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Forbes
11 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
These Are The 25 Bestselling Whisky Brands In The World
It might have a Scottish-sounding name, but Indian brand McDowell's is the bestselling whisky in the ... More world, if you're flexible on your definition of 'whisky'. In 2018, I was trying to find a list of the bestselling whiskies in the world by volume and was struggling. While that information was easy to find for separate categories, such as Scotch or Bourbon, I quickly wrote up what (I think) was one of the first lists that actually collated the bestselling global brands. It's been a while since I wrote the last one though, so I thought it's high time to update the list given that The Spirits Business recently released its 2025 Brand Champions report covering sales of all kinds of drinks from around the world. I've simply pulled the figures from the report covering whisky and collated it here into an easy-reading list. Some notes. The figures below incorporate sales from 2024, covering millions of 9-liter cases sold. So for example, 1 million cases sold means a total of 9 million liters. If you don't follow whisky and drinks trends, you'll be surprised to see just how much Indian whisky is sold (almost all of it consumed domestically). For those who do follow these kinds of figures, you'll be surprised to see that Johnnie Walker has finally managed to break into the top 4 which for the last few years was dominated by Indian brands McDowell's, Royal Stag, Imperial Blue, and Officer's Choice. As you'll see from the figures below, the latter has taken a hit in sales compared to Johnnie Walker's smaller dip. At the bottom of the article is a quick little graph I drafted up with the figures in case it's useful. And finally, I'm not picky at all about what gets counted as 'whisky' here. If it's labelled as 'whisky' in the report, then it makes this list. This is an important distinction especially when it comes to many Indian whisky brands, which often incorporate molasses in their production (these are classified within the country as 'Indian-made foreign liquor, or IMFL). With that, the world's bestselling whiskies are: 1. McDowell's Whisky Owner: United SpiritsCountry: IndiaSales: 2020: 25.7m | 2021: 30.1m | 2022: 30.8m | 2023: 31.4m | 2024: 32.2mGrowth: +2.6% 2. Royal Stag Owner: Pernod RicardCountry: IndiaSales: 2020: 18.5m | 2021: 22.4m | 2022: 27.1m | 2023: 27.9m | 2024: 31.0mGrowth: +11.1% 3. Imperial Blue Owner: Pernod RicardCountry: IndiaSales: 2020: 21.3m | 2021: 24.1m | 2022: 24.0m | 2023: 22.8m | 2024: 22.9mGrowth: +0.5% 4. Johnnie Walker Owner: DiageoCountry: ScotlandSales: 2020: 14.1m | 2021: 19.1m | 2022: 22.7m | 2023: 22.1m | 2024: 21.6mGrowth: –2.0% 5. Officer's Choice Owner: Allied Blenders & DistillersCountry: IndiaSales: 2020: 20.8m | 2021: 23.2m | 2022: 24.9m | 2023: 23.4m | 2024: 21.3mGrowth: –9.0% 6. Jim Beam Owner: Suntory Global SpiritsCountry: USASales: 2020: 16.4m | 2021: 17.0m | 2022: 16.6m | 2023: 17.0m | 2024: 17.5mGrowth: +2.9% 7. Jack Daniel's Owner: Brown-FormanCountry: USASales: 2020: 12.3m | 2021: 13.5m | 2022: 14.6m | 2023: 14.3m | 2024: 14.1mGrowth: –1.5% 8. Jameson Owner: Pernod RicardCountry: IrelandSales: 2020: 7.7m | 2021: 9.6m | 2022: 11.1m | 2023: 10.2m | 2024: 10.8mGrowth: +6.3% 9. Blenders Pride Owner: Pernod RicardCountry: Whisky – IndianSales: 2020: 6.6m | 2021: 8.0m | 2022: 9.5m | 2023: 9.6m | 2024: 10.1mGrowth: +5.0% 10. 8PM Owner: Radico KhaitanCountry: Whisky – IndianSales: 2020: 9.4m | 2021: 11.4m | 2022: 11.9m | 2023: 12.2m | 2024: 9.6mGrowth: –20.8% 11. Ballantine's Owner: Pernod RicardCountry: Whisky – ScotchSales: 2020: 7.0m | 2021: 8.7m | 2022: 9.2m | 2023: 8.2m | 2024: 9.3mGrowth: +13.9% 12. Royal Challenge Owner: United SpiritsCountry: Whisky – IndianSales: 2020: 4.3m | 2021: 4.7m | 2022: 7.2m | 2023: 8.6m | 2024: 9.1mGrowth: +6.7% 13. Crown Royal Owner: DiageoCountry: Whisky – CanadianSales: 2020: 8.1m | 2021: 9.0m | 2022: 8.4m | 2023: 7.7m | 2024: 8.0mGrowth: +4.0% 14. Iconiq White Whisky Owner: Allied Blenders & DistillersCountry: Whisky – IndianSales: 2020: N/A | 2021: N/A | 2022: N/A | 2023: 1.6m | 2024: 4.5mGrowth: +181.3% 15. Chivas Regal Owner: Pernod RicardCountry: Whisky – ScotchSales: 2020: 3.2m | 2021: 4.1m | 2022: 5.2m | 2023: 4.6m | 2024: 4.8mGrowth: +4.8% 16. Kakubin Owner: Suntory Global SpiritsCountry: Whisky – JapaneseSales: 2020: 3.7m | 2021: 3.6m | 2022: 4.3m | 2023: 4.2m | 2024: 4.0mGrowth: –4.5% 17. Black Nikka Owner: Asahi BreweriesCountry: Whisky – JapaneseSales: 2020: 3.3m | 2021: 3.3m | 2022: 3.5m | 2023: 4.0m | 2024: 4.0mGrowth: 0.0% 18. Sterling Reserve Owner: Allied Blenders & DistillersCountry: Whisky – IndianSales: 2020: 2.8m | 2021: 3.6m | 2022: 5.0m | 2023: 5.1m | 2024: 3.9mGrowth: –23.5% 19. Director's Special Owner: United SpiritsCountry: Whisky – IndianSales: 2020: 3.1m | 2021: 2.9m | 2022: 3.0m | 2023: 3.3m | 2024: 3.6mGrowth: +9.4% 20. Canadian Club Owner: Suntory Global SpiritsCountry: Whisky – CanadianSales: 2020: 5.9m | 2021: 6.2m | 2022: 6.5m | 2023: 6.2m | 2024: 5.3mGrowth: –15.2% 21. Signature Owner: United SpiritsCountry: Whisky – IndianSales: 2020: 1.9m | 2021: 2.0m | 2022: 2.5m | 2023: 2.9m | 2024: 3.3mGrowth: +13.4% 22. Dewar's Owner: BacardiCountry: Whisky – ScotchSales: 2020: 2.5m | 2021: 2.8m | 2022: 3.5m | 2023: 3.3m | 2024: 3.3mGrowth: +1.8% 23. Evan Williams Owner: Heaven Hill BrandsCountry: Whiskey – AmericanSales: 2020: 3.0m | 2021: 3.1m | 2022: 3.1m | 2023: 3.1m | 2024: 3.1mGrowth: –1.3% 24. William Lawson's Owner: BacardiCountry: Whisky – ScotchSales: 2020: 3.3m | 2021: 3.4m | 2022: 3.5m | 2023: 3.4m | 2024: 3.2mGrowth: –4.4% 25. Black & White Owner: DiageoCountry: Whisky – ScotchSales: 2020: 2.9m | 2021: 3.1m | 2022: 3.6m | 2023: 3.2m | 2024: 3.0mGrowth: –5.4% And here is the data in chart form below: The world's bestselling whiskies, as reported by the Spirits Business 2025 Brand Champions report.
The Guardian
09-06-2025
- The Guardian
Frederick Forsyth, Day of the Jackal author and former MI6 agent, dies aged 86
Frederick Forsyth, the author who turned his adventures as a journalist and work with MI6 into bestselling thrillers, has died after a brief illness aged 86. Forsyth brought a reporter's eye to his fiction, transforming the thriller genre with a series of novels including The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War. Combining meticulous research with firecracker plots, he published a series of novels that sold more than 75m copies around the world, and won him honours including a CBE in 1997 and the Crime Writers' Association Diamond Dagger award. Born in Ashford, Kent in 1938, Forsyth flew fighter jets during his national service, but when the air force couldn't guarantee he'd stay in the cockpit he set out to see the world. While working for Reuters as a journalist, he got a lucky break. 'The guy stationed in Paris got a heart murmur and had to come home,' he told the Big Issue. 'A man stuck his head around the door of my office and said, 'Anyone here speak French?' Within days I was on the plane to Paris.' Paris in 1961 was in turmoil, with rightwing militants threatening to assassinate Charles de Gaulle after his offer of independence to Algeria. 'We were all waiting for the mega-story,' the author recalled in the Express, 'the moment when a sniper got him through the forehead.' Forsyth got the inside track on the security operation from De Gaulle's bodyguards and when a friend asked if an assassination would be successful, the writer shook his head. 'It could be done,' Forsyth replied, 'but only by an outsider. An assassin with no name, no face, no record, no dossier. And a professional.' The seed of an international bestseller was sown. After spending time in East Germany, Forsyth moved to the BBC and in 1967 he was sent to Nigeria to cover the Biafran war. He arrived in the newly independent eastern region three days after the federal government's invasion, having been told that the army would suppress the rebellion in a couple of weeks. 'My brief was to report the all-conquering march of the Nigerian army,' Forsyth recalled. 'It did not happen. Naively, I filed this. When my report was broadcast our high commissioner complained to the CRO in London, who passed it on to the BBC – which accused me of pro-rebel bias and recalled me to London.' Despairing of the BBC's reluctance to challenge the British government's support of the Nigerian regime, Forsyth quit and returned to Biafra as a freelance reporter in 1968. There he helped to break the story of the famine which shocked the world, and began working for MI6. Although Forsyth always denied he was a spy, in his 2015 autobiography, The Outsider, the author admitted he was an intelligence 'asset' for more than 20 years. 'There was nothing weird about it,' he told a Guardian Live audience, 'it was the cold war. An awful lot of the strength of British intelligence came from the number of volunteers. A businessman might be going to a trade fair in a difficult-to-enter city and he'd be approached, quite gently, with a courteous, 'If you would be so kind as to accept an envelope under your hotel door and bring it home …' so that was what I did. I ran errands.' Forsyth returned to the UK as the war came to an end in December 1969, finding himself with 'no job, no prospects, no flat, no car, no savings'. Desperate to make money, he 'hit on the most no-hope-in-hell way of making some: write a novel. I just sat down and wrote about the invisible assassin with no name. I knew my material; I had walked every inch of it. I wrote night and day for 35 days.' The Day of the Jackal returned to Forsyth's days in Paris, following an investigation to foil an assassin's plot to kill De Gaulle. Packed full of operational details and putting fictional characters cheek by jowl with public figures, the novel brought a new realism to the thriller genre. The Guardian hailed it in 1971 as a 'chilling, superbly researched story', asking 'Or is it fiction?' It rapidly became a word-of-mouth hit and a global bestseller, with a film adaptation released two years later. In 1972's The Odessa File, a young German reporter goes in search of the Nazi war criminal Eduard Roschmann and stumbles on an organisation defending high-ranking members of the SS. The New York Times was scathing, suggesting Forsyth had 'borrowed painful, live history in order to spring a few quick thrills', but it quickly became a bestseller. Forsyth also claimed that the novel helped to identify Roschmann in real life. 'They made it into a film, which was screened in a little fleapit cinema south of Buenos Aires,' Forsyth told the Telegraph, 'where a man stood up and said, 'I know that man, he lives down the street from me,' and denounced him. He decided to make a run for it to Paraguay and died of a heart attack on the river crossing. They buried him in an unmarked gravel pit. I hope they tossed a copy of the book in on top of him.' Forsyth began to develop a method, researching a novel for six months then writing it quickly. His commitment to detail was not without danger: in 1974, the author was investigating the illegal arms trade in Hamburg for The Dogs of War, the story of a group of mercenaries who plot a coup in a fictional African republic. When an arms dealer recognised his portrait in a bookshop window, Forsyth was warned he had 80 seconds to leave his hotel. Grabbing his money and passport, he ran to the station and jumped on to a train as it pulled away. Over the next five decades the bestsellers continued, with plots including nuclear weapons, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the cocaine trade and Islamic terrorism. An outspoken critic of Tony Blair, Forsyth was a staunch supporter of Brexit, becoming a patron of Brexit campaign group Better Off Out, and wrote of his scepticism of climate change in his Daily Express column. Forsyth was never romantic about the art of fiction, repeatedly announcing his retirement and complaining that he had to force himself to write. 'I am slightly mercenary,' he said. 'I write for money.' But Forsyth kept returning to his typewriter and over his lifetime wrote 23 books, including 16 novels. Speaking to the Times at the launch of his 2018 novel The Fox, the writer declared once more that it would be his last. But even as Forsyth insisted 'the interest has gone', there was still a hint of unfinished business. 'I've got three unused typewriters in a cupboard at home,' he said, 'enough to see me out.'
