Jose Cuervo leads up-and-coming Tequila category

The biggest brand is Jose Cuervo, with its Especial Gold variant topping the charts of The Drinks List - top brands to stock in 2022​ having clocked up 23,777 9-litres cases (9lc) in volume sales for the past year and £26.1m in value sales – although these figures showed annual losses in both (19% in volume and 17.9% in value), it was still more than 10,000hl ahead of sister brand Especial Silver and more than double in terms of value sales.

Especial Silver gained 8.2% in volumes sales, rising from 10,209 9lc to 11,048 9lc this year while its value sales rose by 9.7% from £11.4m to £12.5m.

Olmeca hits third and fourth spots

Tequila brand Olmeca took third and fourth spots with its Blanco and Reposado flavours. Blanco saw huge growth through improving its annual volume sales by 13.5% and 20.8% in value sales while Olmeca Reposado’s volume sales fell from 6,054 9lc to 5,248 9lc (a 13.3% drop) and its value sales fell by a similar 13.2% from £7.4m to £6.4m.

Although in fifth position, El Jimador Blanco saw the greatest rises in percentage terms in the category. A 44.3% volume sales lift from 3,031 9lc to 4,373 9lc was more than matched by a 53.1% boost to value sales represented by a lift from £4.3m to £6.5m.

Patron Silver and Olmeca Altos Plata rounded up the top seven in the division with Patron Silver claiming lifts of 33.6% (volume sales) and 26% (value sales) versus last year. Olmeca Altos Plata suffered volume losses of 2,810 9lc last year to 2,638 9lc (a 6.1% fall) while its value remained virtually flat at minus 0.7%, with sales at £3.9m.

• All data provided by CGA for the 12 months to 9 October 2021​​