Montaukila Is Putting Substance Over Celebrity

Here’s something you already know, but probably don’t think too hard about when you’re ordering a margarita: Big-name tequilas aren’t worth your dollar just because celebrities shill for them. In fact, the founder of Montaukila would like you to know that his locally owned tequila is proudly celebrity-free, and is a better, more authentic spirit because of it.

Yet, for a complex set of reasons, East Hampton-born Simon Cascante is still getting “boxed out” of the local market by the deluge of celebrity-backed tequila brands that have launched over the last five years. If you think it’s just that famous actor riding his bicycle and saluting his farm-working friends, think again.

Professional athletes, action-movie heroes, and (because why not?) people famous for simply being famous, among others of more or less renown, have all swooped in for their piece of the multi-billion-dollar tequila market.

And while the craze is undoubtedly real and seemingly here to stay, it’s important to note that many new tequila labels have relied solely on the pre-packaged stardom of their benefactors to launch these brands to the masses.

Popular social media influence, along with the limitless financial resources these brands possess, gets them front and center on cocktail menus often without having to break a sweat, and usually at the expense of historically significant brands, family farms and small-batch distillers who are feeling the crunch of having to survive in the shadow of these new-money, mass-produced behemoths.

Montaukila, a small-batch product made in Jalisco, Mexico, runs locally on the power of the 31-year-old Cascante’s one-man operation. He does not have the budget to pay for so-called “activation fees” — essentially payments made to the bar or restaurant by the distributor to promote the product on their menus — that larger competitors have no qualms shelling out. Nor does Cascante necessarily want to get into that side of the business.

For him, Montaukila’s marketing strategy “has always been successful in a vacuum,” he says, and continues to do well in “liquid-to-lips” consumer evaluations, like tastings and on-site marketing events.

His strategy is built on a pretty sound pitch: His tequila is authentically made and additive-free, community-oriented and sustainably-minded, and locally owned — and that locality happens to be Montauk, a brand in and of itself.

Ideally, that triangulation should have been enough to put Montaukilia on the map with its more celebrity-forward competition, especially given the home-town advantage and Cascante’s focus on honoring the traditional Mexican distillation process in personally crafting the flavor of his tequila.

Yet, it has been hard to reach a wider audience, even in his product’s namesake Montauk.

“It just seems like retailers don’t like to engage with local spirit brands specifically because of the amount of money they’re getting from these larger companies,” says Cascante over the phone as he looks to find homes for Montaukila for the 2023 summer season. Recently, he says he’s seen “activation fees” to place relatively new, celebrity-endorsed brands rise into the six and seven figures. And then there is the problem of large distributors, like British company Diageo, which represents several well-known brands, that he says “will pay for exclusivity.”

In spite of the uphill battle for recognition, he says the four-year-old brand shines when he gets Montaukila in front of people, and that the reception from a quality and taste perspective has been overwhelmingly positive. Plus, popular Montauk restaurants like Moby’s and TT’s, among a handful of others, are currently both promoting and carrying his product.

And through it all, he’s committed to sustainability — his bottles are made of recycled glass — and charitable causes, including donating the entirety of his merchandise sales to oceanic conservation.

“Of course I want to highlight the things we do to stand out in the sea of sameness that we see right now with celebrity-endorsed brands,” says Cascante, who also doubles as a manager at the famous Lobster Roll restaurant on the way to The End. “It’s been difficult, even though there’s so much to support here all in one brand.”

This year, to counter his competitors’ built-in head start, he has tried a new approach. He’s been going door-to-door, representing his brand and eschewing traditional distribution avenues, to find bars and restaurants willing to work with him to promote and sell Montaukila alongside bigger competitors.

“I’ve been personally going into accounts with the angle in mind of, ‘Look, I get the financial component.’ My biggest sell right now is I’m not going to tell you to turn down any amount of money, but balance it back out and take on some local brands.”

There are signs that celebrity fatigue is setting in among high-end spirits consumers. For one thing, there is growing sophistication about authenticity, and cultural appreciation for a product like tequila is much harder to fake or imitate.

Proof of this was the significant online backlash against one particular new tequila-brand owner who hardly even pretended to know the cultural significance of the product they were selling. And in the same way it took time for the American public to get educated about wine and winemaking, the local market is slowly coming up to speed with the nuances of tequila-making, which precipitates making better choices surrounding taste and flavor and provenance.

Some mass-market brands, says Cascante, don’t even taste like tequila, and have sugar added to compensate for their off-flavor taste. He says he’s also heard people say they don’t like one particular celebrity-endorsed brand anymore because they use stabilizers to overcome the current agave shortage in Mexico, which is leading to the glut of additive-enhanced and watered down products flooding the tequila market.

“From a product quality standpoint, from a consumer reception standpoint, we’re top dog,” says Cascante. “People say, ‘I think I like Montaukila better than my favorite tequila,’ and that happens constantly.”

For more info, visit montaukila.com