Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
This series wasn’t especially kind to Sammy Hagar two weeks ago. Sure, his Beach Bar rum was a fine mixing spirit, but his branded canned cocktails were a throwback to 2015’s drinking scene — and not in a good way. Fortunately, the high-pitched pitchman gets a chance at redemption with the liquor he does best: tequila.
The man who birthed Cabo Wabo into the world is back in the agave game, teamed with Guy Fieri to bring us Santo — a line of spirits that covers both tequila and a curious blend called “mezquila” (Adam Levine is somehow involved as well, but we don’t talk about America’s Chad Kroeger here, not after that Super Bowl halftime show). I already talked about how much I liked their reposado, but today we’re gonna dig into Santo’s other offerings — and compare them to another fairly new (at least to me) tequila.
Camarena pitches itself as an old school, highly awarded liquor at a bargain price. Where a fifth of Santo reposado clocks in at $46 at my local Total Wine, Camarena only costs $23 for a full liter. I happened to have both on hand and, as a relative tequila neophyte, I decided to stack them up and see who came out ahead.
Let’s do some reviews.