Having been named the top seller in 20% of polled venues, the Kentucky straight bourbon is hugely popular with bartenders across the globe, but just one vote separated it from Sazerac’s Buffalo Trace.
In fact, only three votes separated the top three whiskies in the list, with Beam Suntory’s Maker’s Mark completing the podium. The top three whiskies combined accounted for almost half of the house pours in the industry’s most revered bars.
Michter’s remains sturdy in fifth with a solid set of votes in 2021, a result of its cult following among the global bar industry. The Kentucky brand is a big supporter of the trade and, given the popularity of its 10-year-old-plus expressions it’s no wonder Michter’s sits atop the trending list for successive years.
Jack Daniel’s, one of the biggest names in whiskey, sat just one place below Michter’s in terms of ranking in the bestselling list, but significantly below in terms of votes, with around 5% less.
Another heavyweight on the list is Jim Beam, which has made the bestselling ranking this year at number nine and, of the bars serving three or more American whiskies, the million-case brand received 16% of the votes. Hanging on to its spot at the bottom of the list is Heaven Hill’s Rittenhouse and, while the rye whiskey wasn’t the house pour in a single venue, it took an impressive 10% of the second-choice whiskies in our poll – twice that of Bulleit.
Elijah Craig, the super-premium bourbon produced by Heaven Hill, is the biggest absentee from the bestselling list this year, having missed out on the top 10 by only a few votes, but its solid position in the top trending section suggests a comeback in 2023 is on the cards.
Methodology
The results of this report are the culmination of a questionnaire of 106 bars around the world, each cherry-picked to take part based on their performance in global bar awards. We aim to find out not only which brands sell best but also what’s trending. These two data sets give us an insight into the brands that are doing the most volume and the brands that are hot right now.
To read more on the methodology of the Brands Report click here.
