Casamigos

The label was launched in 2013,[5] by the American actor George Clooney, nightlife entrepreneur Rande Gerber, and property developer Mike Meldman.[1][2] The name Casamigos comes from the Spanish casa (house) and amigos (friends), thus "house of friends."[3]

Friends Gerber and Clooney were building vacation homes next to each other in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, sampling tequilas together for months, and Clooney suggested they simply make their own tequila.[6] Bringing in Meldman, they commissioned a distillery in Jalisco, Mexico to make them a tequila that "tasted great and didn't burn going down," among other qualities such as little hangover and ability to drink straight or with ice. After ordering "a thousand bottles a year" from the distillery to sample for two years, they were asked by the distillery to get a business license to continue to order the liquor. According to CNBC, the company was indeed only intended as a private collection of tequila for the co-founders and their associates, with no intent of taking the company public.[6]

In June 2017, the world's largest spirits manufacturer, the British multinational Diageo, which has stated that Casamigos is the "fastest-growing super-premium tequila brand in the US,"[1][3] purchased the company for $700 million plus up to a further $300 million based on the brand's performance over the coming decade.[4] Forbes reported that the three co-founders put in $600,000 each as initial investment, and each stand to get up to $333 million if the full $1 billion sale price is realized.[2] The purchase, according to The Wall Street Journal, equated to Diageo paying almost $500 a bottle.[5]