Hennessy has now spent more than a decade as the most favoured cognac in the world’s best bars and, with 28% of the bars polled declaring it their number one pour, it seems unbeatable. Its dominance is such that in more than 50% of the industry’s top venues Hennessy is one of the top-three choices. Its mega popularity across the US and Asia has kept it behind the world’s best back bars and, as the category’s biggest brand by volume, it has the wealth and in­fluence to maintain its crown.

A successive second place in this year’s poll went to Rémy Martin after it featured in 43% of our bars’ votes. The brand, which is exclusively made from Grand and Petit Champagne Crus, has seen a decline in its overall votes but a 6% rise in the number of bars declaring it their go-to cognac, leaving just four first-choice votes separating the brand from Hennessy.

 The cognac category has its traditional ‘top four’ when it comes to volume, but Pierre Ferrand has been a regular disrupter in the Champions League spots of the bestselling list ahead of Courvoisier, Martell and Rémy Martin. In the 2021 edition of the Brands Report the Maison Ferrand cognac was the number one pour in 14% of the bars polled and features in around 33% of the top-three options.

Meanwhile, Beam Suntory’s Courvoisier, the fourth-biggest player in the category by volume, sits   fifth in our bestselling rankings. While just 12% of our bars say the million case brand is their first or second most popular pour, it was by far the most popular third choice – more than double that of Hennessy. This suggests that while the brand sells well in a third of the world’s best bars, it rarely plays centre stage among elite back bars.

Methodology

The results of this report are the culmination of a questionnaire of 106 bars around the world, each cherry-picked to take part based on their performance in global bar awards. We aim to find out not only which brands sell best but also what’s trending. These two data sets give us an insight into the brands that are doing the most volume and the brands that are hot right now.

To read more on the methodology of the Brands Report click here.