T for tipplers

The Goan genius for producing exotic alcoholic beverages — think feni — has been further enhanced with a US-returned former IIT engineer-cum-filmmaker-turned-master distiller finally cracking the ‘T’ code. Panaji-based entrepreneur Desmond Nazareth’s passion for mixing cocktails led him to question why tequila was manufactured only in Mexico whereas other drinks were produced almost everywhere. When he found that the Agave plant, from which tequila is made, also abounds on the Deccan Plateau, it didn’t take him long to break the monopoly of imported tequilas. “Our Agave spirits are made from a blue-green Agave species that grows on the Deccan Plateau and has been growing in India for well over 100 years and which is closely related to the Mexican blue Agave species,” Nazareth explains. With a micro distillery in Andhra Pradesh and a capacity to manufacture 2,50,000 litres a year, Agave India has now rolled out a tequila. Since tequila mainly goes in the making of Margaritas — and a good orange liqueur is required to make a classic Margarita — Nazareth has unveiled an orange liqueur (made from Nagpur oranges) and Blue Curaçao too. Launched in Goa last month, the products will be introduced elsewhere in due course. Did we hear someone say hic?

Gym ready

There’s one thing to be said about Bollywood Bad Boy Salman Khan — he always takes his female co-stars under his wing. If he was protective and effusive about Sonakshi Sinha in the prelude to the release of his super hit film Dabangg last year, this time he is showering his benevolence on Asin, his opposite number in Ready. Apparently, while shooting for the film, the duo spent a lot of quality time — guess where? — at the gym. We are betting that Salman, the gym rat par excellence, shared a lot of valuable fitness tips with Asin. In fact, she is said to have been so inspired by Khan’s awesome abs and pecs, that she too has become an avid toiler at the gym. “Ready” to become a female Salman, Asin?

White mischief

This one will not endear Kangana Ranaut to Jaya Bachchan. We hear that in the film Double Dhamaal, Ranaut is set to spoof the senior actress’s widowed look in the 70s’ cult film Sholay. In fact, director Indra Kumar has instructed the film’s stylists to dress Kangana in a stark white sari — the stock-in-trade of widows in yesteryear films. “It’s a spoof done in good humour. We are not making fun of Jayaji or Sholay,” Kumar hastens to clarify. “It’s just that all widows were stereotyped in those days.” Of course, Ranaut does not don widow’s weeds throughout the film. Her ‘sad lady in white’ performance is limited to just one scene, and in the rest of the film she plays the role of a smart and sexy secretary. So what prompted this sudden digression into spoofdom? No doubt the film will answer that question. And no doubt Jaya Bachchan will be keen to find out.

Mother nature

Beauty diva Shahnaz Husain has yet another feather in her overcrowded cap. India’s first lady of “natural” cosmetics was awarded the Shield of Honour by Oxford University recently. Husain received the award from the dean of the Saïd Business School in Oxford for her contribution in the field of ayurvedic beauty treatments. Indeed, the West has long been seduced by the range of her beauty products drawn from nature. In fact, her signature emollients are available in swank stores worldwide — from Bloomingdales in New York to Galeries Lafayette in Paris to Harrods in London. And in case you didn’t know it, when Husain is not brewing yet another aid to pulchritude, she may be found giving lectures at the London School of Economics, MIT or Kellogg on her unbeatable business model. Clearly, nothing succeeds like beauty.