‘I wanted to do something different’: Why Danny McBride treats his tequila startup like a movie
Danny McBride knows the question is coming before the interview gets underway. Yes, he acknowledges, the celebrity tequila field is a crowded one, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from entering Don Gato, his recently-launched tequila line, into the fray. McBride, best known for his HBO series’ Eastbound & Down and Vice Principals, and The Righteous Gemstones and movies like Pineapple Express, says tequila is a passion of his. And as he considered launching a brand, he ultimately realized the way to stand out in a crowded market was to basically be himself. So, along with his team of regular creative collaborators, he put together a backstory and journeyed to Guadalajara, Mexico to learn more about tequila and begin work on the marketing campaign. “I was talking to some friends and some collaborators and we started [thinking] ‘what if we approached this like we would any of our shows or movies?’,” he told Fast Company. “[I think of it as] a creative endeavor. We started coming up with what the branding for it would be and what the ad campaign would be and how do we sort of inject what we like to do with movies and television—making stuff that’s left of center, that’s odd, that’s strange, that’s specific, that’s funny and designed to have a good time.” [Photo: Don Gato] The result? A tequila that uses a fictional luchador wrestler as its patron saint, featuring his slightly imposing masked face on the front of the bottle—and a series of videos that are being seeded online to help build consumer interest in the brand. “There were no ad agencies involved, there was no marketing department,” McBride says. “We were those people and we were just down there to kind of create something unique—and fun.” The thinking was that creating a character gave the brand an identity, much like Captain Morgan or Jack Daniels. That let them create a mythology—a silent, mysterious, cat loving former luchador who had retired to become a masterful producer of tequila. It also felt more authentic to something that had McBride’s name attached. “I’m not interested in doing fancy photo shoots in my house where I’m wearing white linen and just like sipping tequila and trying to look beautiful,” says McBride. “I don’t think with the most expensive cameras in the world that’s gonna be possible for me. So, I wanted to do something different.” ‘I didn’t want something that tasted like cupcakes’ It took about 2.5 years from the initial idea of starting a tequila line until it made it to market. And there were plenty of roadblocks along the way. McBride says he had to learn about alcohol distribution, how blue agave is harvested, and various methods for distillation. The more McBride and his team studied, however, the more they realized what they wanted in the brand, which is made without additives. “I didn’t want something that tasted like cupcakes. I wanted something that tasted like tequila,” he says. “One of our goals was let’s just figure out how this can be smooth and achieve that being additive free.” [Photos: Don Gato] Packaging proved to be an education as well, he says. Finding a place that can make a unique bottle at scale was something he “never imagined being a stumbling block.” One of the details that’s unique about Don Gato is its stopper. It’s bright pink, which isn’t a color that’s used in a lot of tequila packaging. That color choice was a deliberate one, says McBride “I had not seen any bottle that looked like that,” he says. “The moment we saw that color pattern, there was just something instinctually that felt like ‘that attracts my attention. That looks fun. That seems interesting.’” Potential challenges ahead The tequila, which is made in Mexico, could be significantly more expensive to import in the coming months if Donald Trump follows through on imposing tariffs against the country. That could make it a bit harder for Don Gato to appeal to its audience as a causal, unpretentious and (most importantly) affordable brand. A bottle of Don Gato’s Blanco tequila costs $40 and a bottle of its Reposado is $45. (It’s available online and in stores in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, with Tennessee and Maryland availability coming soon.) Trump has threatened a 25% tariff on products from Mexico, and Mexico has signaled it would retaliate. That’s not the sort of thing a new business wants hanging over its head, but McBride said he’s not obsessing over it at the moment. “I haven’t thought about it too much,” he says. “I mean, there’s people that are more intelligent in these areas than me, but I think, like every American, we will just have to wait and see what that means and we’ll have to figure out what that is.”
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Danny McBride knows the question is coming before the interview gets underway. Yes, he acknowledges, the celebrity tequila field is a crowded one, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from entering Don Gato, his recently-launched tequila line, into the fray.
McBride, best known for his HBO series’ Eastbound & Down and Vice Principals, and The Righteous Gemstones and movies like Pineapple Express, says tequila is a passion of his. And as he considered launching a brand, he ultimately realized the way to stand out in a crowded market was to basically be himself. So, along with his team of regular creative collaborators, he put together a backstory and journeyed to Guadalajara, Mexico to learn more about tequila and begin work on the marketing campaign.
“I was talking to some friends and some collaborators and we started [thinking] ‘what if we approached this like we would any of our shows or movies?’,” he told Fast Company. “[I think of it as] a creative endeavor. We started coming up with what the branding for it would be and what the ad campaign would be and how do we sort of inject what we like to do with movies and television—making stuff that’s left of center, that’s odd, that’s strange, that’s specific, that’s funny and designed to have a good time.”
The result? A tequila that uses a fictional luchador wrestler as its patron saint, featuring his slightly imposing masked face on the front of the bottle—and a series of videos that are being seeded online to help build consumer interest in the brand.
“There were no ad agencies involved, there was no marketing department,” McBride says. “We were those people and we were just down there to kind of create something unique—and fun.”
The thinking was that creating a character gave the brand an identity, much like Captain Morgan or Jack Daniels. That let them create a mythology—a silent, mysterious, cat loving former luchador who had retired to become a masterful producer of tequila. It also felt more authentic to something that had McBride’s name attached.
“I’m not interested in doing fancy photo shoots in my house where I’m wearing white linen and just like sipping tequila and trying to look beautiful,” says McBride. “I don’t think with the most expensive cameras in the world that’s gonna be possible for me. So, I wanted to do something different.”
‘I didn’t want something that tasted like cupcakes’
It took about 2.5 years from the initial idea of starting a tequila line until it made it to market. And there were plenty of roadblocks along the way. McBride says he had to learn about alcohol distribution, how blue agave is harvested, and various methods for distillation. The more McBride and his team studied, however, the more they realized what they wanted in the brand, which is made without additives.
“I didn’t want something that tasted like cupcakes. I wanted something that tasted like tequila,” he says. “One of our goals was let’s just figure out how this can be smooth and achieve that being additive free.”
Packaging proved to be an education as well, he says. Finding a place that can make a unique bottle at scale was something he “never imagined being a stumbling block.”
One of the details that’s unique about Don Gato is its stopper. It’s bright pink, which isn’t a color that’s used in a lot of tequila packaging. That color choice was a deliberate one, says McBride
“I had not seen any bottle that looked like that,” he says. “The moment we saw that color pattern, there was just something instinctually that felt like ‘that attracts my attention. That looks fun. That seems interesting.’”
Potential challenges ahead
The tequila, which is made in Mexico, could be significantly more expensive to import in the coming months if Donald Trump follows through on imposing tariffs against the country. That could make it a bit harder for Don Gato to appeal to its audience as a causal, unpretentious and (most importantly) affordable brand.
A bottle of Don Gato’s Blanco tequila costs $40 and a bottle of its Reposado is $45. (It’s available online and in stores in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, with Tennessee and Maryland availability coming soon.) Trump has threatened a 25% tariff on products from Mexico, and Mexico has signaled it would retaliate. That’s not the sort of thing a new business wants hanging over its head, but McBride said he’s not obsessing over it at the moment.
“I haven’t thought about it too much,” he says. “I mean, there’s people that are more intelligent in these areas than me, but I think, like every American, we will just have to wait and see what that means and we’ll have to figure out what that is.”
