Tesla Tequila: Elon Musk’s Popular Liquor That Keeps Selling Out
Elon Musk's Tesla Tequila is made from premium agave tequila añejo and starts at $285 a bottle.
Elon Musk is known for many big and bold ideas. There is Tesla, his United States-dominating line of electric vehicles; SpaceX, where the richest man in the world is not only surrounding the Earth with internet satellites, but he is also leading the race to Mars, and he will possibly be the new owner of Twitter. Now, if you can believe it, there is Tesla Tequila, Musk’s venture into celebrity liquors.
TESLA TEQUILA IS MADE FROM PREMIUM AGAVE TEQUILA AÑEJO
Elon Musk is not the first to join the celebrity liquors ranks and he certainly won’t be the last. His Tesla Tequila is produced by Nosotros and comes ready to pour inside a 750ml lightning-shaped bottle with a 40 percent ABV. The tequila inside is a premium 100% agave tequila añejo that is made from sustainably sourced highland and lowland agaves.
Musk’s Tesla Tequila is slow-cooked in brick ovens, then it goes through the usual tequila process of fermentation and double distillation. To get its smooth taste, the tequila is aged for 15 months in French oak barrels. The end result is that the Tesla Tequila has a nice vanilla and dry fruit nose that comes complete with a balanced cinnamon pepper finish.
The main ingredient inside Tesla Tequila is called Blue Weber agave. These agaves were combined lowland and highland Jalisco agaves by the distillery that first released Musk’s tequila, Casa Maestri. The best way to drink Tesla Tequila is neat.
TESLA TEQUILA RATES AVERAGE COMPARED TO SIMILAR BRANDS
So, how good is Elon Musk’s Tesla Tequila? We compared a few reviews, and the overall consensus is that there isn’t anything extraordinary about the drink. The Tesla name carries a lot of weight just about anywhere, so it’s no different with the tequila, but the drink itself, while not bad in the least, didn’t set tequila reviewers’ worlds on fire.
As there are a number of celebrity tequilas on the market (Casa Noble/Carlos Santana, Casamigos/George Clooney, Codigo 1530/George Strait, Villa One/Nick Jonas, and Cincoro/Michael Jordan), they typically are created with the help of artificial sweeteners as a way to become more appealing. This means there is a good chance Tesla Tequila falls into this category. The practice of including artificial sweeteners is legal according to the tequila governing laws but these additives must remain at less than 1% of the total content.
A BOTTLE OF THE LIQUOR STARTS AT $285 BUT CAN GO MUCH HIGHER IN PRICE
Okay, when we say “expensive,” it can be relative to what normal people purchase normal bottles of tequila for. A good $50-75 bottle usually will suffice. But this is a Tesla product, so it stands to reason that the price is a tad bit higher.
When Elon Musk’s Tesla Tequila first hit the market in 2020, he was selling it for $250 a bottle; yikes. Amazingly enough, it sold out faster than it took Musk’s Model S Plaid to reach 200 miles per hour (actually 216 mph). Whether it was for the taste or the chance to make it a collectible, it was gone in a hurry.
But $250 was just the start ($284.99 for a bottle and stand on Amazon). Musk then came out with the Limited Edition 420 Tesla Tequila where, you guessed it, only 420 bottles were produced (they are even uniquely engraved from one through 420). But what made this Limited Edition even more special, hence the $420 price tag, was that it also came with a matching glassware set (weird-shaped glasses) along with two polished metal stands that have a brushed T (for Tesla) logo etched into.
TESLA TEQUILA MAY HAVE BEGUN AS AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE
Those who follow Elon Musk thought, at first, that the man was joking. But they should have learned long ago that when Elon Musk has his sights set on something, he usually sees it through. Right, Twitter?
Back in 2018, the Tesla leader created an April Fools joke when a picture of Musk was posted that showed him passed out next to a Tesla vehicle; the company was going through a very rough financial patch at the time. Musk then joked that his company filed for “Chapter 14 and a half” bankruptcy, teasing they had run out of money and that Musk was soaking his financial ruin with bottles of “Teslaquila” – not quite Tesla Tequila.
Little did Musk know that his “joke” was something that would catch on. Not the bankruptcy part, but the tequila part. Not long after, Musk dove headlong into another business adventure, one that ended up with a showdown between Musk and Mexico.
MUSK WANTED TO CALL IT ‘TESLAQUILA’ BUT WAS PROHIBITED FROM DOING SO
Remember the Alamo. Those famous words have been uttered many a time and they were words Musk could have used a time or two in his battle to have his new tequila called Teslaquila instead of Tesla Tequila. Mexico wasn’t having any of it, though.
It started with Musk’s April Fools joke, then took on a life of its own when Musk went to Twitter again with his “visual approximation” of his Teslaquila bottle. The joke was becoming reality. By October 2018, it became very clear that Elon Musk was quite serious about his new tequila.
He again went to Twitter to exclaim “Teslaquila coming soon…” as he was attempting to trademark the name. But this was eventually a lot more difficult than he thought it would be, leading into Tesla Tequila. The problem Musk ran into in his trademark quest is that “Tequila” is a designation of origin.
What this means to us laypeople is that if you wish to call your drink “tequila,” it has to be produced in Mexico while also following its strict tequila rules. Musk’s attempted use of the word “tequila” was blocked by Mexico’s Tequila Regulatory Council (yes, they have one). According to the Tequila Regulatory Council head, Martín Muñoz, the name Teslaquila could cause confusion about where the drink originated, so they filed their objection.
They said if Musk wanted to include the tequila name, he could but couldn’t change it in any way, shape, or form so as not to dilute the tequila brand. One month later, it was ruled by the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property, that Musk could not call his tequila Teslaquila. It was Musk’s turn for a rebuttal.
He and his team went back to the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property claiming that his drink was just his Tesla brand name with the addition of “quila.” It did little to convince the Mexican regulators, so it was again shot down. Obviously, there are no hard feelings between Musk and Mexico.
Muñoz even came out with a statement via Business Insider saying, “Today the tequila industry has someone as important as Elon Musk representing it. This is, without a doubt, a benefit to all the tequila producers because he is giving his image as an important businessman, and he is showing he wants to comply with the rules of this industry. We welcome Elon Musk and the Tesla tequila brand.”
THE MOST EXPENSIVE TEQUILA
True, Tesla Tequila is a very expensive bottle of tequila. Amazingly enough, even with the boom that tequila has found (it is expected to reach $24.19 billion by 2031), it is not even close to the most expensive bottle of tequila on the market. So, without further ado, we give you a list of the top five most expensive tequila bottles from five to one.
5. Patrón x Guillermo Del Toro Añejo Tequila
It retailed for $399 but is now being sold for up to $5,000 a bottle. Not only does Guillermo Del Toro produces good movies, but he also produces great tequila. Del Toro’s drink hits shelves after aging five years in oak barrels.
4. Patrón En Lalique, Serie 2
Much pricier than Tesla Tequila, $7,500 a bottle. If you are a tequila drinker, then you know the Patrón name. This high price tag comes from Patrón’s collaboration with the luxury French crystal brand Lalique.
3. Clase Azul 15th Anniversary Edition
This bottle will cost you a cool $30,000. You have to be one of the lucky ones to get a bottle of this 15th Anniversary Edition. The reason for this is that there were only 15 bottles of the Clase Azul produced, hence the beyond-hefty price tag.
2. Ley .925 Ultra-Premium
For $225,000 you can get yourself a bottle of this tequila ranked far better than Tesla Tequila. Before Ley obliterated the Guinness Book of World Records with the last item on our tequila list, this bottle held the record. Barrel-aged for six years and poured into pure white gold, platinum, and yellow gold bottle made collectors rush to get their hands on one of these.
1. Tequila Ley .925 Diamante
The price for the most expensive tequila is $3.5 million per bottle, a far cry from Tesla Tequila’s $285 price tag. Yes, that is what you will be paying for one of these and you can even check the Guinness Book of World Records if need be. The liquid inside is 100% select agave that is a premium extra añejo at 42% ABV and has been barrel aged for seven full years.
It could be, though, that it’s the actual bottle where the hefty price tag comes from. Designed by Jose Davalos Mejia, the bottle is five pounds of pure platinum and is equipped with 4,100 white diamonds. Good luck trying to get your hands on a bottle of this as it has been reported that only one bottle of Tequila Ley .925 Diamante has ever been produced.
It kind of puts Tesla Tequila to shame. But still, Musk’s journey into alcohol is proving successful, as people are buying the product up. Maybe next the billionaire will journey into more liquor products like whiskey or vodka.
