If you wanted to go search online to find the best tequila brands from Mexico, it should be an easy job, right? See which ones get picked the most and then you’ll be set.
Unfortunately, as I’ve learned after researching this subject for many years, there’s almost no agreement from article to article, from competition to competition, on which are the best brands of tequila. Plus Google’s search results have gone down in quality so much over the past year and a half that it’s hard to find articles from real experts on most subjects in the first placce, rather than just brand links for shopping.
There are probably more than 1,000 tequila brands now, all made from the same blue weber agave plant. Each has three or four general categories within each brand, then you have offshoots of those like bleached-out aged tequila that’s a new fad.
You often see many different brands on a Mexican shelf than you do in the United States, which makes it more complicated. Plus the U.S. liquor distribution system is almost as wacky and illogical as its electoral college system we use to decide on a president. There are brands from the huge Jose Cuervo company (owned by an even larger conglomerate) that you can find anywhere, but then a lot of the smaller producers winning awards are only available in a few places.
Plus you have the motivation issues behind the scenes. Liquor distributor awards are about what sells, magazines seem to always sneak in a brand or two from a company that is advertising with them, parties and junkets have more influence on what gets written about.
Among individual reviewers (including me), you can never eliminate personal taste bias. My favorite bourbon or beer won’t be the same as yours, so how do I say what is a great tequila, or which is the best reposado tequila out of all those available on the shelf?
So if I want objective answers, I turn to the blind tasting competitions for spirits. The most respected annual contest out there in the liquor world is the World Spirits Competition taking place each year in San Francisco. It gets the most entries, has the most respected and experienced judges, and conducts blind tastings that eliminate any past assumptions from the mix. If a spirit gets marked as gold by every judge, which is not common, then it gets the designation as Double Gold.
This article on the best tequila from Mexico was updated in November, 2024, based on the most recent results from the San Francisco World Spirits competition, mostly highlighting those Double Gold winners.
Recent Best Tequila Brand Winners
I put up the first version of this article in the 2010s and naturally there have been changes each year in who wins. Some high-end tequila brands seem to keep standing out from the pack year after year, whereas other ones have a nice showing once and then disappear.
The San Francisco World Spirits competition has changed how it announces winners several times and their website gets more complicated each year. It’s rather hard to track down the winners now unless you go to their shopping section they’ve added in a recent corporate merger or you give up your e-mail address to see the results.
They’ve gone back and forth in picking a “best in show” winner and that seems to be back, so let’s start there Drumroll please, the winner is…
Don Fulano Fuerte Blanco
Never heard of Don Fulano? Neither had I and it’s a strange choice. First of all, a blanco tequila (often called silver) is unaged tequila, the least popular type, the one more likely to go in cocktails instead of sipped neat. And this one is 100 proof on top: 50% alcohol. But hey, the judges gave this one the highest marks.
I do want to seek this out though because it’s a family owned business, not part of one of the big international liquor conglomerates, and their website has a whole section explaining their entire process, with each tequila type listing specs in detail.
Otherwise, we need to look at who scored a Double Gold because the Tasting Alliance that runs this competition is handing out so many awards now that the ceremony must go on for days. Getting a Bronze is starting to look like a participation prize. Even among the Double Golds, Mexico placed 88 bottles. So either the country is getting better at what they do by leaps and bounds each year or the judges are really loving a lot of different spirits.
Among the tequila winners, who else stood out? Once again, as has been the case most other times I’ve updated this article, it’s the brand Cierto. They’ve become the undisputed king of premium tequilas. Their name is the Spanish word for “certain,” which seems apt in this case. Cierto Tequila came home with five Double Gold awards, for one blanco, two reposado versions, and two extra añejo versions.
Reserve Collection Blanco
Private Collection Reposado
Reserve Collection Extra Añejo
Reserve Collection Reposado
Private Collection Extra Añejo
Their website says this is “the most awarded tequila in history” and I think that’s probably true: they have racked up hundreds of them. These are expensive bottles, but unlike many at the three-figures level, these seem to justify the price. This is a sure thing if you’re buying a gift to impress, especially if the recipient is a tequila lover.
For the rest of the Double Gold winners, there are a few we have talked about in our tequila reviews, like these:
Don Julio (though it was the blanco that won Double Gold, two others won Gold)
1800 Reposado (here’s our 1800 anejo review)
Casa Don Ramon (though it was two limited edition versions)
Then there are a lot of brands I’ve never heard of before. This is despite the fact that I live in Mexico, I drink tequila a fair bit, and I’m a spirits reviewer. Many of these bottles I’ve never even seen in a bar or on a shelf.
Since these tastings take place in the USA, assume that all are 40% alcohol. The amount you’ll pay can be volatile and the price of tequila is significantly lower in Mexico if the brand is available there and the spirit is usually bottled at 38% alcohol instead. Sometimes the bottles are 700ml instead of 750 and you’ll usually have at least 50 choices in a sizable Mexican supermarket.
If you’re stuck buying something at the Oxxo convenience store, where you’re limited to the top-selling tequila, go for frequent award winners Don Julio, Don Ramon, Cuervo Tradicional, or Herradura. You’ll have a wider selection at Duty Free, but the prices are almost always more than you’ll pay in a traditional liquor store unless it’s a special edition you can’t find elsewhere or you’re buying three bottles of something.
Use this as a guide for which top-shelf tequila brands are truly worth the money and which ones you might want to experiment with.
Tequila Brands Winning Multiple Double Gold Awards
As mentioned above, the big winner again was Cierto, taking home five trophies. Here’s who else showed that it wasn’t just one strike of inspiration: they won more than one Double Gold Award.
Alquimia for two extra añejo versions, 5 years and 14 years
Casa Don Ramon for two special limited edition añejo tequilas
El Tesoro for a blanco and a special edition
Hotel California reposado and añejo
Rodeo de la Aquas for reposado and extra anejo
Tequila de la Jente for two brands marked “T” and “D”
Tequila Nobleza 33 for blanco and reposado
Tequila Ocho for a blanco/silver tequila and a reposado
Some of these I’ll try to find and review later, others may be too obscure to locate outside of Jalisco and a few specialty shops. If you do see one of them, or something else from that brand, it’s probably a solid choice where you can’t go wrong.
Yes, the Hotel California brand is owned by the people who own the hotel of that name in Todos Santos. It’s a good value too, so pick a bottle or two up if you’re in the area.
We noted in the last version of this post that Tequila de la Gente was a crowd-sourced tequila brand that was only available in boxed tasting kits of four 200ml bottles ($109 plus shipping). Oddly, it’s still listed that way on their website after two years of placing as winners, so we’re not sure what’s holding them up still.
A Few Return Tequila Brands
Some brands that we’ve highlighted as winners in the past got one Double Gold in the most recent competition, so it’s fair to say they’re consistently putting out a good product. Here are a few that you might want to seek out. I want to buy the first two just because of the fun names.
Ay! Ay! Ay!
JaJa
Lana
Avion
Black Sheep
The following won Gold awards, not Double Gold, but they’ve consistently placed multiple versions on the winners list in the past and you can be sure they’ve made the tasting judges happy.
Cantera Negra
Cutwater
El Sativo Organic
Don Julio
Cutwater
Herradura
El Patriarca
Top Extra Añejo Tequila: Be Careful of Hype
If a tequila is aged in barrels for more than two years, it’s usually classified as Extra Añejo, a classification that has been around less than two decades. Sometimes the spirit is aged in French oak barrels, other times in used bourbon barrels.
Some think that’s too much of a good thing and complain that the agave is overwhelmed by the oak, but if done right these top-shelf tequila bottles are a thing of wonder. Most of the finest tequilas and the most expensive bottles are in this category.
These “special occasion” bottles usually cost the most due to the additional time and effort, plus since they’re sipping bottles meant to be savored for a long time, these tend to be the ones with the most elaborate bottles, ideal for gift-giving. The real top shelf tequila.
Be advised that there’s a lot of misplaced hype in this category though. One brand we will leave unnamed charges $1,600 a bottle but has never gotten better than a silver award that we’ve seen and several others that were more than $300 didn’t even place.
If you’re going to spend more than $100 on a bottle of booze, make it one that is consistently praised by experts, like the Cierto ones, Don Julio 1942, Black Sheep, or Lobos 1707.
Tequila Price and Quality Are Seldom Correlated
There are a few lessons in all these high-quality tequila blind tasting winners.
1) Price is generally a bad indication of quality when it comes to 100% blue agave plant tequila. You might get better stuff spending $50 than you do spending $250—though there are a few winners this year that sell for more than $200. They’re in the minority though. For every Casa Dragones that leaves you saying “How much?,” there are bottles for half the price that are amazing.
Aged tequila will cost more than clear tequila that hasn’t been through an aging process, of course, but compare apples to apples and there are obvious outliers. Those average retail prices in the USA among the winners are quite reasonable, especially compared to the showy bottles you often see touted as worth a huge premium. (Hint, they’re usually not. You’re paying for the packaging.)
2) Don’t assume that celebrity tequila brands are any better than regular brands, the same way endorsers don’t make for better cereal or energy drinks. If that tequila is promoted by a reality TV star, it’s probably a contrary indicator instead. There are exceptions, like Avion, JaJa, and Lobos 1707, but more that are just bandwagon jumping. I like George Clooney movies, but you don’t see a long list of tasting awards listed on the Casamigos website.
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Tequila the town, not the drink
3) The highlands of Jalisco tend to produce more award-winning brands than the lowlands around the namesake city do. So while you may not be able to say all “Los Altos” tequilas are great, the ones from there tend to have more complexity and work better as sipping tequilas, especially the reposados. Contrary to what some people think, not all tequila comes from Jalisco. Most does, but there are a few notable brands from other Mexican states, like Guanajuato.
4) Don’t dismiss a brand just because you’ve never heard of it. Most of the major brands that are 100% agave are at least decent—many regularly win silver or bronze in these competitions—but if you take a chance on one you’ve never heard of you might get a very nice surprise and find one of the best sipping tequilas on the shelf. The tequila industry is huge and despite consolidation, there is room for a lot of players, all doing things a little differently in the production process.
The popularity of tequila from Mexico keeps increasing: some reports are showing that it has become the #1 spirit in the USA, outselling vodka. So expect more tequila brands you’ve never heard of to hit the market in coming years. Just remember that some Mexican distilleries are making multiple brands in one facility under contract, so these tasting competitions are a good way to separate quality from marketing hype.
Happy hunting!
This article on the best tequila from Mexico was updated in November of 2024.
