Britain's Biggest Alcohol Brands 2016: Top 10 craft spirits

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1 - Hendrick’s

Sales: £12.1m +35.7%

If craft is about creativity, or just hitting it off with hip young things with penchants for vintage clothing and beard oil, then Hendrick’s is its epitome. This rose & cucumber gin is closing in on the top 100, up £3.2m, with 350ml ‘Minisculinity’ bottles and a range of porcelain collectables convincing punters it’s worth almost £40 a litre (2.4% more than a year ago). Experiential marketing is helping, with stunts such as the Tweed Run (a bike ride with ‘a bit of style’) striking a chord with the in crowd.

2 - The Kraken

Sales: £7.3m +52.6%

First it established itself in the on-trade, then The Kraken started making waves in the supermarkets. This black spiced rum is showing traditional brands such as Lamb’s or Pusser’s how you sell dark rum to a new generation. Vintage branding (not a million miles away from Hendrick’s) that harks back to the mythical sea creature it takes its name from and an emphasis on cocktail mixing are paying of. The brand has run an extra £2.5m through the tills this past year, fetching £30.15 a litre.

3 - Sipsmith

Sales: £3.8m +38.8%

Sipsmith is a pioneer of the British craft spirits movement, proudly claiming to be the owner of London’s first gin still since the Victorian era. Its branding also harks back to that era with special editions such as London Cup paying homage to the gin punches of old, blending gin with Earl Grey tea, lemon verbena and borage. The brand’s range of white spirits - including London Dry Gin, Sloe Gin and Barley Vodka - are enjoying growing distribution in Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose.

4 - Penderyn

Sales: £3.6m +23.2%

Who says whisky has to be from Scotland? Not the folks at Penderyn, who set up the first Welsh whisky distillery in more than a century in the 1990s, nor the growing numbers of drinkers discovering it in the supermarkets. Selling for an average of £46.10 a litre over the past year, this is the priciest product in our craft ranking. The brand describes its Madeira finish single malt whisky (distilled in a copper pot still) as smooth, light in character and softly golden. But it packs a punch, weighing in at 46% abv.

5 - Woodford Reserve

Sales: £2.5m +39.0%

Brown-Forman’s super-premium bourbon has been quietly gaining space in the supermarkets over the past few years, attracting drinkers with the promise of citrus, cinnamon and cocoa on the palate and a drop dead gorgeous bottle in the drinks cabinet. And for that, punters will pay. The brand fetches an average of £36.26 a litre (Waitrose is currently selling the Double Oaked variant for £50 a bottle). Promotional gift packs at peak whisky sales opportunities such as Father’s Day have helped drive sales.

6 - Wray & Nephew

Sales: £2.5m +5.8%

For the cocktail crowd, only one rum will do in a rum punch: Wray & Nephew Overproof. In fact, this Jamaican institution is almost selling itself, with little promotional or marketing activity to speak of. It is benefiting from the growing trend for at-home cocktail consumption, with retailers such as Tesco listing the product online with punch recipes. Available in 700ml and 200ml formats and selling for an average of £41.69 a litre, Wray & Nephew certainly packs a punch with an abv of 63%. Pow!

7 - Opihr

Sales: £2.4m +145.0%

Another gin with a difference, Opihr is spiced with black pepper, cubeb berries and coriander. Billed as an oriental spiced gin, the brand has gone to great lengths to cement its links with the orient in drinkers’ minds. In 2014 - after winning listings in Tesco, Morrisons and Waitrose - Opihr toured supermarkets across the country in a tuk-tuk that doubled as a mobile bar. Then, last year, it became the ‘official gin sponsor’ of the Hindu festival of colours, Holi. The results have been divine.

8 - Bulleit

Sales: £2.3m +296.5%

More proof that demand for American whiskey is hotting up on this side of the pond (for even more see p4), sales of Diageo’s bourbon have almost quadrupled in the past year as the drinks giant puts new emphasis behind its premium portfolio and the supermarkets give over more space for higher margin spirits. “Bulleit’s growth is partly driven by distribution gains,” says Diageo off-trade sales director Guy Dodwell. “This is an exciting time for the sector.” A 7.9% fall in average price has also helped.

9 - Caorunn

Sales: £1.9m (86.1%)

The last of the four gins in this list, but by no means the least (in growth terms anyway). Sales have almost doubled for Caorunn, pronounced ‘ka-roon’, without the need for the sort of price cuts others have; in fact price has inched up by 1.7% to £35.62 a litre. The language Caorunn uses is straight out of the craft marketeers’ phrase book: ‘carefully handcrafted in the Scottish Highlands… it expertly infuses five locally foraged gin botanicals.’ A new generation of gin drinkers are lapping it up.

10 - Buffalo Trace

Sales: £1.6m +31.0%

Riding on the Americana trend, Buffalo Trace is up by a third as drinkers try to recreate back at home the whiskey sours they had on that night out. This Kentucky Straight Bourbon is all about its more than 200-year heritage, claiming to be the product of the oldest operational distillery in the United States and throwing more Stetsons and spurs at its marketing than an episode of Bonanza. With most of the supermarkets selling a 70cl bottle of Buffalo for £20, it’s a cheaper choice than Bulleit or Woodford.