Today in The Class Report, we look at the rum brands most likely to feature in the UK's best bars.
As a category, rum has all the ingredients to explode – it has delicious products with a rich history and a tapestry of styles, prices to suit all wallets and the back catalogue of well-known cocktails in support – yet its fuse has proven long.
Our data suggests rum is still the nearly man of spirits, currently the fifth-largest category in the UK’s best bars, accounting for about a 10% share of volumes.
For context, gin and tequila are almost twice as likely to make it into your glass. Bacardi, it won’t surprise you, has the biggest slice of the pie, mostly thanks to its Carta Blanca expression. It’s not every bartender’s favourite liquid but as a package that includes an approachable, light spirit suitable for mixing, an iconic brand with consumer recognition and an appealing price backed by an arsenal of incentives, it makes a lot of sense for bars to stock it.
This year, 23% of our sample of the UK’s best bars said it was their bestseller while a further 15% said it was one of their top three. That suggests that, while it’s the top choice for the contract pour – making it into classics and mixer-spirit drinks – it’s also featuring in cocktail listings and/or taking its place on the back bar off the back of its brand recognition.
Once its neck-and-neck adversary, Pernod Ricard’s Havana Club seems to be losing rather than gaining ground on Bacardi in the bar UK’s best bars. According to our poll, Havana Club is the bestselling rum in 12% of bars and among the top three in 25%.
Competing with Bacardi is no doubt expensive for the Cuban brand, which has shifted to a more consumer-led strategy in recent times. It feels like an opportunity missed. A bartender who doesn’t rate Havana Club 3 Year Old is a rare thing indeed – it topped the Bartenders’ Brand Awards’ rum category this year.
Brown-Forman’s Diplomatico – or Diplo to bartenders – doesn’t get too involved in the slug-out for house pour, but up to third, it seems to be dealing in ever bigger volumes. Only 5% said it was their bestseller, but its strength is really in heavier cocktails such as the Rum Old Fashioned, where its rounder, beefier profile is a weapon.
More than a quarter said it was among their top-three rums, which for a very fragmented category is significant.
Campari UK’s Appleton Estate, meanwhile, provides something entirely different to the lighter Cuban styles of Bacardi and Havana Club and the sweeter Diplomatico. Here in Jamaica we’re doing power and funk – and bartenders are converts.
Appleton was slightly more likely to be in the rail (8%) than Diplomatico – and was a popular second choice (10%) but where it wasn’t the preferred style, it didn’t feature.
El Dorado is another bartender favourite, the rich, wooden still-made Demerara has something more than cult appeal and takes its fair share of house pours and cocktail listings – its presence seems to be similarly top heavy to Appleton.
El Dorado was the bestseller in 7% and second best in 7% too. In truth, the mid table of this list documents a handful of brands with similar shares of the market. Planteray, last year’s fourth, is down to sixth and, by our data, is only a hair back from the two brands above it.
While Planteray doesn’t seem to be winning on volumes in the UK’s best bars there is still love for it out there. It tops our Bartenders’ Favourites list, ahead of Barbados’ Foursquare. Bartenders tend to be in one camp or the other.
But back to the bestselling list, where the brands are less likely to compete for the house but are present in the UK’s best bars. Relative newcomer Eminente is a top-three rum in 9% of bars, while eighth-10th are list debutants that share similar trade traction.
St Lucian Chairman’s Reserve is active in the UK trade and best known for its spiced, while Dominican heavyweight Brugal is an established brand. Focused on innovation, Takamaka from the Seychelles offers something different to the category and is certainly one to watch.