The World's Best Selling Classic Cocktails is the international ranking of the best-selling cocktails in the world. Drinks International – an authoritative magazine devoted to the entire variegated universe of alcoholic drinks from spirits to beers, including wines, worldwide – annually publishes it.
It must be said that, for more than forty years, DI has also published a ranking of wines, champagne, spirits, bartenders and bars, besides cocktails. In short, it has cranked out interesting rankings because they tell a lot about the market and the way the world of (good) drinking has been evolving as well.
We are proud to have already placed in 2019 as many as five Italian among the most important bartenders in the world (Ago Perrone, London; Simone Caporale, London; Diego Ferrari, Milan; Mario Farulla, Rome; Leonardo Leuci, Rome). It seems we have also breached the ranking of cocktails since two of our beloved ones rank in the top ten.
For seven years, the ‘old fashioned’ – the bourbon-based cocktail with an old history and made unique by the mix of angostura and whiskey – was at the top of the table, practically unbeaten. And yet, in 2021, it ranked second behind his majesty, the Negroni. We are happy to note that even the very Italian Aperol Spritz has earned sixth place, in the shadow of the best bars in the world, among the first ten – improvable but a fine thing.
So, 102 seasons that you can feel them indeed, especially if you drink more than one. The Negroni was born in 1919 in Florence, where Earl Camillo Negroni – a traveller and cosmopolitan – returned, bringing the tradition of blending typical of Anglo-Saxon countries. Here, the young boy of the Florentine shop on Via De' Tornabuoni, Fosco Scarselli, followed the earl's advice to create an American cocktail by blending gin, Campari and red vermouth. Served with orange zest in small cordial glasses, it had to be well measured out: "never more than 20 per day!" as antiquarian Francis Harper recommended in a letter to the Earl.
From then on, it has become legend. It seems that Audrey Hepburn used to serve it out of nostalgia after ‘Roman Holiday’, that Hemingway was such an admirer as to call one of his beloved dogs ‘Negroni’, and that there are those who claim that sagebrush (or Artemisia Absinthium, the basis of vermouth) would be habit-forming. Who knows whether it is the magic of Artemis, the ease of its preparation, the perfect and aromatic balance, or its seductive red colour? Let's enjoy the primacy of this Italian classic, sipping responsibly and toasting victory!
Here is the ranking:
- Negroni
- Old Fashioned
- Dry Martini
- Margarita
- Daiquiri
- Aperol Spritz
- Espresso Martini
- Manhattan
- Mojito
- Whiskey Sour
