Two years in the making, launched in November 2020.

Terai is a gin made by Globus Spirits, an Indian distiller. The brand belongs to the company outright: Man’s World India reported in January 2023 that the business behind Terai “is owned by Globus Spirits,” and Globus presents the gin on its own website among its products. The founder named in coverage of the brand is Shekhar Swarup, whom Tatler Asia quoted as founder in 2022 and whom Globus’s press releases identify as joint managing director of Globus Spirits Limited.

The gin had a long run-up. Man’s World India, in a January 2023 profile of the brand’s vice president Karina Aggarwal, said Terai was in the making for two years before its public launch in November 2020, and that Aggarwal, who first joined only to advise the team a few months before launch, came to lead its communication, branding and storytelling. She told the magazine it was important to show Terai as a “thinking brand,” and that she felt it did not make sense to proceed as a classic London dry gin.

Terai is distilled at The India Craft Spirits Co. in Behror, Rajasthan. Globus describes the site on its product page as the first boutique craft distillery of its kind in India and says the gin is made grain to glass, with its base spirit coming from what it calls its sister distillery; Tatler Asia reported in 2022 that the base is a rice spirit and that the gin is distilled in a copper pot still from the German maker Carl. On the brand’s own website the makers say Terai combines devotion to their land, their expertise in agriculture and distillation, a spirit of craft and the love of a good drink, and that the botanicals are sourced mainly from Khari Baoli, the Delhi spice market.

Temple pillars, a toy-town stopper and a wreath of coins.

The name is a piece of geography. Tatler Asia reported that the gin takes its name from the Terai, a region along the foothills of the Himalayas. Its recipe uses eleven botanicals, which Globus lists as juniper berries, tulsi (holy basil), fennel, coriander, lemon and orange peel, lavender, rose, almond, angelica and orris root.

The packaging is where the brand makes its strongest design statement, and it has been credited to a named studio. Homegrown reported in September 2024 that Terai’s packaging was created by Quick Brown Fox, and described a bottle with a faceted structure inspired by ancient Indian architecture, in homage to the hand-carved pillars of traditional temples. Tatler Asia had made the same point in 2022, describing the bottle’s shape as drawn from carved pillars.

The detail that sets the bottle apart is the stopper. According to Homegrown, Terai’s stoppers are handmade by artisans in Channapatna, the South Indian town known for lacquered wooden toys, using the region’s ivory wood and vegetable dyes, so that each one recalls the toys the town is famous for and, in the site’s words, offers a tactile connection to Indian craft traditions. Tatler Asia likewise described the stopper as resembling a lacquered Channapatna toy.

The label carries the recipe in relief. Globus says the eleven botanicals are represented in an embossed wreath on the label, and Tatler Asia described that wreath as combining the botanicals with vintage Indian rupee coins. Homegrown added that the label’s bold illustrations draw on colonial-era rupee coins, with the botanicals rendered through sculptural embossing and copper foil accents.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all Indian gins or gin-led ranges: Greater Than, Hapusa, Stranger & Sons, Jaisalmer, Samsara, Terai and Short Story. They come from very different kinds of company. Greater Than and Hapusa are both made by Nao Spirits, and Stranger & Sons and the Short Story range both come from Third Eye Distillery, which Outlook Business reported in 2023 was set up in 2018. Samsara comes from Spaceman & Company, the same magazine reported. Jaisalmer belongs to Radico Khaitan, the spirits company headquartered in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, and Terai to Globus Spirits, whose Terai Litchi & Mulberries gin was made at The India Craft Spirits Co. distillery in Behror, Rajasthan, Ambrosia India reported in December 2024.

Goa is the common thread for several of them. Outlook Business reported in October 2023 that the state saw eight to 10 new gin brands launched every year between 2015 and 2023. In the same report, Nao Spirits’ co-founder and CEO Anand Virmani said the company was able to tie up with an existing manufacturer in Goa and build its own unit within that licensed site, and Samsara’s co-founder Riddhi Aggarwal said the brand had found a distillery in Goa that suited its plans. For that reason, these guides treat the name on the bottle and the place where the spirit is distilled as two separate questions.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — who founded it and when, who owns it now, where its gin is made and how its labels and bottles present it — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From one India dry gin to a fruit series from the family farms.

The brand travelled early. Tatler Asia reported in March 2022 that Terai India Dry Gin had launched in Singapore, served at several bars and restaurants in the city including 28 Hongkong Street, and that Proof & Company had helped refine the flavour; Swarup told the magazine the aim was a product that did justice to the geography and heritage of India.

In December 2024 Globus extended the range with Terai Litchi & Mulberries, the first release in a series it calls The Bagh Explorations, Ambrosia India reported. The company said the series draws on fruit grown on the Swarup family’s farmland in Jarauda, Uttar Pradesh, and that the new gin was made at the Behror distillery in the same Carl copper pot still using a one-shot London dry method, with litchi and mulberry alongside lavender, rose, almond, tulsi, angelica and orris. It was released first in cities in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Goa, with further launches planned. Swarup called it “a perfect harmony of tradition and innovation that speaks to the spirit of modern India,” and said the gin honoured the family’s roots in distilling and agriculture.

The name needs a little care online. Terai is also a place name used by many unrelated businesses; the gin’s own site is teraigin.com.

For a design guide, Terai shows how a craft gin can borrow its pack from Indian making traditions, pairing a faceted bottle after temple pillars with a hand-turned wooden stopper and an embossed label of coins and botanicals. Compare Jaisalmer, another Indian craft gin, and Greater Than, a fellow Indian gin. For this guide we use copper foil, foothill green and ivory wood with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Terai’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.