Back when Michael Jordan announced new his Cincoro Tequila in early 2020, it came as somewhat of a surprise — another celebrity-backed adult beverage, but from someone with as large of a reputation to back as Jordan himself? Typically, celebrity-backed tequilas tend to land on a hit-or-miss scale, with George Clooney's Casamigos Tequila and Carlos Santana's Casa Noble Tequila landing on the positive end of that spectrum. Regardless, Jordan assured everyone that his concoction was going to fundamentally disrupt the luxury tequila market.
How Did Michael Jordan's Tequila Start?
Cincoro Tequila is actually not owned exclusively by Jordan; rather, it includes stakes from four other basketball public figures including Emilia Fazzalari of the Boston Celtics, Jenaie Buss of the Los Angeles Lakers, Wyc Grousbeck of the Boston Celtics, and Wes Edens of the Milwaukee Bucks. The five legendary NBA Team owners first crossed paths in 2016 at a dinner, where they all happened to bond over their love for tequila. From that day onwards, a partnership was struck implicitly to create one of the finest, luxury tequilas out there. Countless trips to tequila's native country, Mexico, followed with tours of both Highland and Lowland agave regions so that the group could cultivate a truly unique spirit. To run operations, the partnership strategically chose to bring in Chris Spake, Patron's former director of brand education, to configure Cincoro's go-to-market plan and Mark Smith, Nike's former vice president of Innovation, to design the bottle and its associated packaging.
Is Michael Jordan's Tequila Really Super Premium?
Now, when people generally think of celebrity tequilas, Casamigos undoubtedly comes to mind first. One of the first movers in the celebrity CPG market, Casamigos grew like no other brand before being acquired by Diageo for $1 Billion. With that said, Jordan assures the public that his Cincoro Tequila is made at a different tier than Casamigos, distilled from only the finest agave available throughout Mexico. And, the prices match that. The Cincoro Tequila line features Blanco, Reposado, Añejo, and Extra Añejo variants. The Blanco starts at $70 (let's remember that Casamigos Blanco is priced around $45), and the Extra Añejo, aged for more than 3 years, will set you back nearly $1,300.
Where Is Michael Jordan's Tequila Produced?
With the rise of wine clubs and celebrity-back spirits, many consumers have become skeptical when a brand doesn't clearly disclose where the beverage is being distilled and bottled. Naturally, the thought is, that celebrity's and convincing their fans to buy into a grift, spending exceedingly higher amounts of money for what may be cheap juice. Luckily, Michael Jordan has no such intentions. Cincoro Tequila is distilled at Destiladora del Valle de Tequila in the Jalisco region of Mexico, where more than 100 other brands are also produced. More importantly, Jordan helped to pick both the agave and processes to follow in production for Cincoro himself. This is critical for a brand that is not producing their own agave from the ground up, but in Cincoro's case, buying existing stock to meet consumer demand and produce a finer spirit.
As the spirit begins to hit shelves, grab a bottle while you can, sit back and enjoy. The word on the street is that production will not be enough to meet consumer demand over the next few years which means its availability may get scarce.
In our book, it's definitely worth the hype.