The family belongs to the Gaud Saraswat Brahmin community of Madhva tradition[1] based in Mangalore and hails from the town of Bantwal.

When he was around 12 years of age, his father's wealth and position as an army officer made it possible for young Vittal to be enrolled into The Doon School.

After his graduation, he traveled abroad for over two years in a sort of grand tour which was undertaken for two reasons: firstly, his father, who had studied in England and was something of an Anglophile, wanted him to have some exposure to Europe and the wider world outside India; secondly, Vittal wanted to see Europe and gain first-hand practical knowledge that he believed to be a lot more valuable than formal education.

When Herbertsons was pocketed two decades later, Mallya also bagged its Dipy's division, giving him a virtual stranglehold on a series of processed food products.

In 1977, when an official prohibition drive sent the breweries and distilleries into a tailspin, Mallya showed his foresight by buying up or gaining control through management contracts of yet more breweries (Premier, Jupiter, Punjab and Indo-Lowenbrau) and distilleries in Udaipur, Alwar, Mirganj, Serampore and also set up a plant in Pondicherry, as others sold out in the face of a market slump.

Two other important acquisitions include Hindustan Polymers (taken from the Shriram Group) and Mysore Electro-Chemical Works (makers of MEC batteries).

Business rivals charged him with reveling in the unethical practices of the liquor industry,[4] and maximizing profits by making whisky from molasses instead of malted barley—the former process allegedly costing only 5 per cent of the latter, but with the resultant spirit being far more harmful to health.

Vittal Mallya was a man of frugal habits who believed in thrift and understatement, values which he tried to inculcate in the young Vijay.