Is the Tequila in Your Seltzer Any Good?

Stand at the cooler in any big liquor store and count the tequila seltzers. There will be a dozen. Probably more.

Every one of them says tequila somewhere on the can. Almost none of them say which tequila.

That gap did not matter much when canned cocktails were a novelty. It matters now. Tequila-based ready-to-drink (RTD) products reached $779 million in the most recent 52-week period, up 44.7%, according to NIQ retail data.

That is a lot of growth in a format almost nobody has looked at closely.

The Tequila Report asked four brands to open the can. Suerte, Yacht Water, Freshie, and Ascenda answered a detailed questionnaire on distilleries, ingredients, marketing, and cost.

All four of these companies also sell tequila in bottles. They agreed to answer because they already had an answer they liked about what’s in their can.

Yes, and the nature of a seltzer makes this more of a problem, not less. Carbonation does not bury a rough spirit, it spotlights it.

"Carbonation doesn't hide much, rather, it's a snitch," said Pete Kiley, co-founder of Yacht Water. "Those bubbles grab every volatile compound in the glass and kick them straight up your nose, so whatever's ugly in the base spirit, the fizz hands it to you first."

Kiley offers a test anyone can run at home. "Warm the can up and the truth comes out. Cheap tequila gets meaner as it warms. Ours gets rounder."

Paige Iseminger, co-founder of Freshie, makes the same point from the recipe side. "When you're making a product as clean and simple as Freshie, there's nowhere for bad tequila to hide," she said. "Have you ever tried a ranch water and used poor quality tequila? It's almost undrinkable."

Nic Soglanich, co-founder of Ascenda, adds the caveat the others skip. Masking can work, but only if you bury the tequila under enough sugar and flavoring.

"If the product is one with heavy flavoring, added sugars or artificial sweeteners you might struggle to taste a major difference in the quality of the tequila," Soglanich said.

A short ingredient list says a lot about the confidence the makers have in the quality of the tequila included.

Soglanich makes one more point. "Regardless of if you can taste the difference, you absolutely will feel the difference the next day."

In these four cans, a named blanco or reposado from a named distillery.

Suerte uses its own blanco from Tequilera Símbolo, NOM 1530, in the Highlands town of Atotonilco El Alto. Laurence Spiewak, co-founder and president, describes it as "produced using very mature agave, oven roasting and tahona extraction." Suerte owns a majority stake in that distillery.

Yacht Water uses Pedro Furtivo reposado from NOM 1360, grown in Ixtlahuacán del Río and rested 6 months before it goes near a can. Using reposado tequila in a canned seltzer is an unconventional and more-expensive choice.

"Yacht Water isn't seltzer with tequila added as an afterthought," Kiley said. "It's tequila we already sell by the bottle, poured into a can on purpose."

Freshie uses its own Authentico organic blanco from Tequilas del Señor, NOM 1124, a fourth-generation family distillery in Guadalajara. The can is USDA Organic. The drink has four ingredients: organic blanco tequila, sparkling water, organic lime, and organic agave nectar.

Ascenda uses a blanco from NOM 1477 in Amatitán. Estate-grown valley agave harvested at roughly 40 brix at 6-7 years, slow cooked in stone ovens, roller mill extraction, open-air fermentation with wild yeast, distilled twice in copper and steel.

They smooth a rough spirit, hold flavor steady on the shelf, and cut cost. Every brand in the category makes a choice about how far to lean on them, and the four here landed in different places.

Suerte's cans hold water, tequila, real juice, natural flavors, and agave nectar. Spiewak wants the natural flavors there "to help the overall flavor pop and stay bright for the life of the can," and the agave nectar "to add sweetness that balances the citrus." Real juice is in there because Suerte wants the drink "to be as close to a real hand made cocktail as possible."

Freshie uses organic agave nectar and skips citric acid.

"There's nothing inherently wrong with sweetness in an RTD," Iseminger said. "It's about where it comes from and why it's there."

Ascenda skips nearly everything. Tequila, high pH carbonated deep well water, and a measured blend of magnesium, potassium, and sodium.

"That's it," Soglanich said. "No sugar, no added sweeteners, no preservatives."

Kiley went through the ingredients one at a time, and he is the harshest on them.

On sugar and agave nectar: "The case for it is honest enough, it's relatively cheap and it sands the splinters off a rough spirit. The case against it is the whole reason the category has had a bad name in the past: sugar is a great way to hide a mistake."

On natural flavors: "The great weasel word. 'Natural flavor' is what you write on the label when you've quietly replaced the actual fruit with something engineered to remind you of fruit."

On citric acid: "Citric acid stabilizes, it brightens, it keeps every batch tart in the same spot. But real citrus brings acid, aroma, oils and life to a beverage. Straight citric acid is brightness with the soul removed."

Kiley also concedes the marketplace challenges of his own position. "The average US consumer likes a sweet finish. It's not our approach with Yacht Water but we can appreciate that our flavor profile isn't for everyone."

Because of a Mexican rule that decides what kind of tequila is allowed to leave the country, and in what form.

Tequila comes in two grades. One is 100% agave, where every fermentable sugar came from blue Weber agave. The other is mixto, where at least 51% of the sugars came from agave and the rest came from a different sugar source, often sugarcane or corn.

Under NOM-006-SCFI-2012, tequila can only be called 100% agave if it is bottled in Mexico, inside the region where tequila is legally made. Tequila that leaves Mexico in tanks, to be packaged somewhere else, must be mixto.

That rule was written for bottles of tequila, but also applies to cans.

Where a seltzer was canned is a useful (if not ironclad) way to determine tequila quality. If the product was canned in the United States, in almost every case, the tequila inside is a mixto.

High Noon is the clearest example, and it is the biggest. Owned by E. & J. Gallo, High Noon Tequila Seltzer dominates the market. Gallo chief commercial officer Britt West told The Spirits Business that High Noon holds 27% of the tequila RTD category and nearly 92% of tequila seltzer, citing NABCA and IRI data for the year ending November 2, 2025.

Its cans carry the line "Made with tequila produced in Mexico. Canned in the USA," and nothing in Gallo's materials describes the tequila as 100% agave.

That’s not a scandal. Mixto is legal tequila, and High Noon describes their products accurately. It is simply a different grade of tequila than what these four brands are using.

There are a few exceptions, so the “where is it canned?” shortcut is a good bet rather than an absolute guarantee. Yacht Water is one of them. It cans in Atlanta under a CRT certification that covers producers outside Mexico making beverages with tequila as an ingredient. Suerte, Freshie, and Ascenda all fill their cans in Mexico.

Canned in Mexico is a point in a brand's favor. Canned in the USA is a reason to pay even closer attention to the rest of the label.

A quarter to three quarters of the liquid cost, in the two cases where the founders gave a number.

Kiley put Yacht Water's tequila at "around 60-75% of liquid COGS." Cost of goods sold, in this case, means the raw cost of what goes into the can before packaging, freight, and marketing.

Soglanich put Ascenda's tequila at "roughly 25% of our total product cost," a bigger denominator that includes those other expenses. He also noted that he could have used less expensive tequila.

"There are many options that are 1/4 of the cost but didn't meet the standards we needed for Ascenda. We are using a craft, sipping tequila in an RTD," Soglanich said. He also notes that the water for Ascenda comes from Arandas, giving it more minerality. The Ascenda tequila must be trucked to Arandas to marry with the water and be canned, driving up costs.

All four brands agree on what a swap to cheaper tequila would require. Iseminger described the knock-on effect. "You'd likely have to compensate with more sweetness or flavoring to mask a harsher spirit."

Less than they appear to. "Real tequila" means the liquid meets the legal definition of tequila. It says nothing about the grade.

Spiewak spells out the loophole.

"Just because it says Tequila or Made with Tequila or Made with Real Tequila, it doesn't mean the Tequila inside is good," he said. "As long as the Tequila is at least 51% Blue Agave they can say it has Tequila or Real Tequila."

He puts it more bluntly elsewhere. Canned drinks not made with 100% agave tequila are, in his words, "nothing more than a headache in a can."

The rest of the front-of-can vocabulary is unregulated. Iseminger's list of words that sound like quality and are not necessarily so include: "all-natural," "premium," "ultra-premium," "clean."

Kiley's runs longer. "Premium. Handcrafted. Small-batch. Smooth. Triple-distilled." He says it is "the marketing equivalent of a firm handshake from a guy about to sell you an unreliable car."

None of those terms are defined by any regulator. A brand can print all of them on a can of mixto.

Not much, and it is not required to.

High Noon's own marketing says "Real Tequila. Real Juice." Retailer listings reproducing the label say "blanco tequila with real fruit juice, sparkling water and natural flavors." The phrase 100% agave does not appear anywhere in High Noon's or Gallo's materials, and no NOM number appears on the can, on the brand site, or in any Gallo interview over three years.

Note what is not happening here. High Noon has not made a false claim. "Real tequila" is true of a mixto. Gallo simply declined to say more, and nothing obligates it to.

Gallo does talk about quality. "The quality of our liquid is extremely important," West told Chilled Magazine. "Our hard seltzers are made with real vodka or tequila, real juice, and no added sugar."

That statement is true.

The price is where this gets interesting. A can of High Noon and a can of Freshie are both 12 oz, both 4.5% ABV, and both about $3.25 at suggested retail. One of them prints the distillery, the NOM, the USDA organic certification, and all four ingredients. The other says "real tequila" and that’s it.

Four things, in this order.

1. The canning location. Canned in Mexico is a point in the brand's favor. Canned in the USA usually means the tequila is a mixto.

2. The distillery name and/or NOM. You can look up what else that distillery produces, using Agave Matchmaker. Or see our feature about tequila distilleries. All four of the brands that responded to our questionnaire include NOM number on their cans.

3. An ingredient list. No canned cocktail is required to print one in full. Doing so is a choice.

4. The words "100% agave." The only tequila-specific phrase on the can that is regulated and certified.

Soglanich, who sells the same blanco tequila in a bottle and in his canned tequila soda, uses a version of the same checklist.

"A NOM number from a distillery that makes quality tequilas is a good start," he said. "A brand that shares actual info about the ingredients on its packaging helps."

You’re back at the cooler.

The question was never whether tequila belongs in a can. All four of these brands sell the same tequila in bottles, which settles that.

The question is whether the company will tell you what tequila it used. A NOM number, a distillery name, and a canning location cost nothing to print.

Yet most of the popular tequila seltzers tell you none of that information.