caring towards others, one needs first to be basically tender and caring towards oneself That’s where you are a little hard. Relax!

And your energy is going so well that now I can speak through your energy to you, so whenever you hear something from the inside, remember: I am telling it to you! And that is your commitment. Be polite to others if sometimes you have to go against their expectations; apologise, but don’t pretend. This is one of the problems that always comes in relationship: you have to consider the other, continuously, and he has to consider you, and both become false, inauthentic. How can love grow when both are inauthentic, insincere? Love grows in authenticity – it is a fragrance of authenticity. One needs to be absolutely genuine, only then does love grow. So in the world there are so many lovers and no love at all, because the basic requirement is never fulfilled.

So from this moment, this is your work on yourself: be utterly genuine. And even… it may create a few troubles in the beginning, but only in the beginning. Soon people start understanding – they can see your truth…. And if you respect yourself, others start respecting you and start respecting the space in which you are. But if even you are not respectful to it, who is going to. be respectful to it?

The old saying in the Talmud is: ’If I am not for me then who is going to be for me?’ Then nobody is for you and you are left in a kind of limbo. Be for yourself and only out of that can you be for others too, because then you will have something to share, to give. The energy is perfectly good – there is nothing wrong in the energy; just your mind goes on interfering with it. Stop interfering!

Yes Indeed. Even Eagles need a push.

A vision is the starting point of creation and it is indeed summed by numerous acts of courage. I remember a saying which goes like “Be what you are and do what you want because people who mind don’t matter and people who matter don’t mind”. The documentary has indeed helped me to slowly start thinking about how I can remove the debris and wreckage that are stuck to me which are  hassle for me to excel in life faster. I don’t want to be held back by those small things which don’t really matter in this new paradigm of my career.

The documentary “Even eagles need a push- Qualities of confident empowered people” by David Mc Nally helped me revisit and restore my level of self motivation. I was able to easily relate to all the 5 qualities or according to me the requisites for those who are striving forward and are empowered with confidence. After completing my 6 weeks in the two major departments - housekeeping and kitchen respectively, I am still saturated with energy and  passion to excel and to start climbing to greater heights. My vision is strong and my goal is set and there is no escape on hard work to get to that “bulls eye”. It’s indeed essential to leave behind those bitter moments at work which seldom matters and cherish those which made me feel; yes I am good at what I do. I have started to appreciate myself better and now I can see a bigger , better and most importantly a clearer picture.

I also realized  the extent to which I have to eradicate my short comings which can be converted into future opportunities for growth. And also work on how I am going to juggle with my five balls of life namely -work,family,health ,friends and spirit and I must also understand how to strike a balance in life and commit myself to work and relationships with the right commitment . The point that caught me strong was indeed “contribution”. It’s rightly put that getting is only followed by giving. And I recollected my father telling me, “Give what you can and one day you will get what you want.” When I work, I consider myself as a normal employee whose contribution to the organization will help in the required net result and right now all I am concerned about is how much I can contribute personally to the team I am working with , and I am sure my father put it so well when he told me “GIVE WHAT YOU CAN.. AND ONE DAY YOU WILL GET WHAT YOU WANT “

The 30 Second Speech by Bryan Dyson

'Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them - work, family, health, Friends and spirit and you're keeping all of these in the Air. You will soon or one day understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four Balls - Family, Health, Friends and Spirit - are made of glass. If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for Balance in your life.'


Bryan Dyson
CEO ,Coca Cola

Interview With Mr Rishab Tandon...

CHAMPION OF CAMPUS- IHM MUMBAI 2008-2011

Pankaj Balachandran, one of the most successful performers during the placement season and titled as the coolest and the professionally sound 

candidate by the recruiters during the interviews. Made it to various companies including the esteemed Taj Management Trainee and the ITC Hotel Executive Trainee program.

Rishabh- The most proud moment of your life during campus recruitment, share the efforts that went in to crack such bigger company’s selection process.

Pankaj-   The entire campus recruitment gave me several proud moments. I am humbled that the efforts that went in did pay off well. One of the moments I will cherish lifelong was at Marriott’s. The General Manager of J.W Marriott gave me his business card after interviewing me and said excellent performance and told me that you would do extremely well in Sales and Marketing.

Rishabh- The weirdest Group Discussion topic you faced in the campus placement.

Pankaj-   “Be what you are and say what you want . Because people who mind don’t matter and people who matter do not mind” . This was the weirdest topic that I have had in a GD so far. Not that the topic was not good enough .It was indeed a fantastic topic. Its just that I don’t remember what I spoke for it but I guess I really spoke well, otherwise I wouldn’t have got selected. Ha-ha.

Rishabh- The toughest question you ever encountered in multiple interviews faced.

Pankaj-  hmmmm. I must say. There is no tough question as such that can be asked. If you think you will be canned then sorry you will be for sure. So get into the room with full of confidence and not over confidence. And if you would like to know how questions can be like here is one tough small question for starters. “Impress me in the next 30 seconds or sell yourself “

Rishabh- The most repeated question faced in multiple interviews and how you responded to it.

Pankaj- So Pankaj! Tell me something about yourself!! This is a question that not even a single organization failed to ask me. And by the end of the 3^rd interview I was well prepared for this answer. 

Rishabh- I personally remember that after not making it to OCLD which was one of your first process, your confidence level was a little low. How you recovered. Recollect the most difficult step in the selection process and the company which made you thinks hard.

Pankaj-

Yes not making into OCLD and rejecting the first offer (OCER) was a big blow to me. But everything from that moment started inspiring me  I was trying to make myself aware that nothing was impossible and all you need to do is that your ”want” should be treated as your “need”. And when Taj came for campus placement I decided that I will prepare for it  to give my best and most importantly I started believing in myself . And I started believing that my deepest fear is not that I am inadequate, my deepest fear is that I am powerful beyond measure!! And that did the magic for all the subsequent interviews.

Rishabh- Tips for your juniors to continue the legacy of “being the best” in placements. Share your mantras on grooming, interviews, discussions and more.

Pankaj-    

Well I like the sound of it, “Being the best” in placements. What I ask my juniors to do is believe in yourself and be what you are. Every organization is looking for that ‘X’ Factor and knows that every organization is looking for different factors.  Know what the organization wants from you. Mould yourself before interviews into that slot which the organization want you to be. Faking doesn’t help.

Discussion: I have always tried to be very diplomatic when it comes to discussion. What you speak is seldom important but how you speak does the magic.  The way you see the topic make the difference. Always wait and understand what the topic is all about and get a bird’s eye view of the topic. There will be several people who start just as soon as the topic is given. Let them be. Your  approach to the topic should be like” the calm before the storm”. Get the crowd in your hand and control it.

Interview: Do not drag an answer. The interviewer is not there to listen to a story from you. Your answers should be polite and to the question. Make yourself comfortable and judge the panel very well. Do know who is going to interview you and you should be prepared how to answer each question. Learn what the ‘x’ factor is for the organization and be on track. Pay good attention to the presentation. And rest of it will come to you then and there just be yourself and keep your cool J

Rishabh- Pankaj by being recruited by so many companies and ultimately you have to choose one, isn’t it difficult to make your decision. Do you think we should come up with some strict rules on the same.

Pankaj-    Yes indeed it was a difficult decision. The biggest problem is that we get a confirmation from the company very late and we still sit for interviews thinking that we won’t make it to even one company. I did not sit for several organizations like Leela Hotels, Starwood, Park, Holiday Inn , Four Seasons etc after I got my confirmation of Taj . And when I got the confirmation of ITC I didn’t not go for the final interview of Marriott’s. I confined my selection to Taj and ITC and it was a big headache to decide which one to choose. So guys before you sit for an interview decide what you want to do. Decide if you would truly love working for the organization. I chose Taj because I wanted to work for it. I saw the hospitality of Taj not just to the guests but to us as well.

Rishabh- Share your motivational mantra, quote and idol.

Pankaj-

“Your deepest fear is not that you are inadequate, your deepest fear is that you are powerful beyond measure. It’s not the darkness but the light that frightens you the most”.

Every time I am out there waiting for my turn to get grilled in that four walls of the interview I say these lines to myself and the truth is I started realizing I am indeed what I want myself to be and that thought motivated me and kept me going.

Rishabh -Plans for the next 02 years.

Pankaj-  I will be working with Taj for the next 4 years undoubtedly after that I would like to do an MBA in Hospitality abroad. Taj sends their employees for the same so I will be aiming for that.

Rishabh- Lastly do you want to acknowledge people (parents, friends and the college) for making it happen

Pankaj- Reaching the top wouldn’t have been possible without people. May it be faculty ,parents, teachers and my own dear friends. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of them. And to you sir who always told me after the Oberoi’s process  “You are made for better things .Your future lies in the Corporate World”.  It has always helped me going and growing.  And lastly let me not miss out to thank the God almighty with whom I would have had faith and courage to face every Endeavour.

Wishing you all the very best in your future endeavors.

Whats your deepest fear???

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Marianne Williamson

Taj Management Training Program

Campus placement made me see the tru quality that i have in me.. and i am sure that one day i will be a successful hotelier . for starters i am a Taj Management trainee and i am honored to be one. . and this is like a head start to my career. and i am going to make use of it the best possible way.