WELCOME TO INDIA'S FIRST HOME BAR FESTIVAL

This month, Mumbai will host The Vault Home Bar Festival, the first festival in the country devoted exclusively to perfecting the art of a home bar, a reflection of the changing trends of how people entertain

- Radhakrishnan Nair

Keshav Prakash started his career as a cinematographer working on films directed by the likes of Nagesh Kukunoor and Kamal Haasan before giving it all up to set up an alcohol business in Mumbai. It was something that was always in his 'DNA', he says, as he comes from a family that owns restaurants and bars in Bangalore. He though, took a different route. He and his wife Anjan set up a whisky appreciation society called The Oak League, and eight years ago launched The Vault, one of India's earliest companies devoted to the import of expensive fine spirits. Its success, and his desire to create a fine spirits culture' in the country led him to launch The Vault Biennale in 2019, a hugely popular two-day festival hosted in Mumbai. But when it came to the second edition, he has changed tack to turn it into The Vault Home Bar Festival, the country's first festival devoted to entertaining at home. The festival will see the presence of the some of the best-known names in the world of fine spirits, both brands and people, and pop-ups by the world's leading bars like Barcelona's Paradiso, Lost & Found from Nicosia, Cyprus, and Le Club of Matsuyama, Japan.

We spoke to Prakash about the festival and his experience in the rarefied world of fine spirits:

You started out as a filmmaker turned spirits importer. What then led to The Vault Biennale in 2019, and now to The Vault Home Bar Festival?