Biggest-selling local spirits Brand Champions
The local spirits category is hugely diverse, but the main players in soju, baijiu, raki and more continued to dominate in 2025.
In countries such as South Korea, China and Japan, where domestic alcohol sales are in decline, establishing an international audience could be a way forward for locally produced spirits.
IWSR predicts soju volumes will rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16% between 2024 and 2029 in the US, against a 2% decline in total US spirits volumes in that period.
Other local spirits faced mixed fortunes, with baijiu forecasted to decline by a CAGR of 3% in global volumes from 2025-2026, and by 2% from 2024-2029. The Cachaça and pisco respondents to The Brand Champions 2026 saw volumes fall, but raki was on the rise.
Continue reading to see the biggest performers from The Brand Champions 2026.
The data is listed to one decimal place for ease of reading, but the percentage changes were calculated on the full data supplied. All data is recorded in millions of nine-litre cases.
10. Shui Jing Fang
Owner: Diageo
2021: 1.2m | 2022: 1.3m | 2023: 1.4m | 2024: 1.5m | 2025: 1m
Growth: -29.7%
Place last year: 8
Other than a new entrant pushing some returning Brand Champions aside, there wasn’t much movement in the top 10 local spirits list – except for Shui Jing Fang. The Diageo-owned baijiu had the worst performance in the top 10, with its volume decline of nearly 30% forcing it down two places. Now teetering on the 1m-case mark, Shui Jing Fang could be edged out of the report altogether in 2026 if it doesn’t shape up. However, it might not be much of a priority for Diageo, which was rumoured to be considering a sale of its baijiu business earlier this year.
9. Tekirdag Raki
Owner: Diageo
2021: 0.9m | 2022: 0.9m | 2023: 1.1m | 2024: 1.1m | 2025: 1.1m
Growth: 1.8%
Place last year: 9
Love it or hate it, raki had a steady performance in 2025. It’s unlikely to be described as the next Tequila, but in a declining market, any growth is a win. Diageo will likely be pleased, therefore, that both of its raki Brand Champions increased their volume sales last year, with Tekirdag seeing a 1.8% rise. It’s stuck at the 1.1m case mark for three years in a row now – will 2026 take it to new heights?
8. Yeni
Owner: Diageo
2021: 2.3m | 2022: 2.3m | 2023: 2.3m | 2024: 2m | 2025: 2.1m
Growth: 3.5%
Place last year: 8
It was even better news for Yeni Raki, which saw a growth of 3.5% in 2025. Diageo’s biggest raki brand has managed to move more than 2m cases annually for the past six years. It had held pretty steady at 2.3m cases until 2024, when it tumbled by 12.7% – but it seems the brand is back on track once again.
7. Mistral
Owner: Compañía Pisquera de Chile
2021: 2.3m | 2022: 2.4m | 2023: 2.3m | 2024: 2.3m | 2025: 2.1m
Growth: -6.6%
Place last year: 6
Chile might need to start convincing people there’s more to its national spirit than Pisco Sours, after Mistral’s volume sales fell by 6.6% last year. Last year saw it record its lowest volume sales in the post-pandemic market, but it remains ahead of 2020’s 1.6m cases.
6. Kyogetsu
Owner: Suntory Global Spirits
2021: 2.5m | 2022: 2.5m | 2023: 2.5m | 2024: 2.4m | 2025: 2.5m
Growth: 0.1%
Place last year: N/A
Normality has returned for shochu brand Kyogetsu, which had been coasting by happily on 2.5m cases every year until a misstep in 2024. A growth of just 0.1% helped it hit its favourite milestone once again – but does parent company Suntory Global Spirits have any higher aims for the brand?
5. Ypióca
Owner: Diageo
2021: 3.6m | 2022: 3.7m | 2023: 3.3m | 2024: 3m | 2025: 2.6m
Growth: -13.6%
Place last year: 5
The only cachaça in this list managed to stick to fifth spot despite a gutting fall of 13.6%, taking it under the 3m-case mark for the first time in The Brand Champions history. It wasn’t unexpected, however, as Ypióca has been on a steady decline since 2017, when it recorded 5.08m cases – nearly double what it achieved last year.
Parent company Diageo said it was ‘not satisfied’ with its financial results from July to September 2025, although sales in Ypióca’s home region of Latin America and the Caribbean grew by 10.9%. In Brazil, where Ypióca is made, growth was driven by Johnnie Walker Scotch and ready-to-drink products rather than cachaça.
4. Iichiko
Owner: Sanwa Shurui
2021: 7m | 2022: 7m | 2023: 6.5m | 2024: 6.2m | 2025: 6.1m
Growth: -2.9%
Place last year: 3
It was another year of decline for the world’s biggest shochu brand, Iichiko. Like Ypióca below it, Iichiko has seen sales fall since the first Brand Champions report in 2017, when the shochu was shifting 7.5m cases. Although this year’s decline of 2.9% is smaller than it has experienced in recent years, a reversal of fortunes will be needed soon – especially if Iichiko wants to prove its theory that shochu is ready to go mainstream. The brand has been focusing on the US on-trade in recent years, and took its higher-ABV expression global in 2025.
3. Chum Churum (includes Soonhari)
Owner: Lotte Liquor
2021: 19m | 2022: 26m | 2023: 27m | 2024: 27.5m | 2025: 28m
Growth: 1.8%
Place last year: 2
Last year’s Local Spirits Brand Champion managed to bag the title yet again in 2026 after growing by 1.8%. Chum Churum has increased its volumes by nearly 9m cases in five years from what was already a large base.
A spokesperson for Lotte Chilsung says the brand’s product innovations and flavour launches have made it an easier proposition for new consumers. They added that while the largest importer of soju, Japan, has levelled out, the US’s rapid growth will make it “one of the most promising markets in the coming years”. The distribution partnership the company has with Gallo’s spirits arm was said to be “the key to the success bringing Lotte soju brands closer to more consumers and to new heights in the US”.
2. Fenjiu
Owner: Fenjiu
2021: 16.8m | 2022: 19.6m | 2023: 22.8m | 2024: 24.4m | 2025: 28.7m
Growth: 17.3%
Place last year: N/A
This was the first year that Fenjiu submitted data to The Brand Champions report, and what an entrance it made. The baijiu brand immediately took second spot – a position it wouldn’t have achieved in last year’s rankings, when it would have fallen short of Chum Churum’s 27.5m cases. Volume growth of 17.3% in 2025, however, helped it to sail past the soju brand – but it’s still behind the number-one local spirit.
Fenjiu’s UK importer Cheng International is currently focused on growing the brand in the on-trade, with its MD hoping to “see one cocktail with baijiu in every bar”. If it achieves that lofty goal, first place might be a realistic target.
1. Jinro
Owner: Hite-Jinro
2021: 94.5m | 2022: 100.9m | 2023: 97.4m | 2024: 96.8m | 2025: 94.5m
Growth: -2.4%
Place last year: 1
Retaking its spot as both the biggest-selling local spirit and the biggest-selling spirit overall in The Brand Champions is Korean soju Jinro. No one else even comes close – which is good, as the brand declined by 2.4% last year. It might just be a minor stumbling block, but it continues the soju’s downwards trajectory from its peak in 2022, when it cleared the 100m-case mark – an achievement taken by no other brand.
As with fellow soju brand Chum Churum, the UK has been a focus for Jinro, which hosted an activation at the 2025 Taste of London festival.
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