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In the world’s best bars the gin category, has become the Battle Royale. A third of the 100 bars polled said gin was their most frequent pour – making it the number one spirit by some way.
Over the history of our polls, each of the big brands has had a couple of years of favour. Back in 2010 Bombay was the best seller, by 2012 it was Beefeater, but for the past three years Tanqueray has conquered category sales.
In 55% of bars polled this year, Tanqueray was one of the three best-selling gins and a third of respondents said it was the house pour.
A good number commented that it is the best gin in the market – no small achievement given that several hundred artisanal gin brands will have launched by the time you have finished this sentence.
For all their ‘handcraftedness’ and buzz-word craftiness, it is the old classic big gin of Charles Tanqueray, now produced in Scotland by the biggest spirit producer in the world, that bartenders want most.
Like Tanqueray, which sells in original recipe and the augmented Tanqueray Ten, Beefeater also covers its premium and super- premium bases with its standard and Beefeater 24 gins.
The Pernod Ricard spirit was a top-three seller in just over a third of bars polled and the house pour in a quarter.
This tells us that while Beefeater might not have as many significant listings as Tanqueray, where you find Beefeater, it is more likely than not the gin bottle in hand.
This is no chance occurrence – the bipolar powers of Diageo and Pernod Ricard draw swords like Highlanders to ensure “there can be only one”.
For Hendrick’s, the opposite is true. It was found to be present in half the bars polled, but our survey shows that in the world’s best bars it rarely competes as a house pour, thus its volumes are lower.
This makes sense – bartenders want a juniper - forward London Dry as their all-round enforcer, and a less conventional deputy.
With Tanqueray topping the best-selling and top trending lists, it is both ubiquitous and cool.
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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: US Whiskey, Vodka, Brandy, Rum, Scotch, Bartenders' Choice.
