You
could flip a coin – each year since we’ve been polling the world’s best bars,
the champion rum has been either Havana Club or Bacardi.
Havana Club fell face up this year, with
27% of polled bars attesting to its selling power. Havana Club is a marketer’s dream and
nightmare – authenticity but half-owned by the Castros. Pernod has taken things slowly, building the
brand in the right way – marketing the city of Havana and all that entails
rather than just flogging rum. Bacardi
was the top seller in 18 of our polled bars. Respondents were about 50%
European and 20% North American – in reverse, we may have seen Bacardi
dominate, such is its status in the US. Still,
Bacardi has successfully diversified its image over recent years and has a
powerful package to offer bars.
At Schumann’s in Munich, you’re more
likely to be served Bacardi 8 than any other rum and at A for Athens, they told
us their “primary deal” is with Bacardi, a “value-for-money choice” with
product quality “above average”. The
American Bar is the Bacardi bar when it comes to most house pours. The brand’s
global cocktail competition, Bacardi Legacy, is second only to Diageo’s World
Class and is an effective recruiting tool for its flagship rum.
Plantation makes its debut in the Best
Selling list this year. In previous Brands Reports it wasn’t the bestselling
rum in any of our bars – now it is top in 15 of our 100. Its owner, Cognac Ferrand, had a good 2014
and it seems its blended island rums and vintages are offering the bar market
something different.
Diplomatico,
a sweeter Spanish style in the mold of Botran and Zacapa, has made a
beeline for bartenders. Spearheaded by its World Tournament bartending
competition, which debuted in 2013, the Venezuelan rum is the best seller of
its category at Edinburgh’s Bramble, 28 Hong Kong Street in Singapore and the
Lui Bar in Melbourne, but its greater feat is shown in the trending chart – 15%
of bars polled said it was the hot rum among punters. Diplomatico,
though, takes second place to Zacapa in the trending list.
Diageo was one of the
first to go ‘super-premium’ with rum – a phrase previously reserved for other
categories – and bartenders have long been convinced. Topping the Trending charts means consumers in
the world’s best bars are too. Read More at http://www.drinksint.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/5079/Brands_Report_2015:_Rum.html
