Maker of India’s favourite rum ‘Old Monk’, Brigadier Kapil Mohan, and the man behind the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, General Reginald Dyer, have more than their military background in common.

According to Mohan Meakin’s official website, the company dates back to the establishment of a Brewery at Kasauli by Edward Dyer in 1855.

“He was India’s brewing pioneer who brought to this sun-drenched land of ours the bliss of a real thirst quencher – the modern beer, to refresh and pep up a people hanging over in sweltering clime that is so peculiar to this part of the World,” the website reads. 

Edward collaborated with Meakin & Co under the moniker Dyer Meakin & Co Ltd.

Meakin added more breweries at Ranikhet, Dalhousie, Chakrata, Darjeeling, Kirkee and Nuwara Eliya (Sri Lanka). Following the first World War, the Meakin and Dyer breweries merged, restructured and made into a public company on the London Stock Exchange. Furthermore, after independence, Narendra Nath Mohan, the patriarch of the Mohan family, travelled to London and acquired a majority stake in Dyer Meakin Breweries. Hence, the name, Mohan Meakin Breweries.

According to the website, “The Company’s name was changed from Dyer Meakin Breweries Ltd to Mohan Meakin Breweries Ltd., w.e.f. 1.11.1966 and from 24.4.1980 the name was further changed to Mohan Meakin Ltd., and as such the Company is now known as Mohan Meakin Limited.”

“The year 1949 saw a dynamic transformation in the fortunes of the Company, with late Padamshree N.N. Mohan at the helm of affairs” the website adds. 

“We do not advertise. I will not, and as long as I am in this chair, we will not (advertise),” Mohan had said in an interview in 2012 about Old Monk. “The best way of my advertising is the product: When it comes to you and you taste it, you look at the difference and ask what is it. That is the best advertisement.”