Vanity spirit brands are a dime a dozen these days — especially when it comes to tequila brands. There’s a long list of celebrity liquor companies, but tequila alone has George Clooney’s Casamigos, the John Varavatos and Nick Jonas-fronted Villa One, and Dos Hombres from Breaking Bad stars Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston. So when an already crowded vanity space got more competition last year with the introduction of Cincoro Tequila (founded by a quintet of NBA owners including Jeanie Buss of the Lakers, Wes Edens of the Milwaukee Bucks, Celtics owners Emilia Fazzalari & Wyc Grousback and one Michael Jordan) it seemed easy to write the entire venture off as a just another novelty — albeit one fronted by the greatest NBA player of all time.
In this case, looks can be deceiving, as a deeper dive into the story, design, taste and reviews of Cincoro shows the group did their research accordingly. Last year, this liquor won big at the New York International Spirits Competition.
Named for the quintet (“Cinco”) and gold standard (oro for gold), Cincoro came from a journey the owners took to Jalisco, Mexico where they sampled all kinds of options before settling on Destiladora del Valle de Tequila. The bottle, designed by Mark Smith of Nike fame, is five-sided (cinco, get it?) and is meant to evoke an agave leaf. It’s also titled 23 degrees — because of course it is — in honor of MJ himself. The result is a really striking design — but that’s nothing if the spirit inside isn’t tasty.