Spike in interest: The rapid rise of celebrity Tequila
Thanks to a number of high profile stars who have recently invested in top-end Tequila, the spirit is enjoying a surge in demand, writes Lucy Shaw.
Tequila has come a long way. From being denigrated as a cheap student drink to knock back with brio, then spend the next day regretting it, the agave-based spirit has enjoyed a dramatic change in fortunes, and is now one of the hottest, and fastest-growing, drinks categories on the planet.
According to the IWSR, global Tequila sales are up by 5.3% in volume to 35 million cases a year, while value sales are up by 13% to over £7.2 billion. Tequila has been moving upmarket ever since hair care entrepreneur John Paul DeJoria swapped shampoo for hard liquor and launched ultra-premium brand Patró iin 1989, creating a new quality tier for the spirit in the process.
With Jalisco just a three-hour flight from the Hollywood hills, Tequila has caught fire recently in terms of celebrity involvement, with everyone from Sex and the City star Chris Noth and singer Nick Jonas to wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson entering the ring. “There is a lot of interest in ultra- premium Tequila at the moment, which is growing as a category year on year.
Consumers are showing a deeper enthusiasm for and knowledge of the versatility of Tequila and its unique taste, so I think we’ll see more well-known names enter the category in the future,” says Raffaele Berardi of Fraternity Spirits. While London resident Rita Ora is enjoying success with her Próspero brand, most of the recent high profile launches involve stars based in the US.
Volume consumption of Tequila in America grew by 8.3% last year, and is forecast to grow by another five million nine-litre cases by 2024. “California’s proximity to Mexico, coupled with the state’s diverse Hispanic population, make it one of the top states for Tequila consumption in the US.
It’s a natural fit for personalities who are looking to align with products that match their lifestyle, and allow them to be involved in the production and marketing,” says Brandy Rand, chief operating officer of the Americas at IWSR. With interest in the category at an all-time high – the spirit is enjoying double-digit growth in Spain and Colombia – a record 330m litres of Tequila was produced last year.
Wind the clock back to 1989, and DeJoria was ahead of the curve in spotting the potential for small-batch Tequila in premium packaging to take off in the US. Understanding the luxury market, he launched his first bottles of Patrón at the then audacious price of US$37 (£30), when the ultra-premium Tequila category didn’t exist.
Adding value to the consumer drinking experience, Patrón is made using the painstaking tahona process that sees a stone wheel crush the Blue Weber agave fibers. The extracted juice is then fermented in pine casks and distilled in small copper pot stills. To sell the liquid at his desired price, DeJoria didn’t scrimp on the packaging, housing his silver, reposado and añejo expressions in hand-blown, individually signed glass bottles finished with silk ribbon and Portuguese cork.
The brand has done more than any other to drag Tequila out of the dark ages and introduce it to an enlightened audience. Helping its plight, Patrón quickly became a popular bar call – Tom Cruise famously ordered it in a club scene in Cameron Crowe’s 2001 sci-fi thriller Vanilla Sky.
It has since been name-checked by everyone from Drake to Taylor Swift. Having succeeded in what he set out to do, in January 2018 DeJoria sold Patrón to Bacardi for a staggering US$5.1bn.
“We created the first super-premium Tequila to transcend category norms, be available on a global scale and attract new drinkers through collaborations with bartenders to showcase the versatility and quality of the spirit,” says Patrón’s senior director of global marketing, Matthew Sykes. “The US has long been a fertile market for Tequila, and we’re witnessing a big shift in how people perceive it.”
Another turning point for Tequila came in 2013, when Hollywood actor George Clooney and business mogul Rande Gerber launched small batch brand Casamigos with property developer Mike Meldman, having built houses next to each other in Mexico. Meaning ‘house of friends’ in Spanish, Casamigos was created with similarly high aspirations as Patrón.
Sticklers for detail, it took two years and 700 attempts for the trio to perfect the signature Casamigos taste. “We wanted to create a smooth Tequila with no burn that you don’t have to cover up with salt or lime – a Tequila that doesn’t give you a hangover in the morning,” says Gerber. When we started out we were just making it for ourselves, so we had the time and patience to get it right.”
Like Patrón, the Casamigos production process is slow. While demand for the spirit continues to grow, Gerber is keen not to cut corners. “Being a small batch brand, we use the old fashioned production method that takes time. Our agave takes a minimum of seven years to ripen, and the pines are only selected when they’re perfectly ripe.
“George and I sign and number every bottle and taste every batch. The demand has been incredible but we’ll never speed up the process or compromise on quality,” he says. A drinks industry fairytale, four years after the trio launched the brand, Casamigos was sold to Diageo for US$1 billion, based on its performance over the next decade.
When the deal was announced, Clooney told CNBC: “If you asked us four years ago if we had a billion-dollar company, I don’t think we would have said yes. This reflects Diageo’s belief in our company and our belief in Diageo. But we’re not going anywhere. We’ll still be very much a part of Casamigos. Starting with a shot tonight. Maybe two.”
While Clooney’s charisma has no doubt lured consumers in their droves to try Tequila for the first time, helping to create a new generation of converts to the drink, Gerber believes it’s the authenticity of the story that keeps them coming back. “We made Casamigos to drink not start a company.
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George, Mike and I own it, drink it, run the company and live the lifestyle. We’re just three guys who know what we like and want to share it,” he says.
The launch of Casamigos has had a domino effect, and over the past few years a clutch of stars have entered the category at the top end, from former basketball player Michael Jordan to electronic DJ duo The Chainsmokers. In September 2018, American actor Chris Noth, best known for playing Mr Big in Sex and the City alongside Sarah Jessica Parker, bought a majority stake in Ambhar Tequila.
He has since taken on the role of creative director for the brand, working alongside founder Jaime Celorio on growing the ultra-premium Tequila both in the US and in key export markets like the UK. As the co-owner of live music venue The Cutting Room in New York, Noth has a head start on other newcomers to Tequila in understanding how to succeed in the competitive nightlife industry, but being a drinks industry outsider and a well-known face, he feels he has to work extra hard to be taken seriously.
“Coming from an acting background, I feel like I have something to prove,” he told our sister title, The Spirits Business, last month. “Once people taste the Tequila and see the packaging, they’ll understand. The taste, the bottle, the way it’s made – if I can get beyond the celebrity part and get to the real goods then I’ll have done my job.”
One of his biggest aims is to encourage consumers to try Tequila as a straight serve, or with an ice cube, in a similar way to a single malt. “Jaime taught me that there was an art to high-end Tequila, which is as rich and complex as a fine brandy, and not something to be swilled,” Noth told db in December 2018 while launching Ambhar at Boisdale in London.
“Tequila isn’t huge in the UK at the moment. I want to change people’s perceptions of it and show that it’s something to be sipped and savoured.”
The newest player to enter the ring is WWF wrestler-turned Hollywood actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, who launched his Teremana brand (a hybrid of the Latin word for ‘earth’ and the Polynesian word for ‘spirit’) in March. Created as a sipping Tequila to be enjoyed on the rocks, Teremana is made from 100% Blue Weber agave distilled in small copper pot stills.
Hoping to appeal to a health- and eco-conscious millennial audience, the brand, which Johnson co-founded with entertainment magnate Dany Garcia, and Tequila Avión founders Jenna Fagnan and Ken Austin, has been savvy in flagging up its green credentials from the get-go. Leftover agave fibres are turned into compost and used as a fertiliser, while wastewater from the production process is cleaned and re-used.
Keen to be transparent, bottles of Teremana include both nutritional and calorie information – there are 96 calories per 1.5 ounces (30ml) of the spirit. “I’m committed to bring you the best Tequila, because quality and legacy are what matter most,” Johnson wrote in an Instagram post last October to his 187m followers.
The actor is the third most followed person on the app, and his social media clout is proving pivotal in promoting the brand during lockdown.
His ability to reach and engage with his many millions of followers gives him an unparalleled opportunity to spread the gospel of Teremana in an authentic and personal way. He recently devised the idea of the ‘Teremana toast’, encouraging his followers to share their videos of raising a glass to everything from equality to gratitude with a shot of Teremana – a clever move that helps his fans feel connected to him through the liquid.
Tequila’s natural home has traditionally been the on-trade, where it can be enjoyed in an array of classic cocktails, from the Paloma to the Margarita, which remains the top-selling cocktail in the US.
With lockdown putting partying on hold, the spirit is finding a new niche in the off- trade via at-home cocktail kits such as the Patrón Pantry, which encourages consumers to become budding bartenders by creating cocktails from the Patrón Perfectionists competition at home using store-cupboard staples.
Among the cocktails in the pantry is the Tequila Colada, made with Patrón Añejo, coconut water, pineapple juice, a pinch of salt and a sprig of mint. “With consumers increasingly shopping online and shifting to cocktail deliveries, we have been working to elevate the user journey,” says Joanna Botwood, Patrón’s marketing director for Europe.
In the UK, year-on-year off-trade sales of Tequila are up by 54% in volume and 59% in value to over £10m, according to Nielsen. In the United States, value sales of the spirit shot up by 65% during lockdown, over the 13-week period to the end of May.
With interest in and production of Tequila at an all-time high, the future of the spirit looks bright, though it is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success if demand starts outstripping supply. Nielsen reports that “shortages of Blue Weber agave grown in the Tequila region are forcing people to find new sources, and some firms are predicting that production within the next 10 years will be extremely challenging”.
Connections with trusted growers and being able to secure sufficient allocations of agave will become increasingly vital for high-end, small batch producers to continue to flourish. In the meantime, we can expect to see more famous faces throwing their hats in the ring.
