The Scottish Gin Society reveals the favourite Scottish gins

Last week, we launched a survey to our members and social followers, to get them to vote for their favourite of the many wonderful Scottish gins on the market. 

Our recently-launched Scottish Distillery Map and online A-Z of Scottish gin highlight the amazing choice consumers have.

As part of our preparations for World Gin Day celebrations, we want to feature the top Scottish gins (according to the public) in some exclusive cocktails, designed by the team at Solid Liquids who are behind the Juniper Festival, as well as giving people a chance to vote for the gin they love.

We had thousands of responses in a few days,  and the results were an astounding mix, with many of the craft Scottish gins receiving a lot of votes and there being a fraction of a percentage between many.

Here are the top 10 Scottish gins, as voted for by our gin-lovers.

10: Misty Isle Gin – Isle of Skye

9:  Hendricks Gin – Girvan

8: Rock Rose Gin – Dunnet Bay

7: Redcastle Gin – Angus

6: The Botanist – Islay

5: McQueen Gin – Callander

4: Kintyre Gin – Campbeltown

3: Caorunn Gin – Grantown-on Spey

2: Edinburgh Gin – Edinburgh

1: Isle of Harris Gin – Isle of Harris

While the top 2 weren’t big surprises – Harris Gin (who received just over 10% of the votes) is always a firm favourite and famous for its’ iconic bottle and fresh flavour, while Edinburgh Gin (with 5%) is widely distributed, well loved, with many innovative products coming from the distillery.

However, get a little further down the list and you’ll see some much smaller distilleries featuring.  For us, it is wonderful to see these feature alongside the big brands.  It demonstrates their devoted following, as passionate fans are keen to vote for them. 

The geographical spread of the gins featured is also exciting, with no one region taking precedence over any other.

Well done to all the brands that feature, it was a close-run competition, as you can see from the chart below.  A lot of people voted for a lot of different gins, highlighting the wonderfully diverse world of Scottish Gin we live in.

We asked a couple of questions on mixers too and, unsurprisingly, the vast majority choose tonic with their gin (49%) with flavoured tonic and diet tonic getting 12% and 23% respectively.  Just 2.6% like to drink their gin neat.

Of the tonics, the favourite was Fever Tree (66%), followed by Schweppes (12%), but again, smaller brands like Walter Gregor’s, Fentimans and Franklin and Sons received a good backing by the public.

This was an exciting exercise for The Scottish Gin Society.  As a not-for-profit organisation, we exist purely to celebrate and promote the wonderfully diverse Scottish gin industry, which is fast becoming famous globally. 

We are delighted to see so many great brands represented here and we look forward to bringing the gin-loving public some great content to celebrate World Gin Day in June.