You know you're sitting pretty as a category when all the talk is about premiumization and that's where gin finds itself now.
The resurgence in cocktail culture over the past 20 years or so has been good for a lot of white spirits, but gin has really taken the baton and run with it.
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Tastier than vodka, less sweet than white rum and less in-your-face than Tequila, gin has broken out of its previous moribundity and flown on wings of exotic botanicals. Sophisticated enough for the drinks snobs, it forms the basis of drinks that tend to the refreshing and delicious end of the spectrum, avoiding over-sweetness.
The fact that there is no single "correct" recipe has also helped. Once the prescribed juniper element of the recipe was satisfied, distillers could either use local ingredients to give their spirit a sense of "terroir" or make it as exotic as they liked by importing the most far-out flavors to add to their botancial pot-pourri.
Gin's ascension was rapid, with an explosion of gin bars fueling a similar growth in brands. The rise in popularity inevitably sparked a shift towards premiumization, with top-end bottlings becoming both more available and more popular. However, the picture has changed since gin's heyday.
Global headwinds have ensured that no drink category is enjoying plain sailing. A fall-off in consumption, a cost-of-living crisis, increased international trade barriers and now a war that threatens to add seemingly endless cost hikes onto distribution and delivery have all given pause to gin's upward trajectory.
But while gin might have stumbled, it hasn't fallen. Premiumization is the catch-cry again, as consumers opt for the "drink less, drink better" model. Gin is still popular in bars and consumers are willing to pay for the top brands, even if they might not visit as often.
And gin is set to grow. While saturation might be giving consumers in some markets jaded palates, globally gin is still on the up. Forecast growth is strong, with global sales heading for $30 billion by 2030 – up from an estimated $23b today – and premium brands are seeing strong growth.
But the big question is, which gins are people looking to buy? We've looked into our database to bring you the world's 10 most wanted gins.
That's quite a mix of gins. While there are plenty of premium brands on there – and a couple of super-premium offerings – there are also what some might refer to as "everyday" gins, proving that it isn't all about the premiumization for gin drinkers.
Yes, there's a certain element of the rarefied with the Black Forest Distiller's Cut and the Star of Bombay bottlings, but there are also some very much staple brands in there too, like Gordon's, Beefeater and the Ginebra from the Philippines (the world's biggest-selling gin, by the way).
In between, there are familiar brands that began life in the premium category and have, perhaps, become perceived as something less elevated these days by dint of that familiarity. Tanqueray, Bombay Sapphire and Hendrick's all fulfill that role.
There are a couple of new entrants on this year's list. Roku's heavy-duty online advertising has clearly struck a chord with consumers, lifting it into the top 10, while the Star of Bombay has also gained traction in the past decade, despite sounding suspiciously like a slightly run-down curry house in Chiswick I used to frequent about 35 years ago.
Price is an interesting aspect of the list, too. Given gin's often-expensive ingredients, these bottles are surprisingly affordable – and in some cases always have been. Bombay Sapphire's global average retail price (GARP) has remained essentially unchanged for the past 15 years. Tanqueray's GARP shows the same stickability and Roku hasn't shifted its GARP since hitting the market in 2018. Gordon's and Beefeater have also held their price points for 15 years.
For the rest, the prices have risen, some sharply. The Monkey 47 Distiller's Cut has more than doubled since 2011, while the Ginebra has gone up by 75 percent in the same period, as it became more available globally.
Despite all its successes over the past two decades, gin still only accounts for around 5 percent at best of the total spirits market, so there is plenty of room for growth.
While much of that growth will be driven by the premium and super-premium end of the category, you can rest assured that there will still plenty of room for the old favorites, too.
