Editorial
The craft spirits movement did not begin with marketing. It began with a handful of people who were dissatisfied with what the major distillers were producing and decided to do it themselves, in small batches, from locally sourced grain, in buildings that were not designed to be distilleries. What they produced was, at first, uneven. What they built, over two decades of iteration and failure and occasional brilliance, was a complete re-education of the bar industry in what spirits can be.
We have been following the craft spirits movement closely since its early days, and the picture in 2024 is more complicated and more interesting than the original story. The pioneers have matured. Some have been acquired. A new generation has entered with better equipment, better knowledge, and the benefit of twenty years of proof that this can work.
The regulatory groundwork was laid in the US in the early 2000s, when a series of state-level licensing changes made it economically viable for small producers to distil and sell directly. The craft beer movement had already demonstrated that there was a market for locally produced, flavour-forward alternatives to mass-market products. The distilling world took note.
The early craft gin wave is where most people locate the beginning of the movement's commercial success. London-based distillers like Sacred and Sipsmith — both operating from residential or light-industrial premises with minuscule pot stills — demonstrated that you could produce gin of genuine quality outside the major distillery infrastructure. The Scotch whisky industry was watching and, eventually, adapting.
The craft spirits movement has grown up, and not entirely gracefully. The early years produced a lot of mediocre whisky released too young — craft distillers needed cash and did not always have the patience to wait for their stock to mature. The honest ones admitted this and priced accordingly. The less honest ones told stories about innovation that were mostly covering for underaged spirit.
That phase is largely behind us. The craft distillers who survived the first decade are now producing genuinely mature stock, and some of the American craft whiskies coming out of Pacific Northwest and Appalachian distilleries in 2024 are competing credibly with established names. The craft gin market, which does not require the same ageing infrastructure, has been producing consistently excellent product for a decade and is now deeply embedded in the premium bar trade. Rum has been the last major category to benefit from the craft movement, but the bars built around serious rum programs are now among the most compelling spirits destinations in the world — our best rum bars in the world guide covers where that journey has arrived.
The impact on the cocktail bar trade is the clearest measure of the craft spirits movement's success. In 2005, a cocktail programme built around locally produced spirits was a curiosity or an affectation. In 2024, it is the default approach of any serious cocktail bar operating in a city with a functioning craft distilling scene.
This shift changes everything about how a cocktail menu is built. When a head bartender can visit a distillery, taste work in progress from the barrel, and make specific requests about finishing or blending, the resulting product is genuinely unique to that bar. The relationship between distiller and bartender becomes collaborative rather than transactional, and the drinks that result carry that specificity. Nowhere is this more visible than in the agave category, where the bars built around craft mezcal producers have redefined what a spirits program can look like. Our guide to the best mezcal bars in the world covers the addresses leading this movement.