We’ve been running ­the Brands Report since 2010 – the year after Agile Media launched ­the World’s 50 Best Bars – and, while it has evolved since then, taking in new categories and drawing data from an ever-rotating panel of bars, it still seeks to answer the same question. Which brands do the best bars buy – and why?

The Drinks International Brands Report 2024 has launched, offering the industry insights into the buying habits of the world’s best bars.

The leader now looks to be under challenge from a newcomer that debuted in the list last year.

Driven mainly by the wellbeing trend, non-alcoholic spirits have found favour in bars.

A select band continues to dominate this category, where brand recognition is the all-important factor.

There’s a broad country spread when it comes to the beers stocked in the world’s best bars.

This sector is dominated by three brands, with the main selection overall coming from Italy and France.

There are many styles of sherry, but one classic brand has made itself indispensable to top ’tenders.

This is a category that has seen little change since we began polling it in 2018, and the leader continues to look indomitable.

The importance of liqueurs to cocktails cannot be overstated, but it’s the classic brands that remain at the forefront.

Known mostly thanks to the Caipirinha, cachaça is a huge category but only a handful of brands have forged a name.

It’s a more competitive field than many, even if the winner remains the same as it has for the past eight years.

The annual face-off between Peru and Chile sees a draw for the number of products each country boasts.

Brandy has been separated out from cognac since 2020, and Torres has prevailed in each poll since then.

It’s a familiar-looking line-up at the top of the cognac charts, although there’s been some shift at the lower level.

The top two bestsellers have switched places this year, but the duo continue to monopolise both lists.

Japanese brands take the big plaudits, with Nikka toppling Suntory a year after the reverse happened.

The revival of this category has been much talked about, but the leader is ahead by quite some margin.

It’s a familiar tale in this category, but although the names may be familiar, their order has a new spin.

There’s a return to the top spot after a three-year hiatus, but the brands remain largely unchanged from last year.

This is a category that has spawned many brands in recent years, but remains dominated by Fever-Tree.

The top spirit features in many classic cocktails, so it’s no surprise bartenders choose their pours carefully.

An old-school gin tops this list, which singles out the brands most loved by those behind the stick.

Perhaps one of the smaller categories of the Brands Report, sherry is significant nonetheless. More than three-quarters of venues we polled stock sherry behind their bar. And most of those that do have two brands, while more than half will have three or more.

High-end bars rarely allocate bar-top space to draught systems, meaning the bestselling list is a battle of the bottles.

Barsol reigns supreme in the pisco category. The Peruvian brand took a whopping 31% of the first-choice votes and 23% of the top-three pours in the World’s Best Bars.

No brand has had a more dominant performance over the 13 years of the Brands Report than that of Hennessy.

Suntory has ended Nikka’s six-year reign as the most popular world whisky in the Brands Report.

Diageo’s Bulleit just about retained its position as the bestselling American whiskey in the World’s Best Bars.

It seems loyalty remains strong within the scotch whisky sector given the same 10 brands make up the bestselling list in 2022 as the previous year, albeit in a different order.

Probably of all the leagues in the Annual Brands Report, a place in the Bartenders’ Choice list is the most sought-after among brands.

Brands Report editor Hamish Smith explains the methodolgy behind the report's polling system.

Fever-Tree has been named the number one tonic brand for the seventh year running and after a flurry of arrivals in recent years, the category is looking a little more settled. It’s always been the one mixer a bar can’t do without and in 2020, true to type, every bar polled stocked tonic water.

If the other lists in this report speak of the bestselling and the trending brands in the world of elite bars, this ranking is different. Here we ask about bartenders’ favourite spirits.

The rise in non-alcoholic alternatives has led to the sector’s inaugural list in the Brands Report 2021, with Diageo’s Seedlip sitting pretty in the rankings.

In branding, marketing and ownership, champagne is the spirit category of wine. Not coincidently, it’s also the wine style you’ll see most in cocktail bars – somehow a glass of good sparkles fits the environs perfectly. Then you have classic cocktails which call for its use.

Given the nature of high-end cocktail bars the Brands Report lends itself more to lager and lighter styles of beer over stouts and real ale, with Diageo’s Guinness proving the exception to the rule.

Vermouth is the fortified wine of choice in the cocktail bar. We say choice, but when so many classics demand it (think Negroni, Dry Martini, Manhattan) there’s little choice about it – 100% of our sample stocked two lines of vermouth; 98% stocked three or more.

Sherry, while a category in historical volume decline, has a fresher demeanour behind the bar. Here sherry is among friends – friends who cannot get enough of fortified wines.

Right across the world Angostura Bitters plays a key role in cocktail menus and classics such as the Old Fashioned and Pisco Sour, and in 84% of the industry’s top bars it was the number one choice.

It’s six of the best for Campari, which continues to rise above competition in our liqueurs league. Of course, its symbiotic relationship with the Negroni is a big contributor to sales – once again the Italian classic is the second most popular classic in our sample.

Cachaça is a category seemingly always on the verge but never really catching on. That said, it has presence in top bars.

Mezcal’s journey from exotic curiosity to established category in the world’s best bars is nearing completion. Ninety-seven per cent of our polled bars said they stocked at least one mezcal. Three quarters had two brands and two thirds said they stocked three lines or more.

Diageo’s Don Julio has topped the bestselling tequila list for the sixth year in a row. The brand accounted for 15% of our bars’ first-choice tequilas and 18% of the top-three pours in the world’s best venues.

Brandy is a global category, with styles emanating from all parts of the world – all parts that grow vines that is. Cognac has been ring-fenced for its own list, enabling us to properly focus on the brandies that have risen to prominence outside of the French region’s glare.

Once again LVMH giant Hennessy has topped our list of the bestselling cognac brands for 2021.

Vodka is the fourth most used spirit in the bars we poll. These days, bartenders want vodkas that can stand up to bold flavours (think the Espresso Martini) and against a wider trend towards flavour, the days of insipid neutral spirits are behind us.

The world whiskies category is a mixed bag from all corners of the Earth, excluding the historical categories of scotch, American and Irish whiskey.

It says something of Irish whiskey’s progress over recent years that 92% of respondents to our survey stock the category of spirits in their bar – that just wouldn’t have been the case 10 years ago.

Scotch leader Johnnie Walker made it 11 wins from 12 this year, with another dominant display. No matter where you are among the world’s top bars, this is the scotch you’re most likely to see behind the stick, according to our poll.