Diageo, the world's biggest spirits group, beat forecasts with a big sales rebound in the first three months of 2010 on Thursday as the recovery kicked in led by strong emerging market growth. The London-based maker of Smirnoff vodka and Captain Morgan rum said it had seen signs of fragile recovery in its mature markets such as North America and a stronger one in its emerging markets of Latin America, Africa and Asia. The drinks maker reported its third-quarter (Jan-March) underlying sales grew 12pc beating a consensus forecast of 6.5pc from a Reuters survey of six analysts and rival Pernod Ricard's 16pc growth.