Stopping Postgres

What is the best way to quickly and reliably stop postgres? We've found
that pg_ctl doesn't work for us very well, frequently failing to
actually stop the postmaster (it times out and reports that it has
failed to stop). This is the same even if we use -m immediate.

We don't want to kill -9, obviously. How do other people ensure that
postgres is properly stopped in a timely manner?

Regards
--
David Mitchell
Software Engineer
Telogis