REVIEW – Casamigos Blanco Tequila – Agave Spirits+ Journey

NOM 1609 – The overwhelming aroma on the nose is of sweet, artificially flavored vanilla cake batter that stampedes over everything else. Upon opening the bottle, the smell reminded me of plastic. On subsequent nosing, there are hints of cooked agave & cinnamon, but they’re fleeting and are quickly overpowered by that cake batter aroma. There is also a very strong, unpleasant aroma hit of alcohol. The cake batter aroma isn’t unpleasant if it was coming from, well, a cake. But it is strange coming from a blanco. The artificial vanilla gets even stronger after the glass is empty.

On the palate, Casamigos blanco is initially sweet, almost cloyingly so, with a taste that mirrors artificial, sweet vanilla cake/cookie batter or candy aroma with perhaps a hint of caramel, the latter being weird for a blanco. There is a strong alcohol punch on the finish, more reminiscent of alcohol rather than pepper, though I can see how some could equate it to black pepper when trying to figure out how to describe it.

Bottom line up front, it’s unpleasant and clashes confusingly with the opening artificial vanilla sweetness. There may be very slight hints of cooked agave, but very distant and muted. There is also some bitterness on the short finish. The artificial vanilla aroma stays in the glass long after all the liquid is gone. Artificial vanilla dominates the nose & the palate.

The mouthfeel is thin. At over $50 for a 750 ml bottle, this is expensive for what it is, losing points on value.