First of all, this post is not to brag. The bottle was not even mine. Rather, it was a gift solicited by some friends, since I was traveling back to Barcelona from Mexico, and they thought it could be found way cheaper at the duty-free shop than what it’s listed for in the US (it wasn’t). 

Rather, this post is about the question of whether a bottle of Tequila this pricey, one which is not typically even sold in Mexico, is worth its price. 

Besides, what kind of silly person would brag about tasting a $200 buck tequila, when there are varieties that go beyond the thousands, tens of thousands, and even millions? Rather, this is to argue that the vast majority of those bottles are probably bullshit. As in, you pay for the bottle and the idea that you’re buying something exclusive, a story, and not for the actual quality of the liquid.

Tequila as a luxury? 

Tequila is one of the most consumed alcohols in the world. It was never devised as a luxury good. When the Spanish came to America, they needed something to get drunk on, so they introduced distillation. What would they distill? How about the plant that the natives were already using to make some form of mind-numbing brew? Distill some agave, and you’ve got mezcal. That’s the history of mezcal, of which tequila is a variety. Eventually, this variation of mezcal, made in Tequila, Jalisco, caught on because the locals thought to double distill the liquid and it tasted even better, but also because the agave used to make it, agave tequilana, grew so easily in the red volcanic soils surrounding the area. In our days, more than 300 million plants are harvested there each year. 

Hence, tequila was never thought of as a luxury good. All attempts to make it one, I’d argue, are overkill from the original idea. Sure, the tequila you drink today has been refined to meet the evolved palates of its makers and their descendants, as well as the thousands of consumers that have helped support their craft, but also to cater to market necessities. That’s why there are extremely basic versions that college students do shots of to get properly shit-faced, and there are nicer versions that people with more money and more time like to sip on during a hot summer afternoon while reading the classics. Now I’m going to quote some words from that smelly old man Marx to sing the praises of the free market, so sue me, but this dynamic, unlike his other rancid ideas, does seem to uphold the phrase: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.

In other words, there’s tequila for drunks, there’s tequila for connoisseurs, from the casual enjoyer to the weekly indulger with a deep pocket, and there’s tequila for people who have been tricked into thinking this agave-based spirit is like whiskey— the pricier the better, at least generally.

Which bottle is this? 

Now, the bottle in question, the one that sent me through this train of thought, was an Esperanto Reposado. The normal bottle tends to be around $75, and they even sell one on a $150 one in an “artistic” special edition bottle. There you have a clear example of how, even at this price range, you start to pay more for the bottle than for the liquid.

How does it taste? 

To be fair, it did taste like no other tequila I’ve ever tried, but not precisely in a good way. It had a hint of peach. Peach!… in a tequila! Now maybe I’m just ignorant, and Tequila sommeliers are, apparently, a thing, but I like it if tequila tastes like agave, doesn’t burn your throat, but does warm up every point from your stomach to your palate, and makes you feel good to be alive. 

In this case, the peach factor didn’t seem like what you get when tasting specialty coffee or wine and looking for notes, but rather, as someone had just added some artificial peach flavor to make it taste more distinctively. The flavor was more as if you added some Korean peach liquor to a half-decent tequila. I’m no sommelier of anything, but neither I nor my friends would ever pay that kind of money for this bottle again. 

Who drinks this?

I had never seen this bottle in Mexico outside a duty-free shop. Not in a college party, and not in a fancy comida or graduation or wedding. In Mexico, if you want a really nice bottle of whiskey or vodka, you go to La Europea, La Castellana, or El Palacio de Hierro, depending on where you are. I have never seen this bottle it at any of those places, and the same goes for most fancy tequila brands that you see only at airport shops.

Another telling aspect is that if you look up “Tequila Esperanto” online, most of the search results are from US-based shops like Old Town Tequila and Passions Spirits. Hence, is this tequila made especially for gringos? Probably. Although to be fair, most tequila is for the US market. Since 2020, Mexico produces about 550 million liters of tequila each year. Of those, 64% is destined for exportation, and the bulk of it, about 340 million liters, is kindly bought by our neighbors to the north.   

So what do you actually pay for?

Like with most liquors that are this popular, (whiskey, vodka, rum), there are all kinds of varieties for all kinds of occasions, palates, and budgets. My argument here is that there is a range of quality in tequila, but a bottle this pricey is just ridiculous. 

Again, you seem to be paying for the bottle and a manufactured idea of exclusivity, and not for a better quality in what you’re drinking. I already explained how this Esperanto was much more expensive simply because it came in a limited edition ceramic bottle which, to their credit, was actually kind of nice. The other expensive tequila bottles I mentioned above? One of them comes in a bottle encrusted with 4,000 diamonds. Another one has a “distinctive 24 karat gold trim along with an agave medallion, also dipped in gold.” 

So if you’d like some nice tequilas that won’t break the bank and seem to offer more value in what’s inside rather than the glass and label, I’d recommend Don Julio, Gran Centenario, ArteNOM, Corralejo, and for those with a more purist taste, Caballito Cerrero. All of those are under $100, and some are even under $50. The pricier options, in one man’s honest opinion, are probably more about stroking the buyer’s ego.

Hey, it’s mostly a free world, and if you happen to live in one of those places where you can buy a $2,000 bottle of vino de agave just because you feel like it and it’s barely a scratch on your finances, more power to you. What you actually bought, is some sips of that feeling. But also, to give the devil its due, lots of what may seem like ludicrous amounts of money do help fuel the economy behind the spirits that many of us love. It means jobs and stability for everyone from those towing the fields to those designing and manufacturing the diamond-encrusted bottles.