Toby Keith, Mezcal Endorsement Pioneer

Keith says he fell in love with mezcal when he was on the road and would cross the Mexican border Rick Diamond/Wireimage/Getty Images; Judith Collins/Alamy

By Kent Black

I’ve been hit with wine; I’ve been hit with vodka, hit with tequila, and I’ve been hit with whiskey,” says country music star Toby Keith of the various liquor endorsement opportunities that have come his way. “All the whiskey’s already spoken for?…?and everyone’s got a vodka, and one of my buddies does tequila.?…?[But] there was no one doing mezcal.”

There’s no doubting Keith’s horse sense. In the six months since he released Wild Shot, it has become the best-selling premium mezcal in the U.S. Shot and a Beer, Keith’s business venture, has sold 10,000 Wild Shot cases this year, says Vincent Viola, Keith’s partner in the company and its president. The pair hope to sell 100,000 cases a year by 2015. Keith has the advantage of being able to sell the hooch at his 11 I Love This Bar & Grill franchises, several of which are affiliated with Caesars/Harrah’s casinos.

While celebrity liquor ambassadors are nothing new, more and more stars are becoming actively involved in the enterprise they promote (at least according to the press releases). Marilyn Manson, an absinthe aficionado, worked for months with his partner testing recipes before coming up with Mansinthe. Rapper Ludacris reportedly studied cognac production in France to perfect his own brand, Conjure. But one gets the sense that for Keith, the appeal of mezcal lies more in its rising sales than in its distinctive smokiness. Although he frequently rhapsodizes about alcohol—“Whiskey for my men/ Beer for my horses,” he sings in his No. 1 country hit, a duet with Willie Nelson—mezcal figures in none of his recordings. In concerts he occasionally changes the lyrics to “mezcal for my horses,” but never does he sing about its being fit for human consumption.

Yet the Oklahoma entertainer says he fell in love with mezcal more than 25 years ago, when he was on the road and would cross the border into Mexico. Keith’s fond memories of mezcal triggered a light-bulb moment when he read about the spirit’s growing popularity in a magazine article.

Several artisanal mezcals such as Del Maguey, Los Amantes, Ilegal, and Los Nahuales have been winning awards and critical praise. In 2010 at the prestigious San Francisco World Spirits Competition, Del Maguey was judged Distiller of the Year in a field of 1,106 spirits from 61 countries. All liquor in Mexico made from the maguey, or agave, plant is mezcal. Tequila is a type of mezcal. By law, tequila may be made only from blue agave; mezcal is distilled from two dozen other varieties.

Keith admits his research into the category wasn’t extensive, other than determining that it was underexploited. “I didn’t go down there,” he says. “They just sent me the bottles.” Viola provided Keith with several from Mexican distillers before the songwriter decided on La Perla. Keith isn’t certain of La Perla’s location. “I want to say [the distiller is] in the eastern part of Guadalajara.” (Close. It is in San Luis Potosi, just a hundred or so miles northeast.)

The marketing material on Wild Shot claims it is made from 100 percent green agave. “All good mezcals are made from green agave,” Keith says. Del Maguey’s founder, Ron Cooper, who lives half the year near Tlacolula, Oaxaca—Mexico’s mezcal capital—says flatly, “There is no such thing as green agave.” The most commonly used agave in the state of San Luis Potosi is Maguey salmiana, which is sometimes referred to as maguey verde, though rarely is it the sole ingredient in mezcal. The term “green agave,” however, appears to exist only in the vernacular of marketers, playing off the better-known blue agave that tequila is made from. Viola confirms this, but claims, “Anyone involved in the production of mezcal, when talking to gringos, refers to the maguey as green agave.”

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