IWSR Top 50 International Spirits Brands

[silverfish]

Diageo-owned Smirnoff vodka remains the biggest-selling international
spirits brand, with a lead of over 5 million nine-litre cases on its nearest
rival, Bacardi. That’s according to the latest figures (for 2010) from The
IWSR.

The top three international brands remain unchanged on last year, with
Bacardi in second and Johnnie Walker in third position, growing over 1.2
million cases in 2010 – the largest volume growth of any brand in the top
50. Diageo owns four of the top 10 international brands.

Of the 17 Whisk(e)ys on the list, Jim Beam looks to be the only Bourbon
included (unless you wanna count JD). View the list here.

[wadewood]

5 of top 10 brands are vodkas, including 3 vodkas I have never heard of.

[wadewood]

OK, I went and looked up one of the vodkas I had not heard of wondering why it was not sold in the US:

From the Khlibniy Dar vodka website, they have some suggestions for food pairings:

"Recommended meals:
It is better to combine it with jellied veal tongue under a horse-radish and mustard."

[p_elliott]

When they quot number of cases for like Johnie Walkers or Jim Beam is that just Johnie Walker Red or all Johnie Walker brands same for Jim Beam Is that just White label or is that the whole out put?

[cowdery]

When they quot number of cases for like Johnie Walkers or Jim Beam is that just Johnie Walker Red or all Johnie Walker brands same for Jim Beam Is that just White label or is that the whole out put?

I'm pretty sure it's the whole range but in most cases the base product in the range (i.e., Johnnie Red, Jack no. 7, Jim white) is most of the volume.

There is something screwy about these numbers, though, because I know in some other measures Jack beats Johnnie. Still, always interesting.

[StraightNoChaser]

When I was at the JD distillery they claimed to have taken the #1 whiskey in the world by volume over Johnnie Walker

[cowdery]

When I was at the JD distillery they claimed to have taken the #1 whiskey in the world by volume over Johnnie Walker

Exactly, and that has been widely reported too.

Since most of these sales are not formally reported, all of these rankings and reports are essentially estimates based on various formulas.

[OscarV]

You would think that it would be easy to look up the exact sales of spirits.
Because of tax collection every drop is counted.

[cowdery]

You would think that it would be easy to look up the exact sales of spirits.
Because of tax collection every drop is counted.

The Federal Excise Tax and many state and local taxes are based on proof, not price, so brands aren't relevant. However, many control states do record and report sales by shelf keeping unit, i.e., brand and size. I'm not exactly sure why, but the public companies such as Beam, Brown-Forman, and Diageo report their sales, but the private ones such as Heaven Hill and Buffalo Trace don't have to and don't.

So the numbers have value and these sales tracking services pay distributors and retailers for them. They don't get 100% reporting, of course, so they use formulas to project the totals. If you have sales records from Binny's, for example, it's pretty easy to project for all of Chicago just knowing Binny's overall share of market. That's also why two services will have different numbers, because the assumptions in the formulas will vary. Obviously, worldwide numbers are even harder to get. The producers pay big bucks for those reports. Occasionally, 'top box' figures are released by the services to promote themselves.

[timd]

While a recent posting, the list is based on 2009-2010 data, so if the JD growth is in the last year (vs. JW), it wouldn't be on this chart...