Goa-based Third Eye Distillery is set to expand its duty-free presence across several domestic and international airports. The craft spirits company also plans to launch an in-house distillery in the State by the end of the second financial quarter.
Third Eye Distillery, which currently sells in two international airports - the Singapore Changi Airport and Dubai, will expand its duty-free presence to Goa, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and more key international travel retail outlets in the upcoming quarters of this fiscal year. In India, the brand has a presence in Mumbai, Delhi, Kochi,, Bengaluru, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Thiruvananthapuram duty-free outlets.
“Our objective this year is to increase our duty-free presence. We are already in several Indian airports and plan to be in about 10 by next quarter. Internationally, we plan to be in 15 by the end of this financial year,” Rahul Mehra CEO & Co-founder of Third Eye Distillery told businessine. “We have also invested in our distillery, which we plan to operationalize this year. This move is expected to bolster our production capabilities and support its ambitious expansion plans,” he added. The facility in Goa, which spans about 30,000-40,000 sq ft, will be ready by the second financial quarter.
In addition, the company plans to penetrate more Indian markets this fiscal, following the shipment of their goods to two new American markets in New York and Miami. In India, the spirits brand is currently present in about 10 markets and will expand to 14 in the next two quarters, with their recent one being to West Bengal.
Founded in 2019, Third Eye Distillery started its journey with the craft gin Stranger & Sons. The company then collaborated with The Bombay Canteen to launch a bottled cocktail ‘Perry Road Peru’, and with Australia-based Four Pillars Distillery to launch two new gins called Trading Tides and Spice Trade Gin. Their latest release was the Sherry Cask-Aged gin in 2023. The company started its brand of white spirits called Short Story in late 2022.
“We believed we could make super high-quality spirits in India and put them under an umbrella brand. What we could do for Stranger & Sons in 4 years, we achieved with Short Story in one year. We hope that this year, it will surpass the volumes of Stranger & Sons,” added Mehra.
Third Eye Distillery’s product portfolio also includes Svami, a non-alcoholic mixer brand that the company acquired a majority stake in FY23. “Our product portfolio, primarily focused on the premium segment, allows us to achieve gross margins of over 75 per cent, and, for some SKUs, even as much as 82%, which is significantly higher than the typical market range of 40-50 per cent,” commented the CEO. “We believe we have only scratched the surface of India’s burgeoning spirits market.”
The company, along with plans to expand its distribution channels and markets, intends to diversify its brand portfolio by launching new products in other high-potential spirit categories like Rum and Whisky. Third Eye Distillery is currently EBITDA positive on a brand level and will be EBITDA positive on a company level this financial year.