Do We Really Need Tequila From Matthew McConaughey?

A woman in a bucket hat next to a man in a cap that reads “alright.”
Camila Alves McConaughey and Matthew McConaughey at Austin City Limits Music Festival 2023. | Rick Kern/WireImage

Alright, alright, alright, already with the celebrity booze

This post originally appeared in the October 29, 2023 edition of Eater Today, a place for the freshest news from the food world every day. Subscribe now.

Another day, another celebrity tequila. Thanks to the success of George Clooney’s Casamigos, which he sold in 2017 to liquor giant Diageo at a billion-dollar valuation, it feels like every celebrity on earth has announced their own agave-based spirit. This week, it was Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila Alves, who are calling their brand Pantalones Organic Tequila, referring to it as “the best thing we’ve made with our pants on.” Gross.

In the press release announcing his latest venture McConaughey acknowledges that the world does not need another celebrity tequila, but swears up and down that his bottle of booze is the one that will give the industry a “kick in the pants.” He joins the ranks of stars like Michael Jordan, Kendall Jenner, George Strait, and Eva Longoria, all of whom own at least some stake in a tequila brand. Even lesser stars, like Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’s Lisa Barlow, have a seat at the tequila table.

This is a trend that has notably infuriated agave spirit enthusiasts, some of whom say the celebrity tequila boom is making the entire industry worse. Most agree that Casamigos is not nearly as high-quality as its massive share of the market would indicate, and there are real concerns about the ways in which celebrities are crowding out the stories of the tequila producers of Mexico, who have been distilling this spirit in traditional ways for generations. To even qualify as tequila in the first place, the spirit in question has to be made in Jalisco, or in one of the municipalities in the states of Nayarit, Tamaulipas, Michoacán, and Guanajuato, where these spirit-making traditions are thriving using agave tequilana Weber azul, or blue agave from the area. Mostly, though, it’s evident that these celebrity tequila ventures are a bald cash grab — an opportunity to pass off an average (or, in some cases, objectively bad) product as a luxury just because a celebrity is involved.

Perhaps the most curious example of this phenomenon is Almave, the new, and allegedly first-of-its-kind, nonalcoholic tequila made in collaboration with famed Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton. In an Instagram post announcing the launch of the agave-based beverage, Hamilton describes Almave thusly: “[It’s] for people like myself, who are always pushing the limits of what’s possible, who enjoy the taste of tequila but are focused on balance, longevity, and living fully.”

Even with this explanation, it’s unclear who exactly nonalcoholic tequila really is for, but here’s the bigger question: What the hell even is “nonalcoholic tequila?” Is it just the fresh juice from an agave plant that’s bottled without fermentation? According to a press release, the nonalcoholic distilled spirit boasts notes of “blue agave, sweet caramel, and toasted wood,” and is made in Jalisco in a process akin to making tequila, except it skips the “fermentation process where the liquid becomes alcohol.” Maybe I’m a rube here, but isn’t that fermentation process the most important part of making tequila?

And whether we’re talking about traditional, high-proof tequila or the newfangled non-alcoholic version, I’m still left wondering why in the world I would trust Matthew McConaughey or Lewis Hamilton to help me choose a beverage. There’s nothing about driving a race car or starring in the one good season of True Detective (to date — I am pumped for Jodie Foster’s upcoming turn on the series) that would make me think I should listen to either of them about what I should drink, much less when it comes to a heritage spirit that has been painstakingly made for centuries.

The celebrity tequila moment feels like such an obvious, inevitable culmination of social media culture and the constant deluge of brand collaborations and insipid products flying at us from every single direction. But it’s also a total bummer, one that has very real consequences for the people who love making — and drinking — tequila.



from Eater - All https://ift.tt/xA0y4q1

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Comforting Braised Pig Feet Recipe Perfect for Your Pressure Cooker

Image
Louiie Victa Chef Jenny Dorsey’s recipe is a testament to the trotter’s versatility When I go grocery shopping, I always look for pig feet. In the sea of unrecognizably standard-looking cuts of animal muscles at grocery stores — disk-shaped loins, round humps of pork butt — trotters are always the anomaly. They look most precisely as they were: feet, hooves, the tired bones and tissue that kept an animal upright its whole life. Unfortunately for pig feet, their look hasn’t exactly made them a popular part of the mainstream American diet. As Cecil Adams wrote back in 2016, one of the challenges in encouraging more Americans to consume offal and organ meat is that “organs resemble, well, body parts: any steak slapped on a plate looks like dinner, while a lovingly presented calf heart may suggest an autopsy.” And, Adams added, there’s the “socioeconomic stigma…that had a racial component too,” which is only exacerbated by “travelogue shows [like] Bizarre Foods .” Despite being mali...
Read more

Beyond Impossible: The Sanitarium and World War II Past of Meat Substitutes

Image
Photo by Tom Kelley/Getty Images We’ve come a long way from John Harvey Kellogg’s “protose cutlets” It’s no stretch to say that fake meat is having a moment . With the popularity of brands such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat joining fast-food menus and grocery store aisles alike, plant-based meats are no longer seen as a sad option for vegetarians long denied flavor with meat substitutes (though, as we know, plenty of vegetarian food is packed with flavor), but for anyone who enjoys a good burger, fried chicken, or nuggets. But are meat substitutes really the future of eating? Maybe by necessity as food resources run out, but not likely by choice. In fact, despite the big money raked in by Impossible and Beyond over the past few years, industrial meat consumption in America is actually on the rise. This week on Gastropod , Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley see how the not-sausage gets made, with visits to the Impossible Meat lab and Meati , a Colorado-based start-up that’...
Read more

Without Government Aid, Americans in Need Are Shoplifting Food Essentials

Image
Photo: Niloo /Shutterstock Plus, Colin Kaepernick gets his own Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor, and more news to start your day More people admit to shoplifting what they need to survive Since the pandemic began, Americans have called for relief for individuals and small businesses. Stimulus checks, rent and mortgage cancelation, and universal health care have all been on the table. But aside from $1,200 months ago, we’ve gotten none of that, and the latest stimulus package is woefully inadequate. So, as the Washington Post reports , more people than ever have resorted to stealing essentials like bread, baby formula, and diapers to survive. Honestly, what did the government expect? WaPo says there’s been a 45 percent increase in the number of Americans facing hunger this year, up to 54 million people. Lines at food banks have been miles long for months, with many saying that mutual aid groups and donations can’t keep up with demand . And with SNAP and WIC programs cut back,...
Read more