Walk into Brick Lane Curry House on Newark Avenue in Jersey City, find the secret door next to the restaurant, and head down a few flights of dimly lit stairs, and you will land somewhere that looks nothing like a typical curry spot. It is House of Amrut, a new tasting room built around Indian single malt whisky, tucked beneath one of downtown Jersey City's longtime Indian restaurants.
The room is built around Amrut, the Indian single malt brand. Jersey City Times and Patch reported on the venue’s opening. The venue describes its collection as the largest assembled in the United States; that claim has not been independently verified.
A Two-Year Passion Project Beneath the Curry House
Brick Lane Curry co-owner Satinder “Sati” Sharma conceived the tasting room, according to Patch. Sharma said he became interested in Amrut in 2012, visited its distillery in 2025, and spent two years developing the collection and concept.
Patch reports that guests can pair Amrut single malts with food from the restaurant upstairs, and that the room offers cocktails and other special beverages as well. Some pours are reportedly available only at the Jersey City location. The opening coincided with Brick Lane Curry House’s fifth anniversary in downtown Jersey City.
A New Release Timed to the Opening
The launch also coincided with Amrut's release of Kranthi Single Malt Whisky, a 40 percent ABV, non-chill filtered expression, according to the Patch account. It is the kind of timing that suggests House of Amrut is meant to be more than a side project — it is positioned as a showcase for a brand still introducing itself to American drinkers.
Amrut itself has deep roots: founded in 1948 in Bangalore, India, the distillery remains family-owned and operated under the leadership of Rakshit N Jagdale, according to The Whiskey Wash. The company is renowned for its Amrut Indian Single Malt, per the distillery's own site, and describes itself as the maker of the first single malt whisky ever produced in India.
Indian Single Malt's Rising Profile
Amrut's history includes a milestone moment in Glasgow, where the brand launched India's first indigenously distilled, matured and bottled single malt whisky on August 24, 2004, as detailed by Forbes India. That same Forbes India report notes Amrut has since collected more than 300 international awards, including five gold medals at the 2024 International Spirits Challenge in London, where its flagship Amrut Fusion also took gold. The Whiskey Wash adds that whisky writer Jim Murray ranked Amrut's flagship single malt the third-best whisky in the world back in 2010.
The category's momentum extends well beyond accolades. Domestic volumes of malt Indian whisky grew at a 32 percent compound annual growth rate between 2019 and 2025, according to Forbes India citing IWSR data, while India's single malt whisky market reached roughly 500,000 nine-litre cases in 2025 alone, per the Economic Times. That outlet reports the Made in India single malt category expanded from an estimated 350,000 cases in 2023 to about 500,000 cases in 2025, with Indian manufacturers accounting for an estimated 92 percent of that domestic category — and homegrown labels like Amrut, Rampur, Indri and Paul John named as the drivers of that growth.
Expanding Footprint in the U.S.
Stateside, the Indian whisky category has seen significant growth in recent years as drinkers look beyond traditional Scotch and bourbon, The Whiskey Wash reports. PM Spirits was named the exclusive U.S. importer of Amrut Distilleries effective May 1, 2026, formalizing a partnership that the outlet says expands the brand's reach across American markets.
Amrut’s U.S. distribution and Newark Avenue’s evolution
Amrut’s American distribution has changed over time. The Spirits Business reported that PM Spirits became the brand’s exclusive U.S. importer effective May 1, taking over from Glass Revolution Imports, which initially introduced Amrut to the U.S. market. The tasting room is also part of a changing Newark Avenue streetscape. According to NJBIZ, Jersey City began a pedestrian-destination pilot on part of the avenue in 2015, expanded it to a second block in 2018, and lengthened the area during COVID. That history describes the corridor, not the tasting room’s operations.
Against that backdrop, House of Amrut connects a Jersey City restaurant with an Indian single malt brand seeking new audiences in the United States. Its opening also comes amid changes to the brand’s American distribution, while the tasting room itself is centered on whisky.
