Every nation has its own branded alcohol. But some drinks are so peculiar that they remain local exotics, while others, on the contrary, have gained worldwide fame. Some produce and consume in huge quantities, overtaking famous alcohol brands, but at the same time, are in demand only in their homeland. The British industry publication Drinks International conducted an annual study of the statistics of world sales of alcoholic beverages to identify the most popular of them. Let’s see what came out of it.
The most popular alcohol
In alcoholic beverages, strong alcohol is the leader – it is chosen by 46% of the world’s population. Another 30% prefer beer. Wine drinkers took the honourable third place – 24% of the volumes sold / drunk. In the top ten alcoholic beverages, the sites were distributed as follows.
1. Whiskey
By sales volume (231.9 million standard boxes per 9 litres), its share is 30.3%. The leadership of whiskey is undeniable since it beat its closest competitors by almost a two-fold margin. More than half (63%) of this type of alcohol is produced in India, followed by Scotland (22%), the USA (9.3%), Canada (3.3%), Ireland (2%), and Japan (1.4%).
2. Vodka
Alcohol, which we used to consider our national treasure, ranks second in the ranking with sales of 126.3 million cases. The best–selling brands are Smirnoff, Absolut, Khortytsa, Khlibniy Dar, and Pyat Ozer. Unfortunately, although they have domestic names, they belong to the most significant international concerns with British, French, and American capital.
3. Soju
Soju, a popular Korean vodka, is sold in colossal volumes at home – 99.4 million cases a year, although a solid sweet drink is almost unknown outside Korea.
4. Rum
75.2 million cases of alcohol obtained from sugar cane processing products are consumed annually worldwide. The lion’s share of rum is supplied to the market by such famous brands as Bacardi, Tanduay, Captain Morgan, and Gavana Club. The biggest fans of this drink live in the Caribbean, the Philippines and India.
5. Brandy/cognac
Brandy closes the top five, paired with his older brother’s cognac. With 62.7 million cases, it lags behind rum by only 1.5%. This drink is more focused on the European consumer, but oddly enough, the world’s best-selling Emperador brand belongs to a Filipino manufacturer. Annually, it supplies 33 million cases of strong grape spirits to the market (more than half of the annual volume!), outstripping the sales of such a world-famous brand as Hennessy by six times.
6. Cachaca
Brazilians love their national drink made of sugar cane juice so much that they consistently provide it with a place in the top ten of the rating. They produce 44.4 million cases of porridge annually, supplying it to Latin American markets.
8. Gin
Sales volumes of 33.3 million boxes brought the strong juniper drink, so popular in the UK, to the eighth line of the rating. But Gene has a lot of fans in other countries of the world. So, the best-selling brand of this type of alcohol Ginebra San Miguel belongs to the same Filipinos who supply the drink to the Asian market.
9. Baijiu
The same can be said about Chinese baijiu vodka based on grain distillates. The high sales figures of 20.9 million boxes speak not so much about its worldwide popularity but its demand in China and among the numerous Chinese diaspora.
10. Tequila
Tequila closes the top ten of the most popular spirits with sales of 5.9 million cases.