The IWSR Top 100 has revealed 2019's fastest-growing spirits brands, with collective case volumes up by 11%, compared to total global category growth of 0.8% in 2018.
Those 100 leading brands, across all the major spirits categories, represent 690.5 million nine-litre cases of the world’s total 3.17 billion cases of spirits.
These figures – and more than 1.5 million other points of data – are included in the just-released IWSR Drinks Market Analysis Global Database.
The top-selling brand in the world, which is also the product that added the most cases to its total volume last year, was Korea’s Jinro soju, growing 6.4% to a total of 80.9 million cases. (Interestingly, Jinro sells 47 million more cases than the next-largest brand in the world, Officer’s Choice whisky, which posted 33.8 million cases last year, an increase of 5.6%.)
The majority of brands that top the list of fastest-growing are national or regional products, including soju, baijiu, and Indian whisky.
“Though we saw a decline in beer and wine consumption last year, brands in the spirits category continue to enjoy great consumer loyalty,” said IWSR CEO Mark Meek. “It’s particularly interesting to see the growth of gin brands, the category which experienced the largest gain in global beverage alcohol consumption in 2018.”
The world's top 9 gin brands - ranked by absolute volume growth
- Gordon's Gin
- G.S.M Blue Gin
- San Miguel Gin
- Tanqueray Gin
- Bombay Gin
- Beefeater Gin
- Best Gin
- Old Buck Gin
- Hendrick's Gin
The top global spirits brands
Gordon's Gin was also the top ranking global spirits brand on the IWSR Top 100 for absolute volume growth. The Diageo brand came in at No.13, which was up 27.8% year-on-year, making it the fastest-rising global brand.
Gordon’s Pink Gin recently broken the million-case barrier less than two years since its launch after selling 1.21million nine-litre cases in 2018.
Kathy Parker, Diageo’s senior vice president of portfolio Scotch, Haig Club, premium core gins, Captain Morgan and Latin rum, told Spirits Business: “Pink has been a runaway success. We’ve taken just over a year to get to a million cases where it’s taken other gin brands 20 years. It’s an indication of how massive Pink has been."
Other global highlights in the top 30 were Tito's Vodka at no.14, up 18.6%; then Aperol at No.21, up 22.6%; Jim Beam at No.24, up 9.5%; and Johnnie Walker at no.30, up 3.6%.
Diageo was also the leading drinks company in terms of brand share, with six brands in the top 30.
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