Patrón Tequila Reimagines Its Bottle Design For the First Time in 36 Years

(Photo: Patrón)

Nearly four decades after hitting the market, Patrón Tequila is reimagining its iconic short-and-stout bottle — without veering too far from the formula.

Last week, the Bacardi-owned brand rolled out a reimagining of its core tequila catalog at liquor stores across the country. From a distance, you’d be forgiven for thinking that nothing had changed. The brand’s Silver, Reposado, Añejo and Cristalino have all retained the bell-shaped silhouette that instantly distinguishes them on the shelves. In the finer details, however, buyers will now find a handful of homages to everything agave and additive-free.

The new bottles are embossed with a patchwork of texture ridges that pay tribute to Blue Weber agave pinas, the processed plants that are chopped, steamed and distilled into tequila. On the front, the brand’s bee logo has expanded into the third dimension, overlaid with a gold finish, alongside an affixed neck collar with filigreed visual cues said to represent Mexican luxury.

Beyond aesthetics, the packaging was designed with environmental responsibility in mind. The bottles reportedly weigh 8% less than their predecessor, theoretically reducing the overall carbon footprint of a brand that has long boasted its sustainability bona fides.

“Each detail of this new bottle and packaging has been crafted to help visually define Patrón and set our tequila apart on the shelf, the way our liquid does inside the bottle,” Patrón Global Senior Vice President Roberto Ramirez remarked in a news release. “The result is a reimagined look that fuses Patrón Tequila’s time-honored craftsmanship with our innovative and dynamic spirit, as we once more craft the future of super-premium plus tequila.”

It’s easy to understand why Patrón didn’t totally reinvent the basics. In an era when decanters are getting taller and more slender by the day (think Don Julio 1942), the appeal of a sturdy, recognizable bottle is at once nostalgic and oddly utilitarian. Patrón may not be the only brand to run with the idea, but it’s arguably the one that has made it most famous. Fun fact: co-founder John Paul DeJoria was inspired to launch Patrón after his colleague returned from Mexico with a beautiful hand-blown glass bottle. The recipe, as good as it might be, technically came second.

That recipe also warranted a special shoutout in the redesign. The side of each bottle is now affixed with Master Distiller David Rodriguez’s signature alongside the statement, “Handcrafted with Agave, Water and Time.” It’s a quiet nod to a controversy that’s dominated much of the tequila headlines over the past couple of years.

A long-unwinding battle between regulators and third-party watchdogs has resulted in a de facto ban on additive-free tequila — or, at least, brands that label or market themselves as additive-free. Patrón took a stand against the censorship last February with its “no secret ingredients” marketing campaign. Plastered onto billboards and truck wraps in New York, New Jersey and Illinois, the brand featured slogans like “No Sweeteners. No Extracts. No Secrets” and “Agave. Water. Time. Or What We Call Good Tequila.” Regulators responded with a four-day export ban, lifted only after  Bacardi scrubbed all mentions of “additive-free” from the Patrón website.

The drama still rages on. The brand recently unveiled a campaign that quite literally censored the offending language in oversized black rectangles. In place of “additive-free,” the brand is now using phrases like “Agave, Water and Time” to prod consumers into doing their own research.