If you wanted to go search online to find the best tequila brands from Mexico, it should be an easy job, right? See which ones get picked the most and then you’ll be set.

tequila cierto best tequila brands

Unfortunately, as I’ve learned after researching this subject for many years, there’s almost no agreement from article to article, from competition to competition. In some ways this is to be expected. There are hundreds of tequila brands, maybe 1,000 now, all made from the same blue agave plant. Each has three or four general categories within each brand, then you have offshoots of those like bleached-out aged tequila that’s a new fad.

You often see almost completely different brands on a Mexican shelf than you do in the United States, plus the U.S. liquor distribution system is almost as wacky and illogical as its electoral college primary and election system we use to decide on a president.

Then you have the motivation issues behind the scenes. Liquor distributor awards are about what sells, magazines seem to always sneak in a brand or two from a company that is advertising with them, which looks suspicious. Among individual reviewers (including me), you can’t eliminate personal taste bias. My favorite bourbon or beer won’t be the same as yours, so how do I say what is a great tequila, or which is the best tequila?

The most respected competition out there in the spirits world, however, is the World Spirits Competition taking place each year in San Francisco. It gets the most entries, has the most respected and experienced judges, and conducts blind tastings that eliminate any past assumptions from the mix. If a spirit gets marked as gold by every judge, which is rare, then it gets the designation as Double Gold.

This article on the best tequila from Mexico was updated in 2023.

Recent Best Tequila Winners

I put up the first version of this article last decade and naturally there have been changes each year in who wins. Some high-end tequila brands seem to keep standing out from the pack year after year, whereas other ones have a nice showing once and then disappear.

The San Francisco Spirits competition has changed how it announces winners several times and they don’t seem to pick a “best in show” winner anymore for each category. So we have to just look at who scored a Double Gold and then who scored a Gold to see who ranked the highest with the judges in their blind tastings. I’m always amazed though at how many of these brands I’ve never heard of before, even though I live in Mexico, I drink tequila a fair bit, and I’m a spirits reviewer. Many of these bottles I’ve never even seen in a bar or on a shelf.

Since these tastings take place in the USA, assume that all are 40% alcohol and these are sample U.S. retail prices. The price of tequila is significantly lower in Mexico if the brand is available there and the spirit is usually bottled at 38% alcohol instead. Sometimes the bottles are 700ml instead of 750 and you’ll usually have at least 50 choices in a sizable Mexican supermarket. If you’re stuck buying something at Oxxo, go for frequent award winners Don Julio, Don Ramon, Campo Azul, or Herradura.

Use this as a guide for which top-shelf tequila brands are truly worth the money and which ones you might want to experiment with.

Best Silver/Blanco Tequila (Unaged)

I tend to mostly drink blanco/silver tequila in cocktails and since there is clear tequila in the glass, those cocktails can look prettier. But some prefer it over the aged ones even to drink neat because you get the true agave flavor with no oak in the mix. You could say it’s the purest form and the one where there’s no way to cover up imperfections.

All of the following blanco (unaged) tequila brands scored a “Double Gold” in the competition.

tequila lanaAcre Largo Tequila Acre Largo Blanco – $45

Baluarte Tequila Blanco – $45

Cava De Oro Gran Cava De Oro Blanco Tahona Cosecha 2021 El Arenal – $60

Cierto Tequila Reserve Collection Blanco – $90

Lana Tequila Blanco – $80

Próspero Blanco Tequila – $33

Regalo Ancestral Tequila Blanco – $33

Tequila Ocho Plata – $49

Best Reposado Tequila

Reposado is the best-selling category of tequila and offers a bit of smoothing out in the barrel aging for sipping, yet it is versatile enough to mix in cocktails too where you want the tequila taste to keep shining through. Most of the sipping tequila consumed in Mexico itself is this version and top-selling brands like Cazadores, El Jimador, and Herradura fall under this category.

Which are the true top-shelf tequila brands in this category? You can feel secure buying any of these or ordering them in a bar.

Cierto Tequila Private Collection Reposado – $120

El Tequileño “The Sassenach Select” – $120

Hotel California Tequila Reposado Tequila – $47

Tequila Campo Azul Selecto Reposado – $38

Tequila Ocho Reposado – $57

Search tequila prices online here

I’ll talk more in a minute about how taste and price have little to do with each other, but I need to stop here and give a special shout-out to Tequila Campo Azul Selecto Reposado above. Why? Because you can buy it in any Walmart within Mexico for around $15. Take that you $150 no-show Casa Dragones!

Many of these have a quirky story. One of the best silver tequilas is kosher? Who would have guessed that? Próspero Tequila has a female master distiller. El Tequileño “The Sassenach Select” is aged in two different kinds of oak barrels. Yes, the Hotel California brand is owned by the people who own the hotel of that name in Todos Santos.

Best Añejo Tequila Choices

Añejo tequila is more complex and refined than the others, usually aged for years in oak barrels that held bourbon before. Some versions are still kind of pale, like Don Julio, but most are darker and served after dinner like a cognac or fine whiskey. Here are the Double Gold winners for 2023.

Baluarte Tequila Añejo  – $62

Black Sheep Tequila Añejo – $110

Casa Don Ramón Tequila Platinium Cristalino Añejo – $65

Clementina Añejo – difficult to find in the USA

best tequila brands - Clementina

Dos Armadillos Tequila Añejo – $95

Dos Primos Anejo – $57

Hotel California Tequila Añejo – $49

Tequila De La Gente T

Tequila De La Gente D

There’s no price for Tequila de la Gente above because it’s a crowd-sourced tequila brand that’s only available (for now) in boxed tasting kits of four 200ml bottles ($109 plus shipping). We assume after they get out of the funding stage that this will change.

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The Don Ramon Double Gold above is notable as that’s one of those Frankenstein tequilas I was mentioning earlier where all the color has been removed. Apparently that one didn’t suffer in the lab process.

Top Extra Añejo Tequila

If a tequila is aged in barrels for more than two years, it’s usually classified as Extra Añejo, a classification that has been around less than two decades. Some think that’s too much of a good thing and complain that the agave is overwhelmed by the oak, but if done right these top-shelf tequila bottles are a thing of wonder.

These “special occasion” bottles usually cost the most due to the additional time and effort, plus since they’re sipping bottles meant to be savored for a long time, these tend to be the ones with the most elaborate bottles, ideal for gift-giving. Be advised that there’s a lot of misplaced hype in this category though. One brand we will leave unnamed charges $1,600 a bottle but has never gotten better than a silver award that we’ve seen and several others that were more than $300 didn’t even place.

You will have to pay the big bucks for one brand that scored the only two Double Gold medals this year though: The Cierto Private Collection, from the Los Altos highlands of Jalisco, lists for $279. The even fancier winner, the Reserve Collection one, goes for $389. It seems they have a right to brag and say it’s worth it, according to their website:

The most awarded tequila in history – 762 international medals and awards.

Well okay then!

Cierto Tequila Private Collection Extra Anejo – $279

Cierto Tequila Reserve Collection Extra Anejo – $389

Notable Gold Medal Tequila Winners

In that last category above, there were only two Double Gold winners, but there were two others that scored a gold: Black Sheep Tequila and Corazón de Agave.

In the regular Añejo category, there were a lot more Gold winners. These included one of our favorites, Don Julio 1942. Plus in a blind taste test, color doesn’t matter and the judges apparently liked the taste of Don Julio 70 Añejo Tequila Cristalino. Herradura Legend also got a Gold.

Other winners that are less famous were Cantera Negra, D’Reyes Reserva, El Sativo Organic, Kah, Lobos 1707, Nosotros, Patsch, Próspero, Riazul, Skorpios 1618, Tequila Ocho, and Vuelo del Aviador.

In the Reposado category, Gold winners were from Cierto, Cutwater, Heroe De Leon, Ignite, Kah, Osadia, Riazul, Soul Mate, Herradura, Kateri, and Tequila Ocho.

We were glad to see Tequila Jaja show up again as a winner in the Blanco category since the name makes us laugh. One of these days we need to find a bottle so we’ll have a smile on our face while sipping. (There is a celebrity connection with this one though: The Chainsmokers.)

tequila jaja chainsmokers

Other Gold winners in that style were 24K, Batanga, Cutwater, Dos Armadillos, Mundo, and Tequila ArteNOM Selección.

Best Tequila Brands by Number of Awards

We detailed all the Double Gold and Gold winners in this prestigious blind tasting competition for 2023, but who scored the most medals overall if you add in the Silver and Bronze awards?

Well we put Cierto at the top of this post and called them out later because they are clearly the kings of tequila when it comes to overall wins. If you’re looking for a sure thing and you’re not too concerned about the price, find Cierto in your favorite style and buy it. If you need to impress a client, you can’t go wrong with that one. As they do in most years, Cierto cleaned up this year with 8 medals to add to their collection.

Here’s who else is doing a good job by scoring medals in multiple categories. Walk past that Patron display and pick up one of these instead.

Anteel (4)

Black Sheep (4)

Campo Azul (4)

Cantera Negra (4)

Casa Don Ramon (4)

Cenote (4)

Corrido (3)

De La Gente (4)

Don Julio (3)

Dos Armadillos (3)

Doña Jimena (3)

D’Reyes Reserva (3)

1120 (3)

Herradura (3)

Hotel California (3)

Insolito (3)

JaJa (3)

Kah (5)

Lobos 1707 (4)

Mi Familia (4)

Milagro (3)

Ocho (4)

Osadia (3)

Por La Gente (3)

Prospero (3)

Regalo Ancestral (3)

Riazul (3)

There are a few lessons in all these high-quality tequila blind tasting winners.

1) Price is generally a bad indication of quality when it comes to 100% blue agave tequila. You might get better stuff spending $50 than you do spending $250–though there are a few winners this year that sell for more than $200. They’re in the minority though.

Search tequila prices at Drizly

Aged tequila will cost more than clear unaged tequila, of course, but compare apples to apples and there are obvious outliers. Those average retail prices in the USA among the winners are quite reasonable, especially compared to the showy bottles you often see touted as worth a huge premium. (Hint, they’re usually not. You’re paying for the packaging.)

2) Don’t assume that celebrity tequila brands are any better than regular brands, the same way endorsers don’t make for better cereal or energy drinks. If that tequila is promoted by a reality TV star, it’s probably a contrary indicator instead.

3) Don’t dismiss a brand just because you’ve never heard of it. Most of the major brands that are 100% agave are at least decent—many regularly win silver or bronze in these competitions—but if you take a chance on one you’ve never heard of you might get a very nice surprise and find one of the best sipping tequilas on the shelf.

Since some reports are showing that tequila has become the #1 spirit in the USA, outselling vodka, expect more tequila brands you’ve never heard of to hit the market in coming years. Just remember that some Mexican distilleries are making multiple brands in one facility under contract, so these tasting competitions are a good way to separate quality from marketing hype.

Happy hunting!

This article on the best tequila from Mexico was updated in 2023.