Tribute to Mr Neelkanta Rao Jagdale

With very heavy hearts, we have to bid final farewell to the legendary industrialist & visionary, Mr Neelkant R Jagdale, Chairman, Amrut Distilleries.  He left us this morning for a better place, closer to God.  He was a great man, a wonderful intellect, a great soul of matchless courage, one of the great men of the world of liquor.

The feeling of immense loss and sadness has engulfed entire Spiritz team and we have no words to convey our grief.  Our association with Mr Jagdale had been right from the year we started the magazine in 2009. He was always gracious to support us at our all endeavours and was always there at Spiritz annual conclave & awards to bless us.

Father of India’s first single malt was a visionary and never shied away from taking risks. Under his stewardship, Amrut has grown from a single bottling unit into a trans-national player.  His penchant for innovation and technology has been the ideal foil for the time-tested traditions enshrined in the company by the founder. That’s why Amrut single malt whisky has been appreciated across the globe and has won several international awards.

Spiritz felt humbled to honour Mr. Jagdale with the “ Life Time Achievement Award’ in 2018. Despite his bad health, he travelled from Bengaluru to New Delhi to be with us for the conclave and awards. He had also chaired a special session on Single Malts along with many other stalwarts and enlightened us all with his thoughts.  Sadly, we will not be able to hear him anymore!

Spiritz pays its homage to the departed veteran and pray that his soul rests in peace and his family, friends and millions of admirers have courage to bear this irreparable loss.

The world of liquor will not be the same without him.