So if you ever wondered what brands are the best bartenders in the world favour, look no further.

Every day for the next two weeks we will bring you a new category and to kick us off we have gin. 

We quizzed the class of 2013 on the brands moving through their bars. Overall we polled 100 of the top 250 bars mentioned in The World’s 50 Best Bars 2013 survey.

We asked which are best sellers and which are catching the imaginations of consumers in the trending list. There are many big names and a few new ones, too.

BEST SELLING

Diageo’s Tanqueray and Chivas Bros’ (Pernod Ricard’s) Beefeater have traded places in the best-selling list this year and Bombay Sapphire has hung on to third place.

Watch Bombay’s position next year, when its new distillery at Laverstoke Mill has been visited by more bartenders and journalists. It’s an exciting time for the brand.

It has a home to call its own and it looks beautiful – as it should, being designed by Olympic cauldron designer Thomas Heatherwick.

Plymouth has dropped off both lists, which is a bit weird because it is always mooted as bartenders’ favourite gin. It seems, though, that it is not the gin du jour.

Perhaps there are so many new brands out there it has not stood out this year.

Gordon’s is still on the best selling list, though it has never appeared on the trending list – just goes to show that trends don’t always become best sellers.

Broker’s, Blue Ribbon, Fords, No 3 and Monkey 47 are all newcomers since we changed the formula last year, though Monkey 47 did trend in 2012.

TRENDING

It seems there is no stopping the mighty Hendrick’s as it tops the trending poll, having finished second place last year.

That little brown bottle of cucumbery joy is still igniting the tastebuds of consumers and, though the proliferation of gin brands means their extra botanicals are not so unusual anymore, it is still hugely popular.

Never one to let the grass grow under her feet, Hendrick’s master distiller Lesley Gracie embarked on a journey to find a new unusual botanical.

She came home from Venezuela with Scorpion’s Tail, a plant from the Guayana Highlands that is used to pacify stomach upsets.

Fords was launched in September 2012 and, though parent company The Eighty Six Co is based in New York, the gin is distilled at Thames Distillers in London.

It’s a nine-botanical number and, as well as the usual line up, jasmine flower makes the cut. 

To see how we did it, go to page 2.