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VODKA
If vodka is edging back into favour among the discerning elite, Ketel One has to be at the forefront of creating this good will.
As a key member of Diageo’s super-premium entourage (street name: Reserve Brands) it has emerged as the best-selling vodka in the world’s best bars.
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.
The vodka house pour at the world’s best bars isn’t the skirmish of more mainstream, volume bars, but vodka remains the fourth largest category, according to polled bars, so this is still big business.
A quarter of bars said Ketel One was their no.1 vodka, ergo their house pour.
Ketel One is also our top trending vodka, which doesn’t bode well for the competition. It is both voluminous and cool in the high-end bar scene.
Grey Goose looks a long way off top spot but there remains a flap in its wings. It took second spot from Absolut in the best-selling list this year and was among the roster of most served vodkas in more than a third of the 100 bars polled.
Absolut was a little less popular but holds some key accounts among the World’s 50 Best Bars, not least American Bar and Little Red Door.
Further down the list we have Stolichnaya, which is up one from fourth and in fifth there is Belevedere, which is one of the top pours at Nightjar.
86 Company’s products are dotted across this report and none more so than Aylesbury Duck, which for a small brand has done well to finish second in our trending list of vodkas, and even better to appear for a second year in the best- seller ranking, in which it finished seventh.
Rapper vodka Cîroc, meanwhile, has made the best-selling list for the first time, moving from a trending brand to one that sells in elite bars in volume.
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The Best Selling list is based on bottles sold while the Top 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 the other lists here: Brandy, Rum, Scotch, Bartenders' Choice.
