Sweetens Cove Bourbon — Peyton Manning/Andy Roddick
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As we go through this onslaught of celebrity spirits, you will see a lot of lowest common denominator offerings. Factory-sourced products bottled at meager proofs, often with added sweeteners and flavorings to make the spirits even more palatable to neophytes. Not from Sweetens Cove, whose most recent limited offering includes three cask-strength Tennessee bourbons, carefully blended by Marianne Eaves, a bourbon industry A-lister in her own right. The product is admittedly overpriced (around $200 a bottle) and I kinda suspect QB1 doesn’t really even drink whiskey (wasn’t he a Bud man?), but you have to admire his willingness to talk to guys like me and act like he does.
Taste: 9 (out of 10)
Star power: 9 (out of 10)
Shamelessness: 2 (out of ∞)
Singani 63 — Steven Soderbergh
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Now that every celebrity seems to be issued their own spirits brand immediately after getting their SAG card, you start to admire Soderbergh more and more. This is a celebrity who used his money and power, not to make a fast buck on fancily packaged tequila or bourbon, but by trying to turn America onto this strange grape distillate he fell in love with while shooting Che in Bolivia in 2007. His attempts haven’t completely worked, but the great auteur hasn’t given up, doing countless mixology Zooms during the pandemic. Minor demerits for Soderbergh really only being a celebrity to film school geeks and singani being an alcohol category virtually no one cares about.
Taste: 7
Star power: 4
Shamelessness: 0
Aviation Gin — Ryan Reynolds
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The celebrity who best understands how to have a celebrity spirit: Get out of the way of the production team and use your star power to skewer the fact that you don’t really know what you’re talking about and simply like to drink alcohol. That playbook allowed Reynolds to purchase a chunk of this already-established brand in 2018, shoot a few truly funny commercials (who can forget the viral Peloton spoof?), and cash out for a reported $610 million, all in just three years. Reynolds still appears as a spokesperson for one of the greatest success stories of this niche.
Taste: 7
Star power: 9
Shamelessness: 1
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4Lagavulin Offerman Edition Single Malt — Nick Offerman
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This is a bit of a cheat—Diageo made the burly comic actor a “brand ambassador” for this legendary Islay single malt—but his face and name are on the damn bottle too, so I guess it counts. This year saw Offerman’s second collaboration with Lagavulin, an 11-year-old single malt intriguingly finished in Guinness casks.
Taste: 9
Star power: 6
Shamelessness: 2
Código 1530 Tequila — George Strait
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I’ll just say it. From this point on we are going to see a lot of tequilas owned by non-Mexican dudes and ladies. But this is the best of the bunch, and probably the least shamelessly appropriative, too. The Texas country legend has been warbling about drinking tequila since at least 1981, and his full line of well-regarded products stretches as high-end as the $290 Origen, a 6-year-old extra añejo aged in Napa Cabernet barrels and redolent of a fine scotch or cognac.
Taste: 8
Star power: 6
Shamelessness: 1
Teremana Tequila — Dwayne Johnson
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The Rock’s tequila is one of the greatest booze brand launches of recent times, celebrity or not. The liquid is solid and additive-free, and while I don’t think Johnson drinks a whole lot of it (he once claimed a single post-workout shot per day), I do think he legitimately likes drinking tequila. He’s likewise done an incredible job of relentlessly promoting the product, all without it feeling too sales-y. Ignore the rampant health claims on the bottle, however—all tequila is gluten-free, and pounding frozen margaritas will never render you fit to star in Black Adam.
Taste: 6
Star power: 10
Shamelessness: 1
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7Cincoro Tequila — Michael Jordan
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When you are able to casually sip on your own $1,800 celebrity spirit while cackling through interviews for a ten-hour, critically acclaimed documentary about your awesome life and basketball career, well, I think that definitely makes you the 🐐.
Taste: 7
Star power: 10
Shamelessness: 2
Wild Turkey Longbranch Bourbon — Matthew McConaughey
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The bourbon world may have snickered when McConaughey was named Wild Turkey’s “creative director,” but his involvement in this uniquely Texas take on the “Kickin’ Chicken” (8-year-old Wild Turkey is “refined” with Lone Star state mesquite charcoal) has been a boffo boost to the heritage brand.
Taste: 8
Star power: 9
Shamelessness: 3
Santo Fino — Sammy Hagar/Guy Fieri & Sammy’s Beach Bar Rum — Sammy Hagar
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The OG celebrity with a spirit, the Red Rocker essentially wrote the playbook for how to launch a boldfaced booze brand when he brought Cabo Wabo to market in the late-1990s: Source the liquid from someone who actually knows how to make it, market it like hell, and cash out when the first beverage powerhouse comes calling (Hagar sold Cabo Wabo to Gruppo Campari for a reported $100 million in 2010). Today, Hagar hawks Santo Fino (with an assist from the Mayor of Flavortown) along with Sammy’s Beach Bar Rum, and even though he’s rich AF and in his 70s, you can still see his passion for spirits. He’s shameless in his own way, sure—one of Santo Fino’s products is the world’s only “mezquila”—but there’s no denying he actually loves what he pushes.
Taste: 6
Star power: 6
Shamelessness: “I can’t drive 55.”
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10Catoctin Creek Ragnarök Rye — GWAR
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In one of the only celebrity spirits releases that ever truly surprised me, this summer the famed shock rockers teamed up with this well-regarded Virginia craft distillery for a limited run rye. Bottles were topped with cast-metal corks featuring each of the five members of GWAR, and they sold out quickly.
Taste: 6
Star power: 3
Shamelessness: 1
BLACKENED American Whiskey — Metallica
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One of the more gimmicky celebrity spirits—the brand claims the whiskey is aged using a “BLACK NOISE™ sonic-enhancement process,” meaning, Metallica’s music is literally blasted at the resting barrels—is topped off by the fact that band frontman James Hetfield is a recovering alcoholic. And yet, the all-caps BLACKENED has a legit master distiller and blender on board (Rob Dietrich, formerly of Stranahan’s), who is bottling some truly excellent liquid.
Taste: 8
Star power: 8
Shamelessness: 12-step program
Lobos Tequila — LeBron James
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13Heaven’s Door Whiskey — Bob Dylan
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This is one of the better-tasting celebrity spirits lines out there (whether the brand’s bourbon, rye, Tennessee whiskey, or certainly more high-end Master Blenders' release), and it’s connected to one of the most iconic celebrity spirits endorsers. Yet, it’s hard to really admire the celebrity spirit in question when it seems possible the celebrity isn’t even aware he’s associated with it. (As far as I can tell, Dylan has never once given an interview regarding Heaven’s Door.)
Taste: 8
Star power: 10
Shamelessness: 10
SelvaRey Rum — Bruno Mars
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This line of Panamanian rum is surprisingly good, specifically the chocolate-flavored Cacao offering and the Owner’s Reserve Rum.
Taste: 7
Star power: 8
Shamelessness: 5
Tres Papalote Mezcal — Cheech Marin
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The rare celebrity mezcal, and the even rarer celebrity agave spirit actually owned by someone of Mexican descent.
Taste: 6
Star power: 4
Shamelessness: 1
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16Dos Hombres Mezcal — Bryan Cranston/Aaron Paul
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We all love the Breaking Bad guys, don’t we? And maybe that’s why we’ve all given a pass to this fairly marginal mezcal pushed by the two fun-loving white hombres.
Taste: 6
Star power: 7
Shamelessness: 8
Crystal Head Vodka — Dan Aykroyd
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One of two legendary Saturday Night Live stars with their own vodka, this is the guy you’d be less excited to drink with. Though Aykroyd’s vodka, distilled from corn, filtered through Herkimer diamonds, and bottled in an iconic glass skull, is indeed better (and he, indeed, works hard to sell it).
Taste: 6
Star power: 4
Shamelessness: 3
DIGITS Bourbon — Scottie Pippen
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The third member of the Chicago Bulls dynasty to launch a celebrity spirit—who can forget Dennis Rodman’s short-lived Bad Boy Vodka?—you have to admire that the six-time NBA champion teamed up with a legit craft distillery (Savage & Cooke in Vallejo, California) and seems pretty hands-on, literally putting his own digits on the bottle.
Taste: 6
Star power: 7
Shamelessness: 2
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19D’USSÉ Cognac — Jay-Z
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The legendary rap impresario no longer really appears in any marketing materials for this well-priced, Bacardi-owned VSOP cognac in an ostentatious bottle. But he seems to still be making bank.
Taste: 6
Star power: 10
Shamelessness: 2
Indoggo Gin — Snoop Dogg
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One of only two celebrity gins (along with Aviation) comes from the man who surely wrote the most famous song about gin (and juice). This “laid-back California style” gin is infused with strawberry flavor, though it’s surprisingly restrained.
Taste: 5
Star power: 9
Shamelessness: 4
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