18 months after its launch in the U.S., Cierto Tequila is poised to win its 1,000th award this fall. Park Street University sat down with Jim Ruane, Chief Growth Officer of Cierto Tequila, to discuss the luxury-priced, additive-free brand’s rise to popularity in such a short time.
Ruane–who brings a wealth of expertise to the table having spent a decade with Diageo working on iconic brands such as Bulleit, Crown Royal, Ciroc, and DeLeón Tequila–highlights the brand’s commitment to authenticity, partnership with meticulous master distillers, and its focus on educating consumers about the benefits of additive-free tequila.
He also discusses the evolving demand for additive-free tequila and the future of the category. The interview provides insights into Cierto’s strategy, the challenges facing the additive-free tequila sector, and how the brand is reshaping consumer expectations.
Our Interview with Jim Ruane of Cierto Tequila
Tell us about Cierto Tequila
Everything you need to know is right there in the name, Cierto translates to “True” in Spanish. So True Tequila is the brand concept and true is the cornerstone of everything we do: no additives, no artifice, no marketing fluff. Everything that we say is rooted in facts, testimonials, reviews, and ratings.
Elevated Spirits is the owner and producer of Cierto Tequila. Our employee base is very focused on sales, education, and marketing because we know how critical it is to be in front of consumers.
We ended 2023 with Cierto as the number-one-selling new ultra-premium plus tequila in the marketplace as well as the number-one new additive-free tequila, according to Nielsen. We take that as a testament to the efforts of our team and the quality of our product as well as the competitive white space that we’ve identified around this intersection of luxury and additive-free.
From a geographic footprint, Cierto is available mostly nationwide; our primary distributor, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, carries us across their 40-plus state footprint. Cierto does have a few focus markets, we spend the lion’s share of our effort in the top tequila markets as well as the top luxury markets. You can expect to find us in Florida, Texas, California, and New York primarily with efforts in Nevada, Illinois, Colorado, and Arizona to round out our top eight.
We stand on the strength of our tequila, the quality of our liquid, the integrity of our distillers, and ultimately all of those choices from agave to distillation to maturation to blending, add up to what has become the most awarded tequila in history. And that’s an accomplishment of which we’re incredibly proud. We’re about to achieve 1,000 awards in September and we’ll surely celebrate. We take those awards as validation from the world’s top experts that they are down with the true tequila movement, too. Cierto Tequila launched in early 2023 and it’s been an incredible 18-month journey.
How do taste profiles differ between additive-free and conventional tequilas?
We encounter this question often when we speak to consumers. The difference between tequila that does contain additives and additive-free true tequila is as much about what it does taste like as what it doesn’t taste like.
Ultimately tequila as a product of the incredible agave plant should be a pure expression of agave. So an additive-free tequila should first and foremost be agave forward. You should be able to taste and discern the terroir of the particular agave crop that was used to make that particular batch of tequila. It’s going to be clean, pure, and will taste natural. When you taste an additive-free tequila side by side with the tequila that does contain additives, which include glycerin, artificial sweeteners, artificial colors, and artificial aromas, you’re picking up on syrupiness, stickiness, an overwhelming vanilla note, and even notes like, cupcake batter or frosting, things that just do not exist within the chemical structure of the agave plant.
We did a wonderful seminar with the founders of Tequila Matchmaker who do a side-by-side taste test with additive-free tequila versus tequila that has additives and it was to a well-trained palette really easy to pick up the difference between the two. We learned some really surprising facts and one of them that’s stuck with me the most was that some of the more popular tequilas that contain additives have as much or more sugar-based sweeteners than Diet Coke does. It’s stark when you taste a tequila with additives and one that does not have additives and what we found is that it is an eye-opening experience.
How does Cierto Tequila differentiate itself from other additive-free options?
We’ve identified a white space between luxury tequilas and additive-free tequilas. When you think about the popular luxury brands, none of them are additive-free and when we look at the collection of additive-free brands that are doing wonderful things to the marketplace, there isn’t an option for the luxury consumer who is looking for an elevated presentation and a refined elegant flavor profile. The whole idea behind Cierto is that we differentiate by occupying that intersection in a way that no other brand can.
Cierto’s flavor profile is designed to be as approachable and accessible as possible, which stands in contrast to some other additive-free tequila brands which have a wonderful but rustic flavor profile that isn’t for everybody. So, when we position Cierto in the marketplace we’re looking at luxury leading bars and restaurants, we’re looking at next-level experiences, and we’re looking at fine dining culinary pairings. We think that Cierto should be on the back bar of every fine-dining, luxury-leading, trend-leading, mixology account, hotel, casino, and country club in America. That’s the audience that we’re targeting and that’s not common to many of the other additive-free brands.
How has the demand for additive-free tequila evolved in recent years?
Additive-free right now, it’s a rising tide phenomenon. We’re seeing a growing number of additive-free brands, but we’re also seeing that the tequila category is starting to reshape itself based on the consumer demand for transparency, authenticity, and pure agave flavor profiles.
Two years ago when we first started this Cierto journey and first started presenting it to customers we’d walk into a bar or store, the first question we got was “Who’s the celebrity behind the brand?” and now it’s “Are you confirmed additive-free?” That’s a big shift and one that I take as a sign that the additive-free narrative has seeped into the right account universe.
You also see it at events. I haven’t been to a trade event in the past year that hasn’t had some form of additive-free tequila education. You also start to see how this previously niche narrative moves more into the mainstream. So whether it’s mainstream news coverage with the Wall Street Journal and Forbes covering additive-free tequila, to the social media influencers who are driving the conversation because their audience of mass consumers trust what they have to say.
When you look at the numbers, and we look at Nielsen, you see how the demand for additive-free tequila is driving the category forward. It’s a category that’s reshaping to meet consumer demand. It’s growing this subset of additive-free brands, which is just over 120 Brands. It’s growing ten times faster than the broader tequila category. 18 of the 20 fastest-growing tequila brands are additive-free. Additive-free tequila brands are driving 12 times the velocity of their non-additive-free counterparts at retail. So you see all of these sale signals that are coming across the register that are validating. Tequila overall is up. It’s a healthy vibrant category with a ton of runway, but your old-guard luxury brands, the top five luxury brands, celebrity tequila brands, are down. So I think the growth of the tequila category is this small but increasingly mighty subset of additive-free brands and for us, that’s exciting.
Who is the additive-free tequila consumer?
We often say that an educated consumer is our best consumer. So it tends to be your spirits-literate connoisseurs, ones who are social media savvy, drinkers who are focused on making healthy choices in their lives, and ones who are advocating for ingredient transparency.
We’re seeing a lot of consumers come in from wine and whiskey, primarily because there’s a familiarity around the concepts of barrel maturation, terroir, etc. We’re seeing women drive a lot of the growth in tequila and additive-free tequila. About 54% of tequila drinkers are women but women are the primary drivers of growth in this category and they over-index on all of those psychographic and motivational factors.
Lastly, you see a premium consumer. The price point for additive-free tequilas is generally elevated versus ones that do contain additives and you see that in the household income data, or at least the premium spirits purchasing behavior of consumers.
How do you see the additive-free tequila market evolving in the next 2-3 years?
We expect that the growth trends and demand will continue. The underlying growth drivers for the category are strong. People are eating and drinking better, and they’re more educated every day about what they’re eating and drinking. We’re finding that additive-free tequilas are bringing consumers from outside tequila because there’s this wonderful element of discovery. It’s a whole subset of brands and a world that up until a couple of years ago wasn’t at the forefront of consumers’ consciousness.
So all of those trends support continued growth for the category and there’s plenty of runway in the US where additive-free tequilas are only carried by about a third of US retailers. Also internationally, you think of all the great dining and drinking cultures around the world who have yet to discover well-made, additive-free tequila, something like 85% of all tequila globally is consumed in the US and Mexico, so tons of runway internationally.
We ultimately see that additive-free tequila has the potential to be the next 100% agave and that it becomes the sort of quality default for any new tequila brand that comes into the category. But with this growth you expect competition to intensify and that’s great because it’s a wonderful collective of brands who all offer something different and we are confident that Cierto has a differentiated enough proposition to attract enough consumers for us to have a vibrant and viable business.
The Additive Free Alliance recently reestablished itself as a non-profit and essentially broadened their certification protocols, to allow for more brands to apply for certification. What was previously a very intensive in-person process at every distillery is now entirely lab-based. So what that does is it just allows more brands who are made in an additive-free way but have not been able to allow access to the distillery or schedule time with the Alliance. They can now participate and qualify if indeed the lab tests come back that they’re additive-free. So what that will do and we’re already seeing it, it’s going to increase the number of certifiably additive-free brands and it’s going to underscore the importance of differentiation, underscore the importance of having some experience in this space, and it’s going to enhance the importance of creating more of an experience for the consumer. So, continued growth but vastly intensified competition.
What are the biggest obstacles to growth in the additive-free tequila market?
Not enough people know about additive-free tequila, not enough people know that 95% of the tequilas on the marketplace are suspected to contain additives and frankly not enough consumers when presented with the information in a straightforward factual matter understand what to do with it. So the onus is on brands to make that additive-free message digestible, fun, interesting, engaging, and associated with really delicious tequila-drinking experiences. Rather than sell, we educate and so we have a force of ambassadors and educators in all of our important markets whose primary job it is to train the staff of bars and stores so, that when we are not there to talk to a consumer about additive-free tequila, that we have advocates for the movement who can do so on our behalf.
The bigger hurdle is it’s honestly difficult to make great-tasting additive-free tequila at scale. Most of the larger players just aren’t equipped, they’re not buying agave that’s fully mature, which takes 7-10 years. Most suppliers are harvesting many years younger than that. The distillation and cooking equipment aren’t in place at these distilleries to make great-tasting additive-free tequila and you can’t make that change overnight. These are intensive capital Investments and you can’t just turn on the spigot and all of a sudden you’ve got additive-free tequila. So, it could be a 10, 20-year changeover for some of the larger-scale players. So, we think that the potential is to create the next 100% agave revolution, but those who are already making their tequila additive-free have an advantage because we are going to be the brands that are training and educating and earning the consumer’s love and loyalty long before the larger suppliers can make tequila in this way.
What’s Cierto Tequila’s greatest strategic decision to date?
We’re so proud of our Awards. The 2024 Spirit of the Year is the latest in what’s been just a litany of incredible praise that Cierto has gotten from the world’s leading connoisseurs and experts. I’d be lying if I said it was our first Spirit of the Year award. Cierto has won Spirit of the Year, Tequila of the Year, Best in Class, and Distiller of the Year, 10 times. We’re always humbled to receive the accolades, but we’re never surprised because our tequila is so well made and so delicious. The awards are just the validation from those top experts that true tequila is the best-tasting tequila.
So, when you ask about the best strategic decision, I go back to the start of Cierto and the decision from a product perspective to work with our Master distillers Enrique Fonseca and Sergio Mendoza of La Tequileña Distillery, they’re our master distillers, but they’re also 4th and 5th generation agaveros (agave farmers) whose families have been tending their lands in the Jalisco Highlands for nearly 200 years. It makes a difference to have the individuals responsible for the production also intimately familiar with the raw ingredient, agave, and have not only deep knowledge but respect for the plant and the land by their family custodianship for nearly two centuries. So they see themselves as stewards of the next four to five generations and they practice sustainable farming, they rotate their crops, they compost the pencas in the field, and they do everything they can not to break the chain of natural harmony. Every single choice they make is rooted in patience, time, respect for the land, and ultimately the pure expression of the agave plant. They are pioneers. They’re leading voices within the additive-free tequila movement. They’ve become close friends. So when I think about strategic decisions, I can’t imagine Cierto without Enrique and Sergio as they’re foundational to everything we do.
When it comes to business strategy and marketing, one of the best decisions we’ve made is to simply allow the liquid to speak for itself. Our tequila has been advocated for by the growing legion of tequila-focused social media content creators who have high standards when it comes to taste, production, and the additive-free nature of tequila. They’ve been some of our biggest advocates, folks like Tequila Jay Baer, Agave Social Club Podcast, The Tequila Wanderer, or Tequila Collective. We’ve trusted the judges and experts, we’ve trusted spirits writers, and ultimately a hundred percent of our marketing is fact-based, everything we say is a review, a rating, a testimonial. Our tagline “The Most Awarded Tequila in History” is just a statement of fact. I think that decision has resulted in authentic adoption from consumers who trust the brand because they trust the people who are talking about the brand.
What’s next for Cierto Tequila?
As a small brand and one that is having a lot of success in the marketplace, there’s always the temptation to think ahead to “what’s next, what’s new, what’s different” and it’s always remembering that first and foremost most consumers don’t know Cierto or what we’re all about. So we treat every day like it’s launch day. We treat every conversation like it’s the first conversation we’ve had with a buyer or a consumer about Cierto and leaning into that always-launching mentality allows us just to stay focused on the message and it allows us to stay continually re-energized by the experience of discovery, that eye-opening moment that we have when we introduce Cierto to a new audience.
We’re also in the process of rolling out our Reserve collection, four very highly limited tequila expressions: a blanco, a reposado, an añejo, and an extra añejo, which are all about showcasing this amazing treasure trove of aged tequilas that our master distillers have at their private family tequila library. It’s the oldest and rarest collection of aged tequila in the world.
And then lastly, it’s getting ready for the holidays. Gifting has become an increasingly important occasion for luxury tequila stealing share from wine and whiskey as top gifted spirits. We have some really fun giftable offerings, including our Ultimate VIP gift set, which is a James Bond-inspired Pelican case with four of our Tequila bottles. But also creating next-level experiences during the holidays as people get together, gathering and looking for moments to celebrate with one another.
More Interviews From Park Street University
Check Out Our Other Spotlight Series Here
Listen to Our Podcast Interviews with Industry Professionals
Sign Up For the Park Street Daily Newsletter for the Latest Industry Updates