Numbers from the spirits market

In 2007, 18.3 billion liters of spirits were sold throughout the world. The largest market was China, who sold 3.7 of those liters alone. Euromonitor International came out with these figures, and they were detailed in this article at Business Week. The most popular spirits around the world were vodka and whiskey. Vodka sold 3.7 billion liters world wide and whiskey sold 2.1 billion liters world wide.

There is also a huge push for western spirits in the emerging middle class of developing countries such as Eastern Europe, Russia and China. Scottish whiskey is the lead seller around the world now, however, in Great Britain and the United States, where vodka and rum are on the rise due to the current cocktail phase.