The continued dominance of the Midleton Distillery’s flagship brand sees it named a top-three pour in 79% of the World’s Best Bars. Having shifted nearly 8 million 9-litre cases in 2020, it outsells the second biggest volume brand, Tullamore Dew, more than six times over, and with the extensive marketing and distribution power of Pernod Ricard it’s no wonder the popular whiskey appears in all the major bars around the world.
Bushmills has claimed the runner-up spot in 2022, with around 10% of the polled bars declaring the Northern Irish whiskey its house pour. Midleton’s second-biggest brand, Redbreast, tightly contested Tullamore Dew for the third place and it was the William Grant & Sons brand which narrowly took bronze, with almost 20% claiming it was their second most popular Irish whiskey.
The rest of the bestselling list provides an interesting insight into the growing premium Irish whiskey category. Teeling, which despite falling down the ranks to fifth, remains the second most popular house pour among our list of bars and Diageo’s Roe & Co has climbed a spot to seventh – a sign of big things to come for the Dublin-based brand. Former World’s Best Bar, The Dead Rabbit, launched its namesake whiskey in 2018 under contract with Quintessential Brands and its appearance in this year’s bestselling list suggests the beginning of a cult following among the industry’s elite venues.
Looking to the future, Jameson’s position atop the trending list suggests the Midleton brand will be strong as ever in 2023 with Redbreast establishing itself as a clear second option. A return to form for Teeling next year is also a probability rather than a possibility given its third-place finish in the trending list and a host of interesting products lined up to hit the market.
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.
