In fact, it is the only brand to have topped its table in every year we’ve polled. The Moët Hennessy/Diageo cognac offers the spectrum of styles and price points – so much so, it’s responsible for around 40% of all cognac sales globally. Indeed, given its total domination of sales, you might say that its stranglehold is a little looser in the high-end bar trade. Here, 29% say it’s the house pour, while two-thirds put it on the top-three roster. Hennessy is the top trending cognac too, which makes us think it will stretch its clean sweep of the bestselling list next year.
Rémy Martin is certainly the best of the rest. The Rémy-Cointreau-owned cognac, which is made with only Grand and Petit Champagne Cru grapes, is pulling ahead of the pack, with 15% of respondents saying it was their top brand and 58% making it among their top-three cognacs.
Ferrand Cognac, in third, goes a er the house pour hard. It was on the rail in an impressive 18% of bars, but if not the house, it was less likely to be on the back bar – it was a top-three presence in less than a third. But if third is a slight drop for the Maison Ferrand brand, its incursion in the traditional top four of cognac now has a permanent feel.
In fourth we find Beam Suntory’s Courvoisier which was the choice in 10% and in the cast of bestselling cognacs in a quarter. It edged out Martell, which is down one to fifth.
The Pernod Ricard brand was also the number one in 10% of our sample of the world’s best bars, and among the top-three roster in 22%. Meanwhile, Camus and Hine were the most likely to figure outside of the bar industry’s big five cognac brands. Camus, a real innovator in the category, was among the three most served cognacs in 10% of bars polled, just ahead of Hine, which leads with H by Hine in this sector. According to our survey, Merlet, Bourgoin and Frapin were each among the three most-used in 4-5% of our sample of the world’s best bars.
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.
