Brands will now be able to list their products, get ratings from professional judges and offer consumers detailed information that engages them within their own city via London Drinks Guide, New York Drinks Guide, Los Angeles Drinks Guide, Chicago Drinks Guide, San Francisco Drinks Guide, Paris Drinks Guide. 

After about 3 years of launching local London Drinks Guide, Los Angeles Drinks Guide, Chicago Drinks Guide, San Francisco Drinks Guide, Paris Drinks Guide, and more, the platform Global Drinks Guide is now ready to help brands connect with its global audience.

For 2023 annual listing and ratings for the Global Drinks guides, the entry period will be from June 1, 2023 to September 20, 2023.

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Sid Patel, CEO and Founder of Beverage Trade Network and Drinks Guides says “Launching the city-based Drinks Guides 3 years ago was very much part of a long-term strategy to find the most effective and efficient way to work with producers and brand owners, in connecting them with end consumers globally.”

“After 3 years of building our Drinks Guides’ audience and social media presence, we talked to the producers who enter our ratings and come to our trade shows on how we can bridge the gap between brands and consumers. One of the problems brands faced was to get into the consumers' shopping lists, or even home bars. They struggled with promoting their brand based key factors like pairings, cocktail recipes, drinking recommendations etc.” says Sid Patel.

He added: “This is exactly the direction we wanted to go in building our direct to consumer platform. We launched the guides 3 years ago and in 6 cities (more cities to come soon). It was great to test content that works in each city and what the consumers wanted in each city. With the focus to showcase people of the city, what's on, where to drink in each city, and where to get those drinks, we now are ready to add company profiles and brand profiles with the launch of Ratings”.

Global Drinks Guide is quietly making an impact on those drinks enthusiasts who are keen to find out more about the wines, spirits and beers they like to drink – and then go out and discover more in the right bars, and restaurants in their cities.

The Global Drinks Guide’s tagline is ‘Where Drink Culture Lives’ and is broken down into Where to drink; What to drink; Things to do; and Brand features including brand stories, interviews of spirit/wine makers, highlighting distillers and brewers. 

What is Global Drinks Guides Ratings?

Brands can submit their products via the Global Submission Portal, select the beverage type and select the city they want to publish the brand along with other brand information to be displayed.

Brands will also be able to submit detailed product information, along with direct links of retail outlets and online portals to shop the said products. This will generate new business opportunities for the brand and bridge the gap between them and the consumer. 

How Judging Process Works?

Each submission is assigned a unique submission reference number. Brands are to be assigned a score for quality and value on a blind-tasting basis. Following this, the package will be brought to the judges for the packaging score.

Q (Quality Score) + Value Score (V) + Package Score (P) = Global Drinks Guides Ratings Score.

A separate weighted score will be given for each of the three parts of the judging process. Quality gets twice the weight. The scores will be calculated with other judges for the same product on the team to give a final score.

Quality Score: will be marked out of 100

Value Score: will be marked out of 100

Package Score: will be marked out of 100

The final out of 100 score will be displayed with each product along with star ratings which will be calculated as per below definition.

5 star - 95 and above points

4 star - 80 to 94 points

3 star - 60 to 79 points

2 star - below 60 points

Definitions

Quality: Quality will be assessed based on how agreeable the beverage is for its target customer and chemical analysis. Measure quality considering the following characteristics of the beverage: Appearance, Aroma, Body, Taste and Aftertaste.

Value: The objective is to understand how well a particular beverage is priced and what value it offers, greater the quality offered for the price, greater the value score will be.

Package: Packaging will be measured by how well judges think the wine will be perceived by the consumer.

Each city will also curate an automatic list every year by ranking, by product type based on the final scores making it user friendly. You will be able to market your ranking # as well that will be shown as ranking shelf talker as an option in your marketing materials in your zone.

Why enter your brands in the Global Drinks Guide?

1. Inspire trust, grow your business, and build your community of drinks enthusiasts. 

2. Get professional tasting notes from the best judges in the industry and display along with your brand enhancing credibility.

3. You will also be able to support your local merchants, local bars and restaurants by adding them to the ‘where to buy’ section in your brand page which will help drive traffic to your customers and build a sense of loyalty with the outlet.

4. You will be able to Access Ratings in your entrant zone where you will be able to control which products you want to display in which cities after you get your results.

5. You will get a complimentary digital certificate that you can use in your marketing and promotions.

6. You will get professional tastings notes along with digital shelf talkers that you can use at no cost.

7. All your brands will be shown under your company page as well giving you additional listing as a company page. 

8. Brands will be promoted on social media all year round.

9. Detailed brand information will be displayed along with professional tasting notes for individually listed products.

10. The ratings is organized by Beverage Trade Network, which runs many leading drinks competitions in the world including London Competitions, USA Ratings, Paris Wine Cup and more. The organization has a solid experience in running a review system and giving value to the brands.

How to enter and the listing / entry fee?

1. Go to the Global Drinks Guide entry portal and register your brand from there.

2. Register your product type, select the city you want to publish your brand

3. Complete payment online or ask for an offline method.

4. Once payment is completed, download your submission labels for shipping.

Key Deadlines

Warehouse Opens: July 1, 2023

Submission Closes: September 20, 2023

Warehouse Closes: October 6, 2023

Reviews Announced: October 30, 2023

Entry / Listing Fee

Entry / Listing fee will be $120 USD for product type per city.

Quantity Discount

3 to 5 Product entries  - 10% discount

6 and more product entries - 20% discount

Shipping Instructions

There will be two global shipping locations for the global drinks guide, one will be in the USA and one in the UK. Brands within the USA will ship to the USA warehouse and the rest of the world will ship to the UK warehouse. 

Kindly follow the below Instructions to ship your samples to the warehouse:

1. Shipping Address and Number of Bottles Per Entry

Please send your samples (2 bottles per entry) to the warehouse address mentioned on the Submission labels before October 06, 2023. Follow these steps to pull your submission labels: Log in to your account > My Submission Labels > Click on Print Icon & save.

2. Labeling and Documents

Please note that your reference number is on the submission label, and it is very important for the GDG team to see your submission label on your box and one copy inside your box. Clearly label your sample box using the submission label when you are shipping samples to our warehouse. Samples will not be accepted by the warehouse team without the submission labels on them.

Our warehouse is open for receiving the samples fromJuly 01, 2023 to October 06, 2023, so please make sure your samples reach before the deadline.

Goods receiving time: Monday – Friday 9.00 am – 5.00 pm.

brands that arrive after the deadline date will not be accepted and refunds will not be issued. Late arrival brands will not be rated.

About Global Drinks Guide 

A guide to the drinks scenery in and around you! Where Drinks Culture Lives. Present in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, and Paris.

Global Drinks Guide's no #1 goal is to offer an insider’s guide to the city. It will be your ideal space to look for wines, beers, spirits, and cocktails recommended by noted bartenders and sommeliers from around the world.

The guide will share the latest cocktails and recipes along with new bars and pubs openings in your city and aims to be the source of your information on global and local drinking culture. With the help of the Global Drinks Guide, you can go from, “I have no idea what wine to buy while staring at the discount section at your local supermarket” to “Have you tried this Manto Negre from Mallorca” or “I know this amazing hidden bar that we have to go to”. Not only will you find what you’re looking for in the drinks industry, but you will also get to learn about wines, beers, spirits, and the industry as a whole from industry experts.

Register your products here

Global Drinks Guide is brought to you by Beverage Trade Network, a leading b2b drinks industry media company.