Collectors have long battled over Bordeaux, whisky, and Cognac. Now, a record-breaking Clase Azul sale suggests tequila could be the next spirit to argue over at the auction house.
Tequila has spent the past decade going from dorm room party staple to status symbol. As it has climbed the ranks to be the beverage of choice in bars and our own shopping carts, its sights have been set on another corner of the drinks world: the auction house.
Collectors have long chased rare Bordeaux, coveted whiskies, and vintage Cognacs, with six- or even seven-figure sales becoming almost commonplace beneath the hammer. Now, it’s a bottle of Clase Azul Día de Muertos Limited Edition, released in 2017, that has become the most expensive tequila ever sold at auction, fetching $35,000.
The sale, which was part of Sotheby’s Whisky & Whiskey Single Cask Summer online auction, eclipses the previous auction record of $24,265 for a José Cuervo Rolling Stones Edition 250th Anniversary Extra Añejo. It also marks a significant milestone for a category that, until recently, barely registered in the secondary market.
“Tequila and mezcal have seen huge growth in recent years, and anecdotally I have noticed many whiskey drinkers in America turning to agave spirits. However, tequila’s secondary market activity is very much in its infancy,” said Sotheby’s global head of spirits, Jonny Fowle, in a statement. “This is the first big result for one of the industry’s most iconic brands, Clase Azul, which could mark the dawn of a new boom for collectible tequila.”
See also: The Most Expensive Whisky Ever Sold at Auction
Luxury brands can assign almost any price tag to a limited-edition release (in some cases without it even needing to sell), but an auction reveals exactly what a collector is actually willing to pay. And while the sale still falls well short of the $3.5m price tag attached to the diamond-encrusted Tequila Ley .925 Diamante bottle, it does come out on top as the highest price asked for any Clase Azul bottle, surpassing the retail price of the 15th Anniversary Edition of $30,000.
Buoyed by celebrity-backed brands and an increasing appreciation for artisanal production, premium tequila has surged in popularity over the last few years. And to give credit where credit is due, Clase Azul has likely played a part in that. The Mexican house has found a fan base as much for its hand-painted, addictively collectible ceramic decanters as for the liquid inside them. The record-setting bottle, one of just 300 produced for Día de Muertos and originally only sold in the brand’s Cabo San Lucas store for around $250, is exactly the kind of scarce, beautifully made object that collectors covet.
Agave spirits still have a far way to go before they break the records set by bottles of wine (a 1945 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti sold for $812,500 in March), Scotch (The Emerald Isle sold for $2.8m in 2024) or Cognac (Gautier Cognac 1762 sold for $150,700 in 2020), so whether agave spirits can eventually rival the established auction markets remains to be seen. But given that in the US, spirits have overtaken wine by market share, with tequila proving one of the category’s fastest-growing premium segments, it may just be a matter of time before they become the next bottle worth bidding for.
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