According to the “The World’s 50 Best Bars” and their survey on top of the beverage brands including, spirits, liqueurs and mixers they have come across of some pretty neat results. The concept is founded in 2009 and the voting is done by the bar experts from the top 50 bars, bar institutions in the world. The academy of some 100+ Bar Industry professionals have voted on their behalf, from all around the world.
American whiskies and scotch
are in their own categories. With American and scotch excused from this catch-all category, the real competition for Japan came in the form of Irish, Taiwanese, Indian and Scandinavian whiskies.
Tequila market has some expected features and most of the familiar and superbrands are at the top of both best -selling and top trending.
Gin chart has more oddity and certain brands are more apart in best-selling to top trending positions.
To think two years ago Bulleit was barely a global brand. Now look at her fly. What’s even more staggering is that the Diageo whiskey is little more than a recipe – a good recipe, our polled bartenders think, but a recipe. But here, different brands of bourbon do great on certain markets and not so good on others.
A few years ago, super-premium vodka brands were multiplying like duckweed, but Ketel One has found clear water. This is the third year the Dutch brand has held this report’s vodka crown – in 2015 it was one of the top three vodkas sold at nearly half of the 100 bars we polled.
Of all brandies, not that Cognac producers will agree to be placed in this category, top 4 are cognacs. Torres, the only Spanish brandy to make the list, is regularly poured in 12% of the bars polled, which is progress for a brandy that has started to target bartenders. In overall terms cognac is dominated by the Big Four – Hennessy, Martell, Rémy Martin and Courvoisier – but here Pierre Ferrand, not a million-case brand, registers in second, overtaking last year’s runner up, Rémy Martin.
Rum market has it all different. It is obvious that some companies are definitely behind trends and less working to impress the bartenders and the bar community but more focused on sales.
The latest Havana Club- Bacardi bout was won on points rather than knockout blows. In the end, 5% more bars fell into the Havana Club camp than that of Bacardi’s. Either way, only 20% of bars polled didn’t list either Havana Club or Bacardi among their top- three selling rums.
This year the Daiquiri and Mojito were both in the top 10 best-selling classics and while Bacardi might argue its heritage here, if you want to make an authentic Daiquiri the way they do at La Floridita or a Mojito at La Bodeguita, you’re probably best using a brand that’s legal in Cuba.
Diageo, meanwhile, is on a different strategy – Zacapa is for the bars you want to go to, Captain Morgan for bars you don’t. The group has a few other rums, naturally, but in the bars we polled, Zacapa was their smooth operator, talking its way into podium rum position in a third of the 100.
The hurdle for Zacapa is stepping off the back bar on to the rack – partly because its sweeter style is not at home in many classic rum cocktails, andpartly because it is more expensive than much of Bacardi and Havana Club’s products.
And last, bat not the least, my favorite category, the ones that work with the bartenders the most. The ones that are aiming to impress all consumers and connoisseurs trough the expertise of the bartenders.
Quoting some judges as written on drinksint.com:
For the third time in four years, Tanqueray is the object of the world’s best bartenders’ affections – and it’s getting it from all angles. Edmund Weil, owner of London’s Nightjar, says the brand is “simple, elegant and a benchmark for the category”. Nick Kobbernagel Hovind from Lidkoeb in Copenhagen is lovesick. “I couldn’t live without it,” he says.
Head east to Tel Aviv and Ariel Leizgold, second place in World Class 2015 and owner of Bellboy, says the augmented Tanqueray Ten is “classic yet relevant, simple yet complex”.
There is no appropriate segue from global gin brand to handcrafted mezcal. The green bottles of Del Maguey, last year’s Bartenders’ Choice, are still in the good books. Joaquin Simo of Pouring Ribbons in New York thinks that’s because Del Maguey has “integrity, transparency and deliciousness”.
You can find more details regarding other niches of the bev industry on this link:
http://www.drinksint.com/
Bar industry faces and the institutions that have given their vote on this matter could be found on this link:
http://www.worlds50bestbars.com/the-academy/index.php
Neb Lazarevich
19.11.2016. Kazan, Russia.