Mohan Meakin Limited

Alcohol sits on the State List of the Constitution. Every state sets its own excise duty, its own licensing rules, its own label approvals, its own price caps, its own distribution model. And crucially, most states slap punishing import fees on liquor made in other states, to protect their own excise revenue. Which means the normal FMCG playbook — build one giant efficient plant, ship nationally — simply doesn't work. The annual report says as much: sending goods from one corner of the country to another has become "un-remunerative and economically unviable." So Mohan Meakin does something else. It owns the brands, and then uses three different mechanisms to get those brands into each state. One: make it yourself. The company runs four live plants — Solan Brewery in Himachal (beer plus IMFL bottling), Kasauli Distillery (malt and cane spirit), Bhankarpur in Punjab (bottling), and Mohan Nagar in Ghaziabad (brewery, distillery, and the food business). A fifth, in Lucknow, is shut. Here, Mohan Meakin pays the excise duty itself and books the full sale. FY26: ₹693 crore. Two: let someone else make it, then buy it back. In states where owning a plant doesn't make sense, Mohan Meakin licenses a local bottler to manufacture its brands — and then purchases the finished bottles and sells them onward. The clearest example in the report is Mohan Rocky Spring Water Breweries, which bottles exclusively for Mohan Meakin at Khopoli in Maharashtra, and supplies Maharashtra, Gujarat, and the military canteens (CSD). This is now the single biggest line in the P&L. FY26: ₹1,520 crore, or roughly two-thirds of revenue. Three: don't touch the bottle at all. Just charge rent. Where the bottler sells directly, Mohan Meakin simply collects a royalty per case. The CSD arrangement with MRSB, for instance, pays ₹20 a case. FY26 royalty income: ₹58 crore. And there's a fourth, smaller hook that's easy to miss but tells you everything about how the model holds together. Every bottler is contractually required to buy the proprietary flavouring concentrate from Mohan Meakin itself. That's another ₹21 crore of revenue — but more importantly, it's the reason the recipe never leaves the building. A franchisee can bottle Old Monk. It can't become Old Monk. So: a 171-year-old brand house that increasingly rents out its manufacturing and keeps the intellectual property. FY26 vs FY25: what actually happened At first glance, a shrug. Revenue grew 7%. FY2025-26 FY2024-25 Change Revenue from operations ₹2,302 cr ₹2,151 cr +7.0% EBITDA (pre-exceptional) ₹219 cr ₹149 cr +47% Profit before tax ₹209 cr ₹138 cr +51.4% Profit after tax ₹157 cr ₹103 cr +52.7% EPS ₹184.2 ₹120.6 +52.7% Net worth ₹626 cr ₹470 cr +33% Cash, deposits & investments ₹398 cr ₹229 cr +74%