Given that the sparkling quinine-flavoured water is a staple in most mixer brands’ rosters, the bestselling list isn’t too much of a departure from the tonic tables of old.
For the eighth year, Fever-Tree takes the top spot and by some distance. The London-based premium brand launched in 2004 and paved the way for a sea of premium mixer brands that have launched since. This year, it’s the go-to brand in a third of the polled bars and a top-three serve in two thirds.
If the top spot goes to the archetypal modern mixer brand, second place is reserved for a classic. Schweppes is credited with having sold the world’s first bottled so drink in 1783, and 238 years later the brand is still going strong. A top-selling mixer in 13% of polled bars and a top-three choice in a third.
Since we began polling on tonic water eight years ago, Fever-Tree and Schweppes have always held the first and second place respectively, but in third is a newcomer to the list.
Soft drink titan CocaCola has flirted with the high-end on-trade in recent years. In 2019, the brand launched a line of CocaCola signature mixers designed for mixing with alcohol, in collaboration with industry figures Max Venning, Antonio Naranjo, Adriana Chía, Pippa Guy and Alex Lawrence.
London Essence, a brand with a rm on-trade focus, takes fourth and Three Cents, which was founded in 2014 by Greek bartenders George Bagos, Dimitris Dafopoulos and George Tsirikos, rounds out the top five.
Fentimans drops one place to sixth – 16% said it was one of their top three. German brand Thomas Henry and East Imperial were both top-three mixers in a 10th of bars, while Britvic and Canada Dry complete the list.
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.
