Celebrity spirits has become a side gig for plenty of musicians from Bob Dylan to Sammy Hagar, as well as actors such as George Clooney and athletes including LeBron James.
Country music star Thomas Rhett has only been in the game for a few years, but he and cousin Jeff Worn already have delivered some hits.
The duo started Dos Primos Tequila Blanco in 2019 and brought the first tequila, a blanco, to market in 2021. Since then they released Dos Primos Reposado in 2022 and added Dos Primos Añejo ($56-$59) to their lineup in March. Each of the tequilas won awards at last month’s 2023 San Francisco World Spirit Competition, with the añejo earning a coveted double gold medal.
““I can’t explain it, but there’s a certain feeling I get when I write a song that really connects with me. I had the same feeling when I tasted our añejo for the first time,” Rhett told USA TODAY in an email statement. “When we started this journey, we didn’t want to make an ordinary tequila – we wanted to make something great – and I knew we had something special on our hands. Taking home Double Gold at San Francisco is an honor and I’m so glad people are enjoying it as much as we are.”
These accomplishments are timely as tequila has become the spirit of the summer.
Customers may have tried Dos Primos because it had Rhett’s star power – he’s a one-time Entertainer of the Year with 20 No. 1 hits – but it’s become, “I’m buying this tequila because this is my new go-to,” Rhett, 33, told USA TODAY in an interview recently. “That was our whole goal all along, not for it to be a celebrity (tequila).”
“At first we wanted people to drink it because it reminded them, ‘Oh, that’s TR and Jeff’s tequila,’ but now it’s become kind of a household staple,” Rhett said. “Our ultimate goal was for it to be shared with friends and family.”
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Dos Primos: Two cousins team up for tequila
The award-winning tequila brand started out as a crazy idea on a ski lift where “Thomas googled what ‘two cousins’ was in Spanish,” said Worn, 38, who is also the co-owner of South Georgia Pecan Co., in Valdosta, Georgia.
“We come from a big family and have always just been real close,” Worn said. “As we grew up and had families and got busy we really started having more conversations about what we could do together.”
Both of them “really liked tequila a lot,” Worn said. After they had the name Dos Primos, “it really kind of snowballed from there in terms of us figuring out what we liked and how that’s made,” he said.
Dos Primos is distilled at Destiladora Gonzalez Lux, in west-central Mexico about 120 miles from the city named Tequila, in the highlands of Jalisco. “Great care and attention have gone into crafting Dos Primos Tequila, with each variant bringing its own unique flavor and richness to the palate,” said Rodolfo Gonzalez, a third-generation master distiller at Destiladora Gonzalez Lux, who worked with Rhett and Worn on the tequilas, in a statement.
“I joke with Thomas Rhett about when we go down to Mexico and we see what these people do … in creating this product, it’s unbelievable,” Worn said. “It’s a craft and I mean all the way down to picking the agave that we want to bring out of the field and turn into this wonderful stuff. It’s just agave and water. … There’s a true work of art that goes into making this.”
In fine-tuning the character of Dos Primos tequilas, they wanted a “more sweet, more bold flavor” like a whiskey, without the vanilla aroma many tequilas have, Worn said.
“Me and Jeff are both neat drinkers, whether it’s bourbon or tequila,” Rhett said. “Even when I’m on the road, I hardly ever mix our tequila. It’s always either neat or with one ice cube and, like, an orange peel.”
Even though cocktail mixing at home has become big – another effect of the COVID-19 pandemic – Rhett would recommend tasting the añejo straight.
“Obviously people can mix, they can do whatever they want with it, but we wanted to make an añjeo that was so smooth, (with) the full bodied agave taste as well. It’s just smooth, man,” Rhett said. “Don’t be afraid to drink it straight.”
Rhett is currently on his Home Team Tour 23 and Dos Primos is giving fans a chance to win a trip to a show.
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