Bartenders like gin. Even more, they like Tanquery 10, which sits squarely at the top of our bartenders’ favourite brands list, with Bombay Sapphire one down in second.
Third favourite of our polled mixers and shakers is the handcrafted tequila Tapatio, which is made alongside Tomas Estes’ Ocho at La Alteña distillery in the mountainous region of Jalisco – an area famed for blue agave. This is tequila for savouring, not shooting.
It’s worth pointing out that. among the mixing fraternity, gin is in top spot, followed by rum, whisky, tequila, and cognac in the list of favourite categories.
As these are the people who buy the stock, we can expect those categories to do nicely next year.
Vodka sits down in eighth position, with fewer than a quarter of the votes achieved by gin – though its producers should fear not. The trade may have your product down as a sterile anathema, but consumers are still very much in love with you.
If there are vodkas that excite those pouring them, they are Ketel One and Grey Goose, which, along with Belvedere, you’ll find in most high-end bars, particularly the ones polled, it seems. All three brands seemed popular in 2012, with all three appearing on the trending list.
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
