Casamigos Reposado

Casamigos is the “house of friends” that used celebrity backing and an approachable profile to introduce tequila to new circles.

Co-founded by George Clooney, Rande Gerber, and Mike Meldman in 2013, Casamigos sales quickly went through the roof on the back of slick marketing that showed how tequila could be cool, ultimately leading to Diageo acquiring the brand in 2017 for up to $1 billion.

The sheer magnitude of that value creation over such a short period created a wave of followers trying to mimic its success. You can blame Clooney for many of the celebrity tequilas flooding the market today, but you can also partially credit him for widening tequila’s appeal to the masses.

I, too, was caught up in the hype. A decade ago, in 2016, Casamigos was on my home bar, and I’d happily order it at a restaurant. But something changed for me: my education and tequila journey increased at the same rate as Casamigos’ case volume, and I soon turned to more agave-forward tequilas.

The profile that led many people to say, “Try this—it doesn’t even taste like tequila,” is being challenged in a class-action lawsuit alleging that it is not actually tequila. While the courts will decide the merit of those allegations, I have been looking forward to revisiting this tequila, which I haven’t had for almost a decade.

Aroma: Vanilla bomb! Overwhelming vanilla sweetness with an acrid, sweet sting I associate with diet soda. Zero agave.

Flavor: Loads of vanilla again, with cloying sweetness and a slight effervescence laced with cinnamon on the back end.

Finish: The alcohol shows itself not on aroma or palate, but on the finish. It’s sharp, slightly bitter, and then trails into a lasting sweet aftertaste.

This isn’t for me any longer, and I’m reminded just how far I’ve come in the past 10 years.

There isn’t any base agave present in the sensory experience, no complexity from fermentation, and none of the balance between barrel and blanco that a well-crafted reposado promises to deliver.

Casamigos Reposado is a vanilla-forward spirit that delivers for the consumer craving something sweet that doesn’t taste like tequila. And you know what? There are a lot of folks who enjoy just that.