The 6 Lucky Breaks that Explain Suerte Tequila's Massive Growth

Some people start a tequila brand with a lot of spreadsheets, projections, and strategic plans. Others, like Laurence Spiewak and Lance Sokol, co-founders of Suerte Tequila, begin their tequila journey with decidedly less forethought.

“We’re from Colorado, and 13 years ago, everybody was geeking out on beer. And we were way more into tequila than we were beer,” recalls Spiewak.

“So we just started going to the store, buying every tequila we could find on the shelf and just trying everything we could try. We consider ourselves tequila geeks who just happened to start our own brand.”

“Suerte really is tequila by consumers, for consumers.”

Of course, in any new tequila venture, crucial early decisions include what the tequila will taste like and who will make it. Many new brands canvas the tequila-making regions, visiting dozens of producers looking for the perfect combination of interpersonal connection and tasty distillates.

Suerte’s distillery matchmaking was almost immediate and seemed preordained. "Suerte" means "luck" in Spanish, and the brand's name is neither an accident nor a simple appropriation of a catchy word. It’s an homage to how the brand began and the "this is meant to be" series of good fortune experienced in the early days.

“We didn’t know anybody down there (in Jalisco),” Spiewak recalled.

“But we met an engineer who worked in the industry, and he had a few samples of tequila made by Pedro Hernandez Barba. We tried them and absolutely fell in love. We got in touch with Pedro, hopped on a plane, and flew down to meet with Pedro and his family. And that was it.” said Spiewak.

Spiewak, Sokol, and Barba signed a two-year agreement for Barba to create a tequila for import to the United States.

The Barba family not only had a working distillery in Atotonilco with capacity and their own agaves, but the facility was also rooted in traditional methods, even though it was only founded in 2005.

As tequila connoisseurs themselves, Spiewak and Sokol knew they preferred stone oven cooking, tahona crushing, and open tank fermentation. However, 13 years ago, those production styles were less well-known and certainly less commonplace.

Barba’s tequila samples were delicious, but before arriving at the distillery for the first time, Spiewak and Sokol had no idea how the tequila was made. This was just months before the Tequila Matchmaker database was launched.

“We walked in the door and there were ovens and a tahona. We thought, wow, this is even better than we thought,” Spiewak recalls.

“We couldn’t believe how much good fortune we kept running into.”

Even by craft tequila production standards, Suerte’s process is labor-intensive and methodical. Their oven cooking takes 56 hours, compared to most distilleries' 36 hours. Additionally, their tahona crushing is a 24-hour process versus the customary eight hours.

Barba’s grandfather owned agricultural property in the Highlands of Jalisco. Upon his death, the land holdings were distributed among multiple family members. At this time, Pedro Barba was an attorney in Guadalajara. Tired of practicing law, he quit his job and convinced his wife to move back to his hometown of Atotonilco El Alto.

She asked, “Well, what are you going to do?” Barba told her he loved the land, loved being outside, and just wanted to work with agave. For a few years, he farmed agaves and sold them to the major brands in Los Altos. Ultimately, like many agaveros, Barba and his family decided that if they were going to grow the agave, they might as well make the tequila, and they built the Tequilera Simbolo distillery (NOM 1530) in 2005.

For seven years, Barba and his relatives produced tequila under contract and attempted to launch their own brands. None created much momentum in the market. Timing is everything. And in 2012, when the Suerte team arrived, the Simbolo distillery was ready to partner. A year earlier? Perhaps not.

When production began, the Suerte team was unaware that the rest of Barba’s family was actively trying to sell the distillery, having grown disenchanted with the constant uncertainties of the tequila trade. As the master distiller, Pedro Barba was not interested in a sale, but his 15 percent ownership stake was no match for his relatives’ 85 percent share and their desire to divest.

After just four months in business together, Pedro Barba told the Suerte team the distillery was being actively shopped, and asked if they were interested in acquiring it.

Spiewak says they were always hopeful to have an ownership stake in the distillery someday, if nothing else to make sure there was production capacity for Suerte. But buying a distillery after 120 days making tequila was not part of the original plan.

Of that surprise, Spiewak says: “We told them right away that we don’t have the resources to make that happen, but we’ll see what we can figure out. So we launched a second seed (fundraising) round, and we purchased 85% of the distillery from Pedro’s family. We pulled it off!”

Today, Pedro Barba maintains his 15% share in the distillery, and is also a part-owner of the Suerte brand.

Going from “maybe we should start a tequila brand” to “we started a tequila brand, and now we own a distillery” in one year is an exceedingly speedy and unusual timeline in the agave spirits world.

Reflecting on those wild early days, Spiewak says: “We were a lot younger then, and we were courageous. We had a vision, and we were excited about it. And we really believed in what we were doing, and so we just made it happen.”

Before the distillery sale, and even before the first run of tequila, the brand, of course, needed a name. And the blessings continued.

Given all the amazing things that had already lined up for them, the co-founders agreed that "Suerte" was the best name but assumed it was not usable in the spirits business. They conducted an in-depth trademark search and happily discovered that "Suerte" was available for use as a tequila brand name and could be trademarked.

The only minor snag was website domain names. Both SuerteTequila and TequilaSuerte were already registered. The brand opted to launch with DrinkSuerte.com and put $20 backup offers on the other domain names. Remarkably, within six months, the owners of the other names chose not to renew, and the brand got both website addresses for the cost of two large pizzas.

“High-quality tequila at a fair price.” That’s Spiewak’s response when asked for a seven-word description of Suerte.

Indeed, Suerte has always offered one of the best quality-to-price ratios in the world of tequila, especially given their traditional production methods and strict no-additives approach. But that affordability was rooted in ethos more than strategy.

“We want to make tequila approachable. We want to make it affordable. We want to bring really good juice to the masses,” Spiewak says.

Across 13 years, they have increased prices only once, making Suerte even more comparatively affordable each time other brands raise their MSRP. Today, that long-ago decision to prioritize price accessibility is perfectly on-trend.

Research from The Tequila Report shows that many consumers in the United States are now considering value when making tequila purchases and are beginning to trade down from $65 bottles to $55 or even from $45 bottles to $35 or less.

One of the reasons Suerte can keep prices consistent is that they own their own distillery and only make their own tequila. Very few craft tequila brands are in a similar position, where they own the distillery and do not share production capacity with any other brands. Examples include Siete Leguas, Alto Canto, El Tequileño, Volcan de mi Tierra, and El Ateo.

It’s perhaps no surprise then that Suerte grew 80% from 2024 to 2025. And that’s with availability in just 21 states. Within five years, Spiewak’s objective is for Suerte to be a truly national brand, with an emerging international presence. And at this rate, if the luck continues, it will probably happen.

The core Suerte tequila offerings include:

Blanco at 40% ABV priced around $36.99. They recently launched a one-liter blanco bottle targeted at bars and restaurants.

Reposado at 40% ABV priced around $41.99, aged seven months in American oak whiskey barrels. (one of my go-to reposados)

Añejo at 40% ABV priced around $57.99, aged 12 months in American oak whiskey barrrels.

Still Strength Blanco at 52% ABV and priced around $57.99. Distilled to proof, no water is added to this expression. (this is an excellent high proof)

Suerte also produces extra añejo tequilas as special editions and frequently collaborates with restaurants and retailers on single barrel or custom batch programs. Owning the distillery makes these projects easier to design and execute.

In late 2023, Suerte introduced a line of ready-to-drink cocktails. These are, in my estimation, some of the very best canned agave drinks available.

Currently made in four flavors - Margarita, Paloma (my favorite), Mangorita, and Ranch Water with Lime - these use the exact same base blanco tequila, augmented with natural frozen concentrate of lime juice, grapefruit juice, or mango puree.

If you can’t find Suerte tequila or canned cocktails near you, their online store delivers to most of the United States, and exclusively for The Tequila Report readers, save 15% on all orders using promo code tequilareport15

The tequila business isn’t easy, and Suerte definitely knows what they’re doing. Making it 13+ years demonstrates that, but as their story shows, a little luck along the way certainly helps.

Suerte is a presenting partner of The Tequila Report.

Photos courtesy of Suerte.