Drink What George Clooney Drinks

If it works even a little bit isn’t it worth it?

Celebrity-backed liquor companies should be by definition a dicey proposition. I mean if you were in Ghostbusters why shouldn’t you be great at making vodka? But weirdly we’re smack in the middle of a something of a renaissance of famous people making pretty respectable booze. There’s the aforementioned Dan Aykroyd’s good, if too expensive, Crystal Head Vodka. Brad and Angelina’s quite good rose, Chateau Miraval. Even Sammy Hagar, erstwhile Van Halen frontman makes a pretty good, if goofily-named tequila in Cabo Wabo. But there’s celebrities and then there’s Clooney. Like Hagar, he’s a tequila man, but unlike Hagar, he’s George Clooney (here pairing with Rande Gerber and Michael Meldman).At $70 the Casamigos Reposado comes in slightly below the gold standard—Patron Reposado at $79—and a fair bit above the everyday workhorse—Cazadores at $33 and to my taste it’s solidly better than both. It has a noticeable sweetness that purists may find off-putting, but it has a lovely soft mouthfeel that is a welcome reprieve from even sipping tequila’s latent harshness.It takes a fair bit of vanilla from the oak-aging, and I can see purists finding it too quaffable, (tequila wouldn’t be tequila if it was as easy to drink as Southern Comfort) but it’s definitely one of the more refined tequilas on the market here. If you like more edges drink Mezcal. But if you want smooth and easy, like Danny Ocean, then you’ve found your match.