Ranking India's Best Bars

Vikram Achanta, founder and CEO of Tulleeho, has been a leading provider of beverage education and training to the hospitality industry for over two decades. His most recent effort has been 30BestBarsIndia, a highly regarded national var ranking that he set up jointly with Radhakrishnan Nair, the publisher of this magazine. It has helped provide the country's leading bars a national and international profile.

- SHARAN SANIL

AIcohol has been Vikram Achanta’s passion for as long as he can remember. So much so that after obtaining a management degree from IIM Calcutta and spending many years in the lucrative area of management consultancy, he gave it all up during the so-called first dotcom boom’ of the early 2000s to set up Tulleeho.com, a website and company dedicated to providing alcobev-related information, education and training to industry professionals and consumers.

"The Indian alcohol industry goes back a long time. But the early 2000s when we set up Tulleeho was the time when big changes were afoot,” says Achanta. New companies were either being launched, or were being formed as part of mergers and acquisitions. didn't come from a hospitality or alcoholic beverage background came from a consulting background where we focused on solving problems first.”

The dotcom' hysteria did not last long, and most of the startups that fueled the boom disappeared within a few years. Tulleeho, however, not only survived but has over the last two decades become a leader in its area of beverage education and consultancy, providing services to companies not just in India, but also in surrounding countries. In addition, Achanta has transformed himself into a leading commentator and writer documenting the rapid changes in the local alcobev scene eventually becoming the consulting editor for various magazines while releasing Tulleeho’s very own Book of Cocktails’.