New Delhi: As celebrity-owned liquor brands crowd India’s premium shelves, Rana Daggubati is positioning himself as an outlier. With Loca Loka, a tequila brand priced at around Rs 5,000 a bottle, the actor-producer insists this is not a licensing play or a vanity launch, but his first hands-on foray as a co-founder.
“It is the first time I have stepped in as a true co-founder,” Daggubati, 41, told ThePrint. He entered the Indian alcohol market in November with the launch of Loca Loka, joining a growing roster of celebrity-owned premium liquor labels, including Aryan Khan’s D’YAVOL, Ranveer Singh’s Rangeela, and Yuvraj Singh’s FINO, among others. Tequila, still a niche category in India, has begun to find a wider audience among urban drinkers.
“This wasn’t about attaching my name to a label. It was about building something with cultural depth, global relevance, and long-term brand equity,” he said. The name reflects this concept: ‘Loca’ comes from Spanish for ‘crazy’, while ‘Loka’ draws from Sanskrit, meaning ‘world’.
Agave, a key ingredient in tequila and mezcal, was introduced by the British for railway fencing before making its way into a booming locally crafted spirit scene. Loca Loka, which is made in Mexico, has a cooked agave base with earthy, floral, and spicy notes. The brand positions itself as additive-free, with two variants: the Blanco is crisp, with citrus and pepper, while the Reposado adds oak, vanilla, and caramel through barrel ageing.
For Loca Loka, Daggubati teamed up with music director Anirudh Ravichander, who has composed the scores for Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan and the Rajinikanth-starrer Jailer, and entrepreneur Harsha Vadlamudi.
“Harsha and I have shared a long working relationship, and when this idea came up, he did what serious entrepreneurs do and pressure-tested it,” Daggubati said. “He went back, studied the category, mapped the opportunity, and came back with a plan backed by data, distribution logic, and a clear growth roadmap.”
The brand debuted in the US last year, expanded next into Southeast Asian markets like Singapore, and then the team brought it home to India last month. Loca Loka is available in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, as well as select airport duty-free stores.
What convinced Daggubati wasn’t just the product or the numbers, it was the ambition.
“He (Harsha) wasn’t selling tequila; he was laying out an ecosystem, a worldview, a brand that could travel,” the actor added.
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‘This is still chapter one’
With Loca Loka, Daggubati’s objective is not to be the loudest brand in the room, the focus instead is on craftsmanship, cultural authenticity, and creating a tequila that feels global yet relatable.
“I wanted Loca Loka to feel lived-in, not manufactured. Aspirational, but grounded,” he said.
For him, venturing into the alco-beverage space was about building something that reflects how people are drinking today.
“More thoughtfully, more socially, and with an appreciation for where a spirit comes from,” he says, adding that Loca Loka will compete by being deliberate, not disruptive for the sake of it.
“That’s how we believe we’ll stand out in a crowded market by staying true to quality, story, and experience,” the Baahubali star added.
Loca Loka has already won awards in major spirits competitions, including Gold and Silver medals at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and the WSWA Competition, where its Blanco and Reposado were judged in blind tastings. At airport duty-free stores in India, the two variants are priced between Rs 4,950 and Rs 5,050.
“Honestly, this is still chapter one,” Daggubati said.
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Why tequila?
When asked why he zeroed in on tequila, Daggubati points to timing.
Globally, he notes, tequila is among the fastest-growing premium spirits categories, with agave-based spirits consistently outpacing overall growth in the alcohol market.
He backs this up with numbers, adding that in India alone, the tequila segment is expected to “cross $1.6 billion by the early 2030s.”
According to him, this surge is being fuelled by premiumisation, a booming cocktail culture, and a younger, more adventurous consumer base.
For Loca Loka, Daggubati says the advantage rests on three pillars. The first being the product itself.
“It’s a 100% agave tequila that holds up in blind tastings and earns credibility with bartenders and trade,” he said.
The second is a strong cultural lens. The idea, he explained, is not to position tequila as a trend, but as a lifestyle category which has the flair of Indian creativity that Indian consumers instinctively connect with.
Third, Daggubati said, is disciplined distribution. He claims that the brand is entering through the right cities, the right on-trade partners, and duty-free channels that build aspiration before scale.
Daggubati, a seasoned investor, argued that crowded markets reward a lasting impression over noise.
“Loca Loka is built to do exactly that, through quality, context, and consistency over time,” he said.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)