World's 50 Best Bars Brands Report: Digestifs

29 January, 2013
World's 50 Best Bars Brands Report: Digestifs

Last up was aperitifs, now we venture beyond the realm of dinner to the world of digestifs. Here are the favourites of The World's 50 Best Bars on day 13 of the Brands Report. 

There are two general types of after-dinner offers – those that aid digestions, such as bitters, including Fernet Branca and Cynar, and those that replace desserts, such as creamy liquor cocktails. So that explains why liqueurs top the list. 

It’s good to see both port and sherry hanging on, though sad that Madeira is nowhere to be seen. Armagnac – regarded by many as the quiet hero of the brandy world – steps out of the shadows to make an appearance at number 10 in the best-selling after-dinner category. 

On the scotch whisky front, it’s the smoky single malts that get the attention with the Isle of Skye’s Talisker and Islay’s Ardbeg. Interestingly there are no scotch blends here – unlike the rest of this survey. 

How we did it

Since we relaunched the World’s 50 Best Bars, we think we’ve built up a pretty fantastic list of top bars and phenomenal bartenders from all over the world. 

To create an even better global picture, we also polled 100 of the top 200 bars. When I say ‘we’, it was actually an independent research company called Leslie Henry Marketing & Research.

It’s still growing, make no mistake – and we feel really quite excited about it.

So excited in fact, that this year we decided to reinvent the way we conduct the artist formerly known as Hot Bar Brands by polling our very own top 50.

Voices from the team at Leslie Henry could be heard through telephone receivers from Melbourne to Budapest, Edinburgh to Singapore. The team asked the top bars which brands were best-sellers and which were – to borrow from Twitter – trending.

A trending brand might not be doing the same volumes as a best-seller but it’s a brand that customers are increasingly asking for.

We also included a couple of new categories this year – champagne and water – as well as expanding the cocktail questions to include the likes of aperitifs and after-dinner drinks.

The idea is to paint as accurate a picture of what is being consumed in bars around the world as possible.

Respondents – to use the fancy terminology – included bar owners and bartenders from the likes of the best bar in the world, the Artesian, London; PDT, New York; Nightjar, London; Bramble, Edinburgh: Employees Only, New York; Dry Martini, Barcelona; Black Pearl, Melbourne; Asoka, Cape Town; American Bar at the Savoy, London; Tippling Club, Singapore; Palmer & Co, Sydney; Boutiq Bar, Budapest; Chainaya Tea & Cocktails, Russia and Schumann’s Bar, Munich.

Let us know what you think of the survey: lucy.britner@drinksint.com





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