Scotch's Biggest Market Isn't Scotland — It's Much Farther East

If you were asked to guess where most of the world's Scotch whisky is consumed, you'd probably assume Scotland itself, or maybe somewhere close like England — and you'd be way off. By volume of Scotch purchased, the top country in the world is India. According to the Scotch Whisky Association, in 2025, 220 million bottles of it were exported to India, and it's a growing market, with that being a 15% increase from the previous year. India has held this spot since 2022, when its import of Scotch jumped by a whopping 60% from the year before, surpassing France, the previous biggest importer (via Scotch Whisky Association).

So why is India bringing in so much Scotch? Some of it is just math: With over 1.4 billion people as of 2025 (per United Nations Population Fund), it's the most populous country in the world. So inevitably, there's a huge number of (potential) whisky drinkers there. However, China, with a population almost the same as India, only imported 34 million bottles in 2025. So, a big population isn't the whole story.

There are also historical and cultural reasons why India loves Scotch: It has historic ties to the home of Scotch as a former British colony. In the mid-1800s, British colonizers even tried to start up a local industry, building a distillery in the Himalayas to supply their troops with the spirit (although technically, you can only legally define whisky as Scotch if it's from Scotland). It didn't initially catch on, until the Raj (the British administration over India) put an official commission together to study it, concluding that the locally-made Scotch was high quality and harmless, allowing Scotch to start to be consumed more broadly.

Initially, Scotch was a drink mostly reserved for British officials and Indian elites, and this gave it an air of exclusivity (although with alcohol often seen as something pushed by British colonizers, it was also perceived as an undesirable symbol of foreign domination over India). That perception of Scotch as an upper-class drink stuck around as Scotch became more accessible to the broader population and the Indian middle class grew. So, its prestigious connotations and relative accessibility likely combined to make a seriously big market for Scotch.

Scotch drinking (and whisky drinking in general) is a bit different in India than how it is enjoyed in Scotland: While in Scotland, you might see it as something to sip neat after a meal, it's more of a beverage for social settings in India. Whisky is also served differently: It's measured in pegs (a colonial-era hangover for measuring liquor) of about 60 milliliters (about two ounces) and often served cold and paired with a good soda or water.

Bear in mind that even with so many bottles imported, India's huge population means that the average Indian isn't drinking that much Scotch per year. In fact, in 2022, the per-capita consumption was about 0.04 bottles of it per person (via Quartz). The biggest Scotch-drinking market was Singapore, where (per capita) 12.76 bottles of scotch were consumed per person — although that may be a bit of a mirage, as the country re-exports some of that Scotch. That said, the country's wealthy population and duty-free imports mean it's nonetheless pretty popular there.