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tequila clooney

KaiAugust 23, 2019

Review: George Clooney’s sexy tequila

tequila clooney

George Clooney sold his tequila company for a billion dollars – but is the stuff any good? The Spinoff finds out. 

Imagine being so stupidly sexy you sneeze and sell a billion-dollar booze company. That’s what George Clooney did last year, flicking off the tequila business he started accidentally with an old drinking buddy to British multinational Diageo for $1.1bn. 

The pair of tequila obsessives had set out to create the perfect drop – a tequila that went down smooth and didn’t leave a hangover. They wanted something clean, accessible, and, though they profess not to need the money, profitable too. Considering the sale made Clooney the highest-earning actor of the year despite not appearing in a film, they nailed that last bit. 

Casamigos is supposedly the end product of 700 samplings, an “expensive tequila in a cheap bottle”, a tequila as objectively tasty as Clooney is hot. But is it any good? Good enough for the converted, maybe, but what about the heathen? What could Casamigos offer to those who drink tequila only late, and quickly? 

Three fearless Spinoff staff writers had a cheeky chugalug of Casamigos Reposado to bring you this report.  

Signed by the man himself

Tequila has always seemed to me like the trashy bin chicken of the spirit world. Much like oysters, classical music and hiking, it’s one of those things you “enjoy” to show off something about yourself – in this case how willing you are to be degraded by your own hand deep into the night. It has none of the presence of whisky, no classical pairings like gin. It’s certainly not a delicious rum. It’s always seemed obvious to me why you only drink it at 4am and even then as quickly as possible. I’ve also long maintained that celebrity-endorsed-anything totally sucks, no exceptions.

But I’ve been wrong before (once, allegedly), and while it hurts to say it, I might be wrong again. The truth is: Famous Latino actor George Clooney’s tequila is quite yum. It could even be described as “pretty good”. It’s certainly “not bad”.

Most tequila is like drinking ashtray water and bleach from a brand new patent leather shoe. Casamigos Reposado tastes a bit more like caramel. Where other tequila makes me vomit through my nose, this one makes me go “mmm, a little more please”. Paired with a yum little brownie with cream on the top, it’s actually almost delicious. It’s light, smooth, playful, a bit naughty.

Stupid, sexy George Clooney, 100% te-quilling the room and stacking that paper my mans. Freaking awesome. And I’m not even hungover. 

– Don Rowe


Josie and Alice enjoy a sophisticated evening with George Clooney’s sexy tequila. Photo: no one willing to accept responsibility

Tequila is my friend, but she’s the worst friend I’ve ever known. She’s the kind of friend who wakes you up by turning the light on and yelling, but the light is ethanol and the yelling is the doof doof at da club at 2am. 

Tequila was that friend… until a man named George Clooney took my hand and guided me out of my alcohol blindness. His Casamigos Reposado is velvet smooth with notes of caramel and hazelnut, and just thinking about it I’m welling up.

“You have to take a sip, hold it in your mouth for a few seconds, swallow it and then breathe out of your nose,” the fancy man told us. But I wanted to bathe in it, fancy man. 

Casamigos Reposado is much too expensive for me to buy a bottle of right now, but it has ruined other tequila for me. It’s a love that can’t be beat so I’ll wait for it until maybe one day it comes back to me, floating on a tide of the finest blue agave nectar Mexico has ever seen.

Gin makes me think of floppy hats and crying, vodka is 15 years old walking up Mt Hobson at 10pm, rum is a fake drink for pirates, and tequila used to be a post-midnight pick-me-up, an industrial cleaner aftertaste to an otherwise delicious frozen margarita. 

I fear I’ll never turn my hand into a temporary salt-lick, feel the painful throat-punch of a Pepe Lopez or the rush of adrenaline trying to suckle a lemon wedge before I puke on the bar at Danny Doolans ever again, because friends, tequila is now for sipping.

Alice Webb-Liddall


Tequila, we can all agree, tastes like a cactus looks: offensive. The last time I had tequila before this it was a shot of Jose Cuervo that Alex Casey gave me and I sat on the kitchen floor crying for 10 minutes afterwards. After drinking George Clooney’s tequila, my eyes weren’t the only things that were wet. “There are notes of hazelnut,” said the tequila man at Mexico Britomart, who looked like an Ollie but I don’t think that was his name.

My friends, there were notes of hazelnut; no MKUltra liquor-tasting mind control here. Just a straight shot of the truth and a smooth throat of viscous, sweet tequila, like the best cough medicine you’ve ever chugged. This is a dessert tequila, and as such I recommend pairing it with an adorable mini brownie and a Dunhill Switch.

Mi scusi, I warbled at Ollie through a mouthful of thick hazelquila, est-ce que there un autre bottle? “Please stop spilling margaritas,” said my co-workers. George Clooney wouldn’t tell me what to do. This tequila is called Casamigos and I want to be amigos with a casa of it.

– Josie Adams

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