How celebrity tequilas are changing the nature of tequila
I’m staring at two new bottles that represent a tension at the heart of tequila.
One is from Casamigos, the brand founded by actor George Clooney, ex-model Rande Gerber and businessman Mike Meldman, which they sold to spirits giant Diageo in 2017 for a reported $1 billion. Their new bottle is a jalapeno-flavored blanco tequila under the feminized name Casamigas. On it, the signature of Cindy Crawford, Gerber’s wife, has joined Clooney’s and Gerber’s, along with a lip-print asterisked with her famous mole.
In the press release, Crawford speaks of her love for a skinny, spicy Casamigos margarita: “A few years ago, Rande and I were watching the sunset and we talked about how fun it would be for me to do a spicy tequila.
Voila — Casamigas was born.”
The other bottle is an additive-free blanco from Pure Brands, a U.S.based investor-developer, named Not A Celebrity Tequila.
That a new tequila markets itself around what it is not should give you a hint of where we are these days. You can’t swing a quiote without hitting a tequila brand that’s owned, invested in or fronted by a celebrity (often the face of a multinational corporation). A by-no-means-comprehensive list includes Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (Teremana), Kendall Jenner (818), LeBron James (Lobos 1707), Michael Jordan (Cincoro), Mark Wahlberg (Flecha Azul), Guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar (Santo, but Hagar also launched Cabo Wabo back in 1996).
“Having spent the last 4 years working in the tequila industry, it feels like every brand that has been released in that time has some sort of celebrity affiliation,” Pure Brands founder Andrew Bushby said in an email. While Not A Celebrity Tequila’s name is tongue-in-cheek, he hopes it has a more serious effect: encouraging more transparency within the industry, so consumers can make more educated decisions.
It’s going to be an uphill climb. Though the small, four-digit NOM indicator on every bottle of tequila or mezcal allows savvy consumers to find out some information about its production, labeling regulations for agave spirits are complex and often opaque, even to those steeped in the industry.
The category is getting crowded. Especially since that billion-dollar Casamigos sale, there’s been the booze equivalent of a Gold Rush.
“I’m honored to be known as the ones who helped grow the tequila category to what it is today,” Gerber said, in a statement sent by the Casamigos PR team. “Many will learn that it takes time, dedication, most of all it takes authenticity and a really great product such as Casamigos and Casamigas to succeed.”
Others have a different take. “Every celebrity pretty much since George Clooney has gone into not just mezcal or tequila, but any liquor, with dollar signs in their eyes,” says Susan
Coss, co-founder of Mezcalistas, a company dedicated to raising mezcal awareness in the United States. Celebrity marketing is so pervasive that nobody cares “if you’re a celebrity and you start a vodka brand or a gin brand,” she said. “But I think as soon as you start playing in waters that are cultural, that’s where you get into trouble.”
If you distill it, will they come? That’s the question for so many spirit brands, and a famous face can provide visibility in an incredibly crowded space.
“But a lot of celebrities miss that tequila and mezcal is something that is truly embedded in the culture of Mexico,” says Lucas Assis, former L.A. bartender and now a consultant and agave spirits educator. “It’s not just a spirit. It’s always more than just that.”
When American celebrities become the face of a spirit made by Mexican farmers and distillers, when they benefit financially from a spirit made from a plant with deep roots and cultural significance in Mexico, it raises the question: Who defines tequila? Its makers, its drinkers — or its marketers?
While some tequilas are still made by traditional methods, many have become what agave geeks refer to as “agavodkas” — industrialized versions that, for reasons of efficiency or cost, have been stripped of their essential character, often leaning on such additives as vanilla and glycerin to compensate.
Many of the tequilas fronted by American celebs land in this category. Plenty of celebrity tequilas that lean smoother and sweeter are beloved by consumers. And so what? If you like a tequila that tastes like vanilla-frosted birthday cake, what’s the harm?
Maybe not much. But if millions of consumers believe that’s what tequila is supposed to taste like, driving other brands to follow suit, tequila will move farther and farther from its roots.
Celebrity marketing has helped push tequila’s enormous growth, but the wealth has generally not made its way to the people doing the hard labor to make tequila, says David Suro Piñera, a tequila importer, activist and co-author of “Agave Spirits.”
“I would love to have celebrities who actually share the profits,” says Suro Piñera, who also founded Siembra Spirits. “But if you come down to the farms in Mexico and ask most of the jimadors or people at the distilleries if they really see any increase in income? The answer is going to be not really.”