While celebrity sponsorship of products is nothing new, the spirits world has seen a spike W in household names endorsing tequila. The likes of George Clooney, LeBron James, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Justin Timberlake, and many other famous faces are all trying their hand at Mexico's national spirit. It's easy to assume this is just an all-star cast shilling mediocre product. But rest assured, we've come a long way from Margaritaville: The quality is high.
Tequila has been around for centuries but only boomed relatively recently. Market figures from Impact Databank show a soaring growth in the tequila industry over the past 30-plus years. In 1987, the spirit represented a mere 4 million cases among United States liquor imports. By 2007, that figure ballooned to 11 million cases. And in 2021, tequila was a nearly $8 billion industry in the U.S., accounting for more than 24 million cases.
It's fitting that people who attract money and attention with their names might be attracted to a tequila investment. But a few other factors make this trend even more interesting. First, its upscale focus. Many of these celebrity tequilas prioritize quality and pedigree at the emerging high-end of the category.
Tequila has a wide quality spectrum. At the entry level are mixtos, which can obtain as little as 51% of their fermented sugar from blue agave: The plant that forms the foundation and flavor of quality tequila. The rest typically comes from glucose and fructose, usually sourced from cane sugar or corn. Superpremium tequila is made with 100% blue agave, which is what nearly all these celebrity quaffs do.
After that, there are several levels of aging, and with each stage comes a higher price. Michael Jordan's top marque, Cincoro Founder's Series Extra Añejo (sometimes called "Black Bottle"), is an extra-aged rendition that goes for $5,000-nearly enough to buy season tickets for the Chicago Bulls.
This story is from the September 30, 2022 edition of Wine Spectator.
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This story is from the September 30, 2022 edition of Wine Spectator.
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