Agavos Awards Finds the Best in Agave Spirits

In the world of spirits competitions, the gold medal has long been a subject of skeptical whispers. Between high entry fees, pay-to-play rumors, and judges who might know everything about single-malt scotch but very little about high-proof Blanco, the industry was ripe for disruption.

Enter Grover and Scarlet Sanschagrin. Having already revolutionized the category with the Agave Matchmaker app, they launched the Agavos Awards with a singular, radical mission: to create a competition built on transparency and specialized expertise. 

As the awards enter their second year, Tequila Report editor Jay Baer and publisher Maddie Jager sat down with Grover Sanschagrin to discuss why the industry needed a new yardstick, the logistics of retail-sourced bottles, and how the corporate players are beginning to change their recipes just to stay relevant in the aficionado world.

With a tequila world already full of spirits awards, many questioned the need for another. But for the Sanschagrins, the concept didn't come from a marketing agency; it came from the agave freaks who use their app, both consumers and tequila brands themselves.

"Many brands kept contacting us saying, ‘Hey, we won San Francisco (spirits award), we want to put our award on our Agave Matchmaker page,’" says Sanschagrin. "But we didn't really know how those awards were run or who the judges were. Our user base isn't everyday people; it’s tequila nerds. They’re picky. If we started throwing up awards that we hadn't vetted, it would turn us into a pay-to-play platform rather than a trusted community."

To maintain that trust, the Sanschagrins decided that if they couldn't vet the existing system, they would build their own from the ground up, specifically designed for people who treat agave as a lifelong study. The goal was to create an award that carried weight not just in a press release, but in the community chat rooms where real agave heads make decisions.

Perhaps the most significant differentiator of the Agavos Awards is the source of the liquid. In most competitions, brands send samples directly to the competition, which pours it for judges who sample and score all in one day. This creates a loophole often referred to as “distillery magic,” where a producer might send a pristine, small-batch sample that doesn't actually reflect the liquid found in the bottles available on shelves.

It’s the same way a competitive BBQ team will smoke three racks of ribs and select the six most beautiful bones to present to the judges.

"Entering retail bottles was important because we heard from producers who would say, ‘Who knows what they sent in that sample bottle?’" Sanschagrin notes. "We wanted to take that out of the equation. We insist on a receipt. Brands will literally go online, order their own bottle from a retailer, and ship it to us. It ensures the liquid the judge tastes is the exact same liquid a consumer buys off the shelf."

There is a necessary exception for innovation. When a retail bottle isn't possible, such as a brand-new expression not yet in the United States, the awards note it as a brand-supplied bottle. This allows the brand to get feedback on a new product while being totally transparent with the judges about the source. "We give the consumers the data," Sanschagrin says. "Then they can decide how much weight to give the source of the bottle."

One of the most common critiques of the spirits award landscape is the generalist judge. While most shows use spirits experts who might spend their day tasting gin or bourbon, Agavos uses a panel of dedicated agave specialists. These are people whose palates are calibrated specifically for tequila, mezcal, raicilla, and beyond, understanding that a Reposado shouldn't be judged by the same metrics as a Speyside scotch.

"We are extremely careful about who we put on the judging panel," Sanschagrin emphasizes. "They all need to be really experienced with what agave spirits are supposed to be. You need people who understand the difference between a high-pressure autoclave and a traditional hornos, and how those impact the final profile."

Beyond expertise, the awards prioritize the condition of the palate. In a typical competition, judges may be asked to taste dozens of spirits in a single afternoon, leading to inevitable numbness. Sanschagrin describes the Agavos process as a marathon rather than a sprint. 

Judges get a month to evaluate their flight, allowing them to taste at their own pace, re-rate expressions on different days, and ensure their evaluation isn't skewed by environmental factors or palate fatigue.

Initial medals for the 2026 Agavos Awards will be bestowed in May. 

As any awards grow in prestige, the pressure from big-budget, corporate-backed brands inevitably increases. In most industries, scaling up is often synonymous with selling out, but Sanschagrin sees a different trend emerging. Instead of the awards lowering their standards for the brands, the brands are raising their standards for the awards.

"I don’t really see us selling out in any way, as long as we have the same quality of judges that we do right now," Sanschagrin explains. "In fact, I see the opposite happening. Look at 818 as an example. A brand actually went out and changed their recipe in order to appeal to the aficionado crowd."

Note: In last year’s awards, the tequila brand 818 changed the formula of their blanco tequila and entered it into Agavos, winning a Gold medal. This created an uproar in the tequila community, but Sanschagrin sees it as evidence that tequila nerd flavor preferences can impact big company recipe decisions.

"It’s indeed possible that big-name brands can be inspired by our community,” he said. “When it happens, I think our community should cheer it on instead of second-guessing. If they improve the liquid to meet the expectations of the knowledgeable tequila community, that's a win for everyone."

For 2026, the competition is adding a new layer of rigor for the highest achievers. While last year’s Best in Show was based on raw comparison data, this year the Double Gold winners will undergo a secondary, high-stakes live tasting in Dallas. This showdown moves the process from the private homes of judges to a centralized, filmed event.

"We heard from the brands that it would be great to get a definitive number score for the top tier," Sanschagrin explains. "So, we’ll bring all the Double Golds out again, and the judges will re-taste them privately. Then, they will sit down and have a filmed discussion about who gets the grand prize recognition."

This filming will provide brands with authentic, high-quality content, with experts discussing the nuances of their spirit. It pulls back the curtain on the why of a score. Consumers will get to see the experts argue over mouthfeel, finish, and agave intensity, turning the judging process into an educational tool for the public.

The Agavos Awards represent the next evolution of spirits competitions, one that replaces corporate steering with specialist autonomy. By sourcing from retail shelves and giving judges an entire month to evaluate the liquid, Grover and Scarlet Sanschagrin are ensuring that an award is truly meaningful to the people who buy the spirit. 

In a market where corporate giants are now pivoting their production methods to please the nerds, the Agavos statuette is quickly becoming an honest benchmark of quality.