The brands with Cuban heritage take the rightful place at the top of the Mojito spot.
According to Jim Meehan’s PDT Cocktail Book, the Mojito became popular again in 2002 after Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond ordered one in Die Another Day. And where was he? Cuba of course.
Apparently the Mojito isn’t in the original Fleming novel but it’s good to see that, among all that espionage stuff, Bond still has time to keep up with drinking trends. We wonder what he will be drinking in the next film?
If the list on the next page is anything to go by, it’ll be an Old Fashioned. But if drinks supremo Gaz Regan gets his way, it’ll be a finger-stirred (not shaken) Negroni. We would love to see Gaz in a Bond film.
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
