Lahae Lahae: Listening to the Spirit of Assam

Think of Assam and the first images that rise are almost instinctive—green hills softened by mist, the rhythm of traditional dances, woven costumes bright with history, food that carries warmth and memory. Somewhere in that sensory map sits chaang, the local rice beer, quietly fermented and passed around without ceremony. Alcohol here has never been an indulgence alone; it has always been part of everyday life, ritual, and community.

It was with these thoughts in mind that I found myself listening, watching, and absorbing the stories around Radiant Manufacturers, a family-run distillery that feels less like a factory and more like a continuation of the land it stands on. Their origins lie in Khatkhati, a border town in Assam just a few kilometres from Nagaland, a place where languages blend, cultures overlap, and identities refuse to be boxed neatly. It’s a fitting birthplace for a brand that doesn’t try to shout its presence but lets its work speak slowly, lahae lahae, as they say here.

The North-East often describes itself as the land of the Blue Hills and the Red River. Look at the hills from a distance and the mist gives them a blue hue; watch the river at sunset and it turns a deep, burning red. This landscape shapes people as much as it shapes produce. It also explains why alcohol—mostly rice-based brews like apong, majuli, and other local fermentations—has always been woven into tribal life across Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram, Sikkim, and beyond. In that sense, Radiant’s existence feels less like a modern business decision and more like a natural progression of an older tradition.

The journey began decades ago with Dani Chand, whose vision eventually took form as Radiant Manufacturers in the early 2000s. His son, Vicky Chand, now carries that dream forward, not by distancing it from its roots, but by anchoring it firmly in them. What struck me during my visit was how often pride surfaced—not pride in expansion or numbers, but pride in being made in Assam, in the North-East, and saying it without qualification.

I couldn’t visit the main distillery in Khatkhati, but walking into their bottling plant near Guwahati offered its own quiet revelations. Barrels lay lined up, each marked carefully with cask series, distillation dates, and notes that spoke of patience rather than haste. For many of us, homegrown whisky once carried the baggage of compromise. Yet the connoisseur accompanying me sipped thoughtfully and smiled, remarking that the quality held its own against international names. There was no defensiveness in the room, no need to prove anything.

What made the moment more heartening was noticing who was doing the work. At the bottling facility, women formed the majority of the workforce, overseeing everything from filling to sealing bottles. The process was meticulous, almost meditative, and it quietly challenged assumptions about both gender roles and craft industries in the region.

Radiant’s spirits are often spoken about—Dark Knight with its bamboo charcoal filtration, Infamous with its layered character—but what stayed with me was not the tasting notes or the technicalities. It was the stories shared casually over nosing glasses, the laughter about names like Infamous Rebel, the acknowledgment that rebellion is part of the North-East’s DNA. Infamous, I was told by none other than the Radiant director Vicky Chand himself, is as much about the region’s misunderstood identity as it is about what’s inside the bottle. Rebel, renegade, rogue—these aren’t just variants waiting in line; they are reflections of a place that has long resisted being simplified.

Even without drinking, simply inhaling the aromas told its own story—sweetness, smoke, hints of fruit and wood. It reminded me that tasting doesn’t always require consumption; sometimes, observation is enough. Radiant’s range extends beyond whisky to rum, gin, and wines, each shaped by the same philosophy: slow craft, local sourcing, and an unhurried respect for process.

In a country where the North-East is often spoken about more than it is listened to, Radiant feels like a conversation rather than a statement. It doesn’t try to redefine Assam; it lets Assam speak through it. And perhaps that’s why the experience lingered long after I stepped out—because it wasn’t about alcohol at all. It was about land, memory, labour, and the quiet confidence of a region finding its voice, one bottle at a time as they so clichedly say!