What do Zsa Zsa Gabor, Matthew McConaughey, and the Rock have in frequent, except for the truth that every is an ideal reply within the “celeb dinner visitor” debate? All three, to varied extents, have shilled for booze.
Alcohol endorsement offers are a profitable facet hustle for celebrities, who grace commercials, journal ads, and Instagram posts within the identify of a paycheck and a stiff drink. Texas stars have gripped the bottle with each palms, partnering with distilleries, taking over artistic director duties, and even creating manufacturers from the bottom up. (None, maybe, has gone as far as George Strait, who has a single and a music video centered on the stuff.)
Whereas many people stay on hiatus from visiting our favourite bartenders in individual, why not let a beloved celeb Texan assist inventory your bar? Whether or not you need to really feel like McConaughey himself is pouring you a drink or faux you’re at a pool get together with Travis Scott, this checklist of celebrity-backed spirits has one thing to supply. We even spoke with just a few stars about how they acquired concerned within the enterprise—and, simply in case you wanted a reminder to drink your tequila whereas listening to ZZ Prime at eardrum-shattering ranges, we additionally included every celeb’s very best drink pairings.
ZZ Prime’s Billy Gibbons
Bottle: Pura Vida Tequila and Luckenbach Street Whiskey
Function: Investor
“We name [our friendship] ‘magnificence in a bottle,’” says Billy Gibbons, lead vocalist and guitarist of ZZ Prime, of his relationship with Pura Vida Tequila founder Stewart Skloss. The pair have been shut for twenty years, nevertheless it wasn’t till 2015 that Gibbons turned a prime investor within the Houston model.
“[Skloss] mentioned, ‘You and I are going to get within the tequila enterprise,’ and I form of chuckled. I mentioned, ‘Stewart, I turned my again on tequila once I was in my twenties as a result of it turned its again on me.’” Then he tasted the drink. “This isn’t the tequila I bear in mind from dragging up out of the grime,” he recollects saying. (Pura Vida’s triple distillation course of most likely has one thing to do with that.)
In 2022, Gibbons and Skloss will conquer one other nook of the bar with Luckenbach Street Whiskey, a spirit born from the pair’s new Hill Nation distillery. The property additionally will comprise a barbecue restaurant, luxurious lodge, and Gibbons’s state-of-the-art recording studio, the place visitor musicians can guide a session. ZZ Prime superfans, get your livers prepared.
Pair it with: “The quick and loud catalog of ZZ Prime songs all qualify,” says Gibbons. “Quick as a result of we need to get again to pouring one other, and loud as a result of we are able to take the message of Pura Vida’s excellence all over the place. It’s that good.”
Matthew McConaughey
Bottle: Wild Turkey Longbranch bourbon
Roles: Cocreator, Longbranch; artistic director, Wild Turkey
Matthew McConaughey has been concerned with Wild Turkey since 2016, and he’s introduced a sure McConaughey-ness—there’s no different phrase for it—to the model.
McConaughey met the Russells, the daddy and son grasp distillers behind the model, on his first journey to the Lawrenceburg, Kentucky distillery. “Because the day I met the Russell household, I knew that the end result of our partnership could be a bourbon that bore my identify,” McConaughey says.
He spent two years working with distiller Eddie Russell to create Longbranch, a uncommon small-batch Kentucky straight bourbon refined with Texas mesquite. “We tinkered with greater than thirty samples till I discovered the correct juice,” McConaughey says. The consequence, which launched in 2018, has been successful with bourbon drinkers and the person himself. “I can proudly say that Longbranch is my favourite bourbon on the planet,” he says.
“Bourbon is a affected person man’s sport,” he provides. “You’ve acquired to attend a few years for the juice you place right down to age correctly in that Kentucky local weather. Our Longbranch is an eight-year-old Kentucky straight, so the juice I’ll be consuming this yr was laid down within the warehouse again in 2013. That actually makes you consider time and the previous notion that some issues are definitely worth the wait.”
Pair it with: McConaughey has starred in additional than forty characteristic movies, however we are able to’t assist however elevate our glass of Longbranch to one in every of his aughts-era rom-coms, notably The best way to Lose a Man in 10 Days. Romance and bourbon are greatest served neat.
Jon Wolfe
Bottle: Juan Lobo Tequila
Function: Founder and proprietor
Based on Austin-based nation music star Jon Wolfe, Juan Lobo began with a nickname. “My followers in South Texas affectionately gave me the nickname Juan Lobo, which is my identify in Spanish,” he says. “I at all times thought it will be an important identify for a model of some type sometime, however I didn’t understand it to be a tequila model.”
In honor of the affectionate moniker, Wolfe determined to go looking for an ideal tequila that paid homage to Mexican traditions. “Over time, I turned captivated with one hundred pc blue agave sipping tequilas,” he says. “For me, it began with journeys to Guadalajara, Arandas, and Tequila, studying quite a bit in regards to the course of, the distilleries, and the business.”
Although Wolfe has employed business specialists to spearhead aspects of the enterprise akin to importing, customs, and distribution, he performs an energetic position in branding and advertising technique. I really like the authenticity of the tequila and the way our customers are having fun with the tequila out of the deserves of the tequila itself,” he says, “and never essentially due to my involvement within the model.”
Pair it with: Wolfe recommends slowly sipping your reposado to “Play Me One thing I Can Drink To,” “Some Ol’ Bar within the 90s,” and “Boots on a Dance Flooring.” He additionally teases {that a} new album is on the way in which with the “final tequila consuming music.”
Travis Scott
Bottle: Cacti Agave Spiked Seltzer
Function: Founder
Releasing his personal spiked seltzer is amongst a protracted checklist of achievements for rapper, producer, and songwriter Travis Scott through the years—and even simply in 2020, a yr throughout which he served because the face for a McDonald’s meal and collaborated on a candle with the scent of “outer house.” Scott, a giant tequila fan, labored with Anheuser-Busch to develop a tequila-spiked seltzer model that launches this spring.
Cacti can have a 7 p.c ABV and will likely be accessible in three flavors: lime, pineapple, and strawberry. The drink is brewed in Los Angeles with blue agave from Mexico, however since Scott’s a Houston native, we’re claiming it for Texas. The drinks will likely be accessible in twelve-ounce cans offered in a nine-count selection pack in addition to sixteen- and twenty-five-ounce singles in lime and pineapple.
Pair it with: Each Cacti and Scott’s fourth album, Utopia, are as but unreleased, and we are able to solely hope they go collectively in addition to atmospheric vapor and darkish nebulae—two perfume notes of the aforementioned infamous candle.
George Strait
Bottle: Código 1530 tequila
Function: Investor
When you’re a George Strait fan, likelihood is you’ve already seen the agave fields, distillery, and barrels the place Código 1530 tequila is made, as a result of the singer used all of it within the backdrop of the music video for his half nation single, half industrial jingle of the identical identify. The nation music legend invested in Código 1530 greater than three years in the past, and promptly wrote a music in regards to the model, which he launched as the primary single off his album Honky Tonk Time Machine.
At first, Strait and his companions bought the tequila by the barrel from a small family-owned distillery in Amatitán within the lowlands of Los Bajos, Mexico. Finally, they determined to purchase the whole operation outright and work with the household to provide tequila on a grander scale. Código options 5 expressions of tequila: blanco, reposado, rosa, añejo, and origen.
Pair it with: The eponymous music, because it’s the “Greatest tequila, child, don’t / Just a little sip and also you’re able to roll.”
