People
The first drink of the day
Where the company name comes from, and why a nineteenth-century breakfast ritual suits a spirits house.
Chhota hazri was the first drink of the day in nineteenth-century India. Usually tea, taken early, with something small alongside it. It was the traditional refreshment of troops stationed in Northern India, and it survives today in the morning routines of certain army regiments and boarding schools.
A small, deliberate ritual before the day begins. Not the main event, and not meant to be.
Why it stuck
It is a craft drink in its own right, and a fair description of what we are trying to make: something considered, made for the moment it is drunk in rather than for the shelf it sits on.
The company makes Baagh Indian Craft Gin and Baagh Blue Indian Craft Gin. Both are built the same way round, with flavour first and the story afterwards, which is the opposite of how most Indian craft spirits have been sold.