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SCOTCH
Meet Johhnie Walker – it’s kind of a big deal. Even here in the elite bar world, Diageo’s marque scotch walks the walk and talks the talk.
It has done in each of our seven reports on brands in the best bars in the world. At 20m cases sold annually Johnnie Walker is any other group’s portfolio of scotches rolled into one.
But this is the world’s best bars we are talking about. Is Walker really the world’s best whisky? Well, more than 40% of our 100 bars make it one of their top three selling scotches.
It’s worth considering this is a global poll, so while the Brits don’t have a very close affinity with the perambulating blend, those trifling other 195 countries do.
It is the brand people expect to see – and they do, everywhere. A quarter of polled bars said it was their top selling dram.
The sub-story of this list could actually be the page lead. We make Islay malt Laphroaig the second best-selling scotch in the world’s best bars.
It’s quite something that a small single malt can be more popular in any sector than the likes of Chivas Regal and Famous Grouse. Dewar’s and J&B didn’t even make the list.
Monkey Shoulder, in third, has carved a niche as a mixed malt brand and beyond that we have four single malts in the middle order – six in the list in total.
If we count the the trendy malt bottler, Compass Box. Four are peated; five with Compass Box, which has Peat Monster among its expressions.
So while Johnnie Walker seems untouchable, single malts have clearly left the dust of the back bar behind and are getting some long-deserved pouring time.
This speaks not of just bartender preference but consumer recognition.
Indeed, in global markets, where blends were always the default, single malts are making inroads and now make up about 20% of global sales value.
A look into the crystal ball of the trending list shows this swing accelerating – of the 10, one is a blend (no need to say which), one is a mixed malt and the other eight are single malts.
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The Best Selling list is based on bottles sold while the Trending list refers to on-trend brands that are being requested right now but are not necessarily sold in high volumes.
To find out more about how we carried out the survey and collated the results read How We Did It.
Check out yesterday's World's 50 Best Bars Bartenders' Choice.
