Hugo is sweeter than an Aperol spritz <\/a>and is made with elderflower liqueur, prosecco, soda water and mint.<\/p>\nThe Hugo may be on the rise, but Aperol spritz is still a UK market leader. Photograph: Kateryna Sheviakova\/Alamy<\/p>\n
The spritz sales data, gleaned from bar, cafe and restaurant till receipts, showed a 196% uplift for the Hugo in Great Britain in the three months to the end of June compared with a year ago. For the same period, Aperol spritz sales climbed 13%.<\/p>\n
The phenomenon is driven in part by the rise of the \u201cdaycap\u201d \u2013 a replacement for the traditional nightcap with a longer, lighter-tasting drink in the late afternoon. This coincides with a shift in drinking patterns as late-afternoon \u2013 as opposed to late-night \u2013 drinking has become popular with millennials and gen Z.<\/p>\n
But it is gen Z that has put a rocket under the spritz business. For this age group (18-29) it is the number one cocktail, despite ranking sixth overall, according to Bacardi\u2019s annual cocktail trends report.<\/p>\n
The popularity of the spritz means the choice on bar menus is increasing. This has been good news for Campari, which owns a drinks cabinet full of brands suitable for making colourful, Instagram-friendly spritzes.<\/p>\n
In the UK, sales of the group\u2019s aperitif brands \u2013 which include Aperol, Campari, Sarti Rosa and the non-alcoholic Crodino \u2013 were up more than 10% in the first six months of this year. With its notes of \u201cblood orange, mango and passion fruit\u201d, the hot pink Sarti spritz is tipped as the next big thing, with Google searches up 341% on 2025.<\/p>\n
The Sarti spritz may well become the next big thing in summer daycaps. Photograph: Sarti Aperitivo<\/p>\n
\u201cThe spritz has taken the UK by storm,\u201d said Young. \u201cTwo years ago it did not make the top 10 in our annual survey and now it is the number one choice for gen-Zers.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it is not just on a night out that Britons are enjoying a spritz, as supermarket and high street sales data suggests they have been added to the drinks cabinets of those socialising at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpritzes are having their moment this summer,\u201d said Tom Oakton, analyst at the data company NielsenIQ, adding that sales of this type of cocktail were growing much faster than the alcohol market as a whole in the UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cAperol remains the most popular, but St-Germain saw triple-digit growth from the rising popularity of the Hugo spritz,\u201d said Oakton. While Aperol sales were up 32.4% by value in the 12 weeks to 1 August \u2013 boosted by the launch of Aperol-in-a-tin \u2013 St-Germain grew 135.5%.<\/p>\n
Francesca Parker-Partridge, spirits buyer at Ocado Retail, confirmed that spritzes are \u201cdominating this summer\u2019s drink scene. Total liqueur sales are up 19% year on year, driven by a massive 122% spike for St-Germain.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hugo may be elbowing its way on to drinks menus, but it still has a way to go to steal Aperol\u2019s crown, with St-Germain becoming the David to the bright orange Goliath. Industry data suggests that about eight Aperols are sold for every St-Germain mixed Hugo.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great to see new brands joining the space and growing the category, but scale tells the real story, with 8.8m cases sold globally last year alone,\u201d said Francesco Cruciani, the managing director of Campari Group UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Campari group remains the undisputed trailblazer leading the spritz movement into its next era,\u201d he added, in comments underlining that \u2013 for the time being at least \u2013 Aperol is still king of the spritzes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the summer of spritz as British sales figures show the Hugo elderflower cocktail snapping at the heels…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-731593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}