What I Just Learned About Tequila’s Next Phase

This week, Bar Convent Brooklyn brought thousands of bartenders, brand owners, and drinks professionals to Industry City in Brooklyn for two days of tastings, education, and shop talk.

It’s a trade-only show, which means almost everyone in the building is either trying to build a brand, run a bar, or figure out where the industry goes next. I was there in that mix, attending five excellent Park Street University education sessions and spending the rest of the time doing what I do best: tasting tequila, listening, and trying to connect the dots between consumer behavior and business growth.

Across those sessions and hallway conversations, I kept hearing a version of the same message:

Several sessions laid out the challenges in blunt terms.

Crowded distributor portfolios, overworked sales teams, shelves jammed with similar bottles, and spirits buyers who now expect brands to show up with a plan, not just a product.

At the same time, the generational drinking behaviors session made an important distinction: sure, overall alcohol habits are changing, but that doesn’t automatically translate to “everyone is quitting.”

Younger legal-age drinkers are more likely to moderate, but also more likely to care about ingredients and brand narrative.

Older drinkers tend to be more loyal and less experimental, (and massive consumers of margaritas) but they still account for a lot of spend when the occasion is right.

The BCB presenters kept coming back to occasions, and when drinking occurs: unwinding after a long week, hosting at home, celebrating something, or just making a Tuesday night feel a little more special.

In that context, the question isn’t “beer vs. wine vs. spirits” so much as “what fits this moment, this group, and this mood?” Brands that win are the ones that fit a specific MOMENT clearly enough that a drinker can picture the fit before they even see the bottle.

This is one of the reasons tequila has an edge versus other drinks categories. As several speakers pointed out, tequila is often where younger legal-age drinkers are actually choosing to spend their alcohol dollars. It combines flavor, identity, and a sense of occasion that works for both cocktails and sipping.

Tequila can be casual or special-occasion, and it carries a cultural story that interests many drinkers. None of that guarantees success for any particular brand, but it does mean the category isn’t fighting uphill in the same way others might be.

You could feel that on the floor at BCB.

The tequila brand community felt strong and connected, even against the backdrop of all the structural stuff people were worrying about on stage. By my count, roughly 40 tequila brands had stands at the show, and plenty of other people from the tequila world were there unofficially to do business, catch up, and see friends.

Several Tequila Report reviewers made the trip too, which turned a big trade show into a series of running conversations about what we were tasting and what we were hearing.

One thing that stood out was how many different parts of tequila’s story were represented in the same place. Arette was there alongside real-world neighbors Fortaleza and El Tequileño, a reminder that legacy producers are still showing up and competing hard. G4 was there big as part of PKGD Group. And Tierra de Ensueño increased their presence a lot this year.

At BCB, you could taste brands that built their reputations years ago, brands that are only now launching, and brands that have had to fight their way back into the conversation. Cierto, for example, is pushing to reassert itself after a pause in the market. That mix of continuity, renewal, and experimentation is healthy.

There was real experimentation in the glass too. Some of the most exciting stuff I tasted came from Viva Mexico, who seem intent on exploring what their distillery can do instead of just repeating safe bets.

At a conference where one speaker warned that drinkers are tuning out vague “innovation” claims, those kinds of concrete, in-the-bottle experiments felt like the best answer to the question of how you actually earn attention, similar to what we predicted in our 6 Tequila Trends research earlier this year.

On the packaging side, Casa Obsidiana was impossible to ignore. Their bottles might be the most dramatic I’ve seen in tequila. They are architectural, sculptural, and VERY HEAVY objects that immediately pull your eye.

In the retail session, a lot of time was spent on practical details: does the bottle fit on a shelf, does the barcode scan, can staff handle it easily, does it work in the well. Casa Obsidiana is the exception that proves the rule.

Newcomers added their own texture.

Tequila Escalón, just launching from NOM 1414 with tahona-crushed production, was a nice reminder that there are still fresh stories being told at respected distilleries. They are so new, I don’t think they even have a website, yet their recent double gold blanco win at Agavos Awards is a nice debut.

It’s easy to feel like every possible angle has already been covered in tequila, but walking the floor at BCB made it clear that there is still room for brands that care about process and have something specific to say.

The setting helped.

Industry City is a cluster of renovated warehouse buildings in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, filled with workspaces, restaurants, and public spaces that make it a surprisingly comfortable place to spend two very long days.

There are plenty of corners to grab a quick debrief between sessions, and enough food and non-alc options (I think I drank about 23 free Perriers) that you don’t have to choose between staying hydrated and catching the next talk.

Being in New York during perfect early-summer weather and a Knicks Finals run didn’t hurt the mood either.

For tequila drinkers, the useful part of all this isn’t the inside baseball about distributor structures or marketing funnels. It’s the way those pressures are pushing brands to make clearer, more interesting promises.

The best of what I tasted at BCB leaned into that, and the educational sessions suggested we’ll see more of it, not less.

I hope that’s true.

A skeptic would say that a trade show is the last place you should judge an industry’s health. The most optimistic people show up, the brands pouring are the ones with budget, and the problems back home don’t always make it into the speeches. There’s some truth in that. But walking around Industry City this year, it didn’t feel like people were pretending things were easier than they are. It felt like they were adapting.

In tequila, that adaptation still looks a lot like forward motion.

Bar Convent Brooklyn gave me a complimentary media pass to attend the event, with no requirements or restrictions for coverage or content