Hamish Smith zooms out to the categories that sell best in the UK's Best Bars.
Before we get under the bonnet of the bar and jingle-jangle our way through the categories, we thought it germane to step back and provide a little wider context. Which spirits do bars sell most of anyway?
We asked bars exactly that and found that in terms of volumes, there are divisions within the division. The numbers suggest there are the top seven spirits, then the rest. And arguably there’s a jump down from the top five too. But there is one clear winner.
Gin may indeed have passed its peak, but it’s standing on a different mountain range to the rest of them. Here in the world of cocktail bars, it has strong foundations. Six of the top-30 classics in the channel are gin cocktails – including two of the top five: the Negroni and Dry Martini. In the spirit-and-mixer world, the Gin & Tonic is a huge asset.
In terms of signature cocktails, the thinking endures that gin is also the most mixable of the spirits – it is both light and flavourful. And those flavours, well they go from the classically juniper forward to the wildly not, so there’s something for all tastes. There’s also little education needed – consumers have long been converted, hence the plethora of brands to have launched in the last decade or so.
All that adds up to a third of mixed drinks containing gin. And get this: three quarters of bars said gin is among their top three spirits. The stills in Kennington, Cameron Bridge and Laverstoke Mill are certainly kept busy.
That an agave spirit from Jalisco in Mexico is the second-bestselling spirit in the UK’s best bars is quite a thing. The traditions of drinking in this country are gin, scotch, brandy, a little rum here and there. But tequila? It’s been a fast transition from gringo to amigo. Our bartending forefathers have a lot to do with that – Tomas Estes, Henry Besant, Dre Masso et al who showed bartenders that there was more to the category than mass-produced mixto.
Of course, the US-popularised Margarita has had a large say too. It’s the bestselling cocktail in the UK’s best bars, according to our poll – and by a distance. The Paloma is also the long drink of the moment, figuring in eighth in our classic cocktail league. Add in a lot of tequila shots on both sides of the bar and you have a quarter of venues saying tequila is their bestseller and two thirds putting it among their top three.
Meanwhile, the vodka-bartender relationship is warming, with an appreciation for subtler points of difference between styles and producers emerging. Not that that matters too much in the Espresso Martini – the most popular vodka classic and the fourth overall – but there is definitely wider appreciation for the source starch and what that means for the end result. This plays in the ingredient led cocktails movement, where mixed drinks are less about their base spirit and more about the dominant flavour. We live in a world where cocktails are not only called Whiskey Sour, but Carrot or Tomato. 17% said vodka is their bestselling spirit, while 53% said it was among their top three.
It feels like rum is one of the in-crowd, but according to our poll its sales aren’t quite as big as its talk. It was the bestseller in 8% of bars and more likely to be among the supporting ranks. A third said it was among the top three, no doubt by sales of its bevy of classics: The Daiquiri, Piña Colada, Dark ’n Stormy, Zombie, Mai Tai and Mojito, all of which feature in the top 30.
American whiskey would have been challenging at the top 10 years ago in the pomp of stirred-down-and-brown. And while strong drinks aren’t as big as they once were, the category has many calling cards. The Old Fashioned remains an indelible fixture – and has been given a new lease of life through the New Fashioned style – finishing number two in our poll. The rankings of the Whiskey Sour (23rd), Sazerac (26th) and Manhattan (28th) show what happens when classics aren’t revisited, spun and reinvigorated. Only 4% said American whiskey was their number one, but just under a third made it among their top three.
Top of the bottom half of our league is mezcal, which seems to be repeating the trick of tequila from 20 years before. It’s a category of new and newish brands, each trying to make its mark. 4% said mezcal was their top seller, while a further 10% said it was either their second or third most used. Not bad for a category that barely existed in the UK 15 years ago.
For a grand – not to mention domestic – category, scotch cuts a modest figure in the UK’s best bars. Traditionally, bartenders haven’t thought of it as a go-to mixing spirit and the distillers in Scotland have historically agreed. Any bridges between these two positions in recent years have been too weak and too few – only 4% said it was their top seller, while it was less likely to be among the three top sellers in a bar than mezcal.
While rum from Japan to the Caribbean is considered rum, the larger whisky-producing nations around the world suffer, statistically, from division. Together whisk(e)y would be fourth in this list. Apart and you have Japanese and Irish in eighth and ninth, exposing their infrequent use.
Brandy has no such excuse. Its failure to invest in the UK trade over the past two decades has left it languishing as the 10th bestselling category in the country’s best bars. Cognac – the category’s flagship sub-category – seems to be showing signs of life of late and new entries from the wider brandy category promise momentum. We shall see what comes of it this time next year.
Download the full Class Report here.