Old Monk has been called to the Principal’s office

Some news you read with a frown. Some news you read with a drink in hand. And then there is the news that makes you put the drink down, stare at the bottle, and say, "Bro, not you too."

FSSAI has hauled up Old Monk.

Yes. That Old Monk. The one with the saint on the label who looks like he has seen all of your bad decisions and forgiven you in advance. The one that has sat on every advertising agency bar cart since the days when "pitch deck" meant actual slides and "working late" meant working late. The one that survived demonetization, GST, and three recessions, only to be summoned now by the food regulator for a chat. Poor guy!

According to reports, the issue is labeling and compliance. FSSAI says some batches did not meet the new norms. Old Monk says it is cooperating. The rest of us are just trying to process the idea that the one constant in Indian advertising is being asked to file paperwork. That’s worse than the CCI probe.

If you have worked in an ad agency in India for more than five minutes, you know what Old Monk means. It is not just rum. It is a mood. It is the 9 pm drink after the client has asked for "one more option" at 8:55 pm. It is the 2 am drink when the campaign finally gets approved and someone says, "Chal, Old Monk?" It is the farewell drink, the joining drink, the "we lost the pitch" drink, and the "we won the pitch" drink. Sometimes all in the same week.

Old Monk never advertised. It never needed to. It had the best media plan in the world, which was called word of mouth in smoky bars in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore. It had ambassadors who were not influencers but Creative Directors with stubble and deadlines. It had distribution that was better than any FMCG brand, because if there was a new agency opening, there was Old Monk on the table on day one.

It was also democratic. The intern could afford it. The Group CEO could drink it. No one judged. In a business built on hierarchies and billings, Old Monk was the great leveler. You could be pitching to a car company in the morning and drinking the same rum with them at night, and nobody found it odd.

So when FSSAI sent the notice, the internet did what the internet does. It panicked, then it memed, then it got philosophical. "If Old Monk is not compliant, what is?" "Will they now ask us to stand for the National Anthem before every peg?" "Is this the end of an era or just the end of a label?"

The truth is probably less dramatic. Regulations change. Labels change. Bottles get new stickers. Companies send documents. This is how adulting works, even for a 150-year-old rum brand that looks like it never had to adult a day in its life.

But let us be honest about why this stings a little. Old Monk is not just a drink for ad folks. It is proof that some things in India are allowed to be imperfect and still be loved. The bottle design has not changed in decades. The marketing budget is presumably zero. The taste is sweet and strong and slightly medicinal, like your Nani’s cough syrup if your Nani was also cool. And yet it outsells brands that spend crores on celebrity endorsements.

In advertising we are taught to chase new. New platform, new insight, new font. Old Monk taught us the opposite. Be consistent. Show up. Don’t talk too much. Let people come to you.

That is why the image of an FSSAI officer pointing at the label feels so cinematic. It is like your strict accounts teacher telling your coolest uncle to sit straight. Technically correct, emotionally confusing.

The good news is Old Monk is not banned. It is not disappearing. The saint is not being retired. He will probably just get a slightly bigger font and a QR code and go back to doing what he does best, which is listening to your problems without interrupting.

And ad folks will do what ad folks do. We will make a campaign out of it. Someone in a Gurgaon agency is right now writing, "FSSAI approved. Still rebellious." Someone in Mumbai is cutting a film where the bottle gets a compliance certificate and then winks. Someone in Bangalore is pitching "Old Monk 2.0: Now with more transparency."

Because that is the other thing about this drink. It survives everything. It survived the move from glass to plastic in some states. It survived price hikes. It survived the great whiskey boom of the 2010s when everyone suddenly became a single malt person. It will survive a labeling notice.

In fact, there is something very Old Monk about this whole episode. You get a notice. You don’t make a fuss. You sort it out. You pour another one. You get back to work.

So here is to Old Monk. May your label be compliant and your taste remain stubborn. May you continue to be the unofficial sponsor of late-night edits and early-morning regrets. May the saint on the bottle keep looking at us with that half-smile that says, "I have seen worse."

FSSAI has questions. Fair. We all have questions at 2 am.

But if the answer involves changing what’s inside the bottle, we might have a problem. Because some things are not meant to be reformulated. Some things are meant to be exactly as you remember them, from your first job, your first pitch, your first time someone said, "Team, drinks are on me."

Old Monk is one of those things.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go check if my bottle at home has the new label. For compliance reasons, of course.

Strictly for research.

For the record Dr. Goyal is a complete teetotaller – but he is a quintessential advertising man of 40 years standing. He is old friends with Old Monk.