After years of flying high, celebrity tequila braces for impact

Matthew and Camila McConaughey’s tequila, Pantalones, is anything but subtle. After all, the husband and wife cofounders stand proudly pantsless in many of their ads as a cheeky away to promote the nearly two-year-old brand.

It’s tough out there to be a tequila maker — not even Kendall Jenner is immune from the industry’s challenges. 818 Tequila, the four-year-old brand owned by Jenner, has slowed down hiring and dialed back spending on some of its marketing efforts, a troubling sign for the industry that has experienced seemingly stratospheric growth and garnered celebrity attention for the past several years. “We’ve observed a pull-back on discretionary spending and an increase in what we view as more deliberate purchases,” Mike Novy, CEO of 818 Tequila, told CNN, adding that the company is focusing on its core lineup of tequilas to give customers the “best possible price.” This year is turning into quite a headache not only for 818 Tequila, but for the whole industry. Tequila sits at a “critical juncture,” according to a recent report from OhBev, an alcohol marketing agency, with “signs of market normalization” following a decade of extraordinary gains. Consumers already aren’t spending as much on tequila compared to the height of Covid-19 when people stocked up their at-home bar setups, which has prompted a wave of layoffs. Plus years of excessive demand have sparked an oversupply of agave — the main ingredient in tequila — causing prices to sharply decline as inventory goes unsold, damaging profits for farmers.