Clase Azul and Patrón Alumni Join Forces on First-of-its-Kind ‘Luxury’ Blended Tequila

(Photo: Blended Blue)

The co-founder of Clase Azul and the former master blender at Patrón have unveiled a joint tequila venture built exclusively around blended age statements.

Blended Blue is officially launching this month in California with its inaugural release, subtitled Maravilla, which comprises an añejo aged for 13 months mixed with a reposado matured for two months. The 40%-ABV bottle costs a cool $135, and offers flavors of coffee, chocolate, butter, grapes and slight bitterness owing to its use of ex-red wine barrels, according to the brand.

Whether or not consumers know it when they grab a bottle off the shelf, the brand combines expertise from two of the most culturally relevant tequila distillers of the 21st century. Master blender Alberto Orozco worked at Patrón from 2006 until the brand’s acquisition by Bacardi in 2018. CEO Charles Durazo, meanwhile, co-founded Clase Azul — famous for its ultra-collectible, club-friendly decanters — alongside Arturo Lomelí in 1997.

“The current luxury Tequila segment is quite crowded and requires new brands to have a reason to exist. The reason can’t be that the Tequila segment is booming,” Durazo told The Spirits Business. “Brands that don’t have a compelling reason to exist will be swallowed up by the roughly 1,200 Tequila brands currently on shelves in the US.”

Blended spirits are unusual, though not unprecedented, in the agave spirits world. One of our favorite tequilas from 2024, Alma del Jaguar Añejo, used a three-part blend of spirits aged in American and French oak. Volcan de Mi Tierra X.A, the flagship high-end tequila offering from spirits giant LVMH, does much the same with its $180 mix of reposado, añejo and extra añejo reserves.

Blended Blue can’t claim to be the first luxury blend on the market, though it’s apparently the first US-facing brand to specialize exclusively in the technique.

Like most spirits, a tequila can only be referred to by the youngest age statement in its blend, meaning that Maravilla is technically labeled as a reposado. Explaining the difference between a reposado and a blended reposado will likely be half the battle for Blended Blue, which appears to be positioning itself as the new ultra-premium contender in a already crowded market.