New Delhi, Sept. 24 -- NEW DELHI - Every day that Old Monk rum stays off Maharashtra's shelves, Mohan Meakin Limited bleeds roughly one crore rupees in lost business. That figure, disclosed by the company's senior counsel to a Bombay High Court bench last month, is a measure of what happens when a spirit that has been on India's shelves for more than six decades runs into the country's 2018 food safety rules and the rules win.

the product is manufactured primarily from neutral, unmatured spirit blended with artificial rum flavouring, not from fermented molasses matured in oak. Under the Food Safety and Standards (Alcoholic Beverages) Regulations, 2018, that composition disqualifies it from the standardised rum category. FSSAI's preferred...