A Question of Taste: Cristalino Tequila

This isn’t a court of law—it’s the spirits world, where judgment is constant and consensus is rare.

A Question of Taste is where we embrace the grey area, putting today’s most divisive drinks topics under the microscope. No definitive verdicts. No right answers. Just two well-informed sides, a splash of bias, and the freedom to disagree.

This edition’s topic of conversation is Cristalino Tequila.

Is it a gateway to premium sipping or just tequila with all the good bits filtered out? For every fan of its polish, there’s a critic mourning what got stripped away and we’re here for both takes.

Our experts were assigned a side of the question to argue, however, this is not necessarily their personal stance on the subject; rather it’s meant to spark thought and conversation.

Pro-Cristalino

Commentary by Eric Zandona

While cristalino tequilas are sometimes derided as unserious, uninteresting, and nothing more than a marketing gag, they have helped open the world of tequila to a brand-new group of consumers. In 2008, Cuervo released the first cristalino tequila called Maestro Dobel Diamante because Juan Beckmann, CEO of Cuervo, believed that there was a group of drinkers who would enjoy the smoothness and flavours that come from well-aged tequila but prefer the look and presentation of clear spirits. Almost two decades later the market has proved him right. Cristalinos are the most popular style of tequila in Mexico and is one of the fastest growing categories of tequila in the US.

There is a marketing axiom that consumers buy with their eyes and cristalinos are a great example of this. Consumers hold a variety of beliefs about liquor based on its colour. Some believe that clear spirits and brown spirits shouldn’t be drunk in the same evening or that brown spirits are more likely to make them sleepy or that clear spirits allow them to feel less tired as they revel with their friends at the bar or club. And while these beliefs have no basis in fact, these sorts of ideas persist. Cristalinos are meeting the consumer where they are at, and removing a barrier (colour) that some had to enjoying aged tequilas. My own brother is a perfect example of this. He generally doesn’t drink brown spirits but he recently found a cristalino that he really enjoyed. He didn’t know the technical details, all he knew was it was clear, it was smooth, easy to drink and he liked the flavour. The simple act of filtering out the colour opened him up to trying it. And while it may seem silly that the colour of a spirit should hold so much weight on someone’s drinking preference, there are plenty of examples of this in whisk(e)y world as well.

The things people value varies widely and cristalinos fill a niche that was open for opportunity. For some consumers a crystal-clear spirit in an elegant bottle is the height of luxury. And 10 or 20 years ago this niche was filled almost exclusively by ultra premium vodka.

Cristalinos have been able to leverage this consumer perception of luxury to draw people into the world of tequila. Unaged tequilas sometimes have a reputation of being inelegant so they did not fit the bill. But with cristalinos, they can naturally bring a more rounded profile and barrel flavours that many people enjoy while giving a growing number of consumers the aesthetic they’re looking for. And for that, I say cristalino tequila is a smooth innovation.

Anti-Cristalino

Commentary by David T. Smith

Whilst I am, first and foremost, an advocate of a consumer having the freedom to drink what they want, when it comes to cristalinos, I can't help but wonder, what’s the point?

I’m a big fan of blanco tequila: it’s the best expression of the art of distillation, the nuances of the raw material, and it is always my go-to agave spirit. There are great examples of aged tequilas, but all too often I’ve had a lovely agave spirit overwhelmed by sweet vanilla and oak from the maturation process.

Cristalinos take an aged product, already a step away from the purity of distillation, and then filter out the colour and the flavour. Presumably, so that someone can drink what now tastes like an agave-based vodka (easy to drink), but with the cachet (and price premium) of drinking a reposado or añejo. That comes awfully close to showing off.

The only other spirit category that dabbles in such convolution is rum, but if we want to look for an example of sanity when it comes to the expected colour of a spirit, the in-fighting within the rum community on that front does not seem like a good place to look to!

The process has also been tried a couple of times within the world of Scotch, with the last being with J&B -6°C in 2006. The whisky was filtered at -6°C (21.2F), which removed a lot of the colour and flavour of the spirit. Strangely enough, it didn’t do well and was quickly discontinued.

Why spend time and effort to put flavour into a spirit just to use an additional process (and costs) to take it out again? If you want a tequila that has a pure, crystal-clear appearance, buy a blanco!