Why a 44-Point Gap Separates the Best and Worst Cigar and Spirits Sites

What do this week's numbers actually show?

This week the Index tracked 11 brands across the cigar and spirits sector, returning an average readiness score of 59 out of 100. That midpoint matters: it means the typical retailer in this group is roughly half-built for a world where ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity decide which brands get named in an answer.

Readiness measures how well a site is structured to be found and cited by AI assistants. A score of 59 is not a failing grade, but it is not a safe one either. It describes a sector sitting on the fence — visible enough to appear occasionally, under-built enough to be skipped when a competitor is clearer, faster or better structured.

Who leads the pack?

The AI Visibility Index itself tops the table at 87, which sets the benchmark for what a fully prepared site looks like. Among the trading brands, The Whisky Shop leads at 76 — the only retailer in the group to clear the 75 mark, and a clear signal that the top of this sector is pulling away.

Behind it, EGM Cigars scores 66 and Hard To Find Whisky reaches 57, both sitting above the 59 average. These are the brands AI assistants are most likely to surface when a shopper asks for a recommendation, a comparison or a buying guide. The lesson from the leaders is consistent with what we see across the State of AI Visibility report: visibility is earned through structure, not spend.

Where does the sector fall down?

The bottom of the table tells the more urgent story. Turmeaus Cigars sits at 32, the lowest reading this week and less than half the score of The Whisky Shop. Between the top trading brand and the bottom lies a 44-point gap — a chasm, not a margin.

The cluster in between is telling. C.Gars Ltd (56), City Cigars (50) and The Drink Shop (48) are all hovering around or just below the halfway line. These are established names with real catalogues, yet their sites are not built in a way that lets an AI assistant confidently extract, trust and repeat what they sell. When an assistant cannot parse a site cleanly, it does not guess — it moves on to a competitor it can read.

Why does a low readiness score cost real sales?

The shift underway is simple to state and hard to reverse. Shoppers increasingly ask an AI assistant "what's the best single malt for a gift?" or "where can I buy a specific cigar online?" and act on the handful of brands named in the reply. If your site scores 32, you are rarely in that reply. If it scores 76, you often are.

This is the difference between being discoverable and being invisible. A brand at 48 is not being penalised — it is simply being passed over in favour of one that has made its products, pricing and expertise machine-readable. And unlike traditional search, there is no second page of results to fall back on. In an AI answer, there is only the shortlist, and the shortlist is short.

What separates a 76 from a 32?

The gap is rarely about the quality of the whisky or the cigars. It is about whether a site states clearly what it sells, structures that information so machines can read it, and backs it with the signals of authority and trust that assistants weigh before citing a source. The brands scoring above average have, consciously or not, done this work. The brands at the bottom have product depth that their sites fail to communicate in a format AI can use.

That is also why the gap is so closable. A score of 32 does not reflect a weak business; it reflects a site that has not yet been built for how AI reads the web. The same catalogue, restructured, could move a brand from the bottom of this table into contention at the top. Our methodology sets out exactly which signals move the number — and in which order to fix them.

What should brands take from this week?

Three readings stand out. First, the sector average of 59 means most brands here have meaningful headroom. Second, the 44-point spread between The Whisky Shop and Turmeaus Cigars shows this is a competitive advantage still up for grabs — the leaders are not yet uncatchable. Third, the brands clustered around 48 to 57 are closest to a tipping point: small, deliberate improvements could push them from occasionally cited to reliably cited.

AI visibility is becoming the new shelf position. The brands that treat it as a measurable, improvable asset this quarter will be the ones named in answers next year.

Want to know where your brand sits on the scale? Run a scan.