Casamigos Blanco

You can tell a lot about a person by what's in their glass. Sometimes it says, I appreciate true craftsmanship. And sometimes it says, I will definitely try to explain cryptocurrency to you at this party. I'm Tim Fulton, and this is Character Proof.

Every episode we pour a different whiskey, break down the actual tasting notes, and then vividly imagine the exact type of person who drinks it on purpose. So grab a glass, pull up a chair, and get ready for some tasting notes, and a whole lot of character flaws.

Let's get pouring. Casamigos Blanco is a perfectly pleasant tequila, wearing a very famous friendship. The origin story is genuinely charming. George Clooney and Rande Gerber wanted a house tequila for their neighboring places in Cabo,

made one, drank an enormous amount of it, and eventually sold the brand to Diageo for up to a billion dollars. And the liquid is engineered to match the story. Agave roasted low and slow, an unusually long fermentation, and a profile that goes

down like a hammock. The nose is soft vanilla and gentle citrus over mild agave. The palate is round and notably sweet, vanilla again, a little mint, cooked agave in the background where most Blancos put it out front, and the finish is short, silky, and conflict free.

Purists call it tequila for people who don't like tequila, and there's something to that. It is smoothness as a mission statement. But nobody pours it for the mission statement. They pour it for the friendship.

And no one pours more of it, for that exact reason, than Rick Sabatino, who has been on a first name basis with George Clooney for nine years without George's knowledge or consent. Rick is 49, owns a mid-sized insurance agency, and organizes the annual Scottsdale Golf Trip with the logistical rigor of a lunar mission.

The Casamigos travels with him. Rick brings his own bottle to a resort, which the resort loves, and it enters conversation within the first nine holes, always through the same door. You know George still drinks this every day.

Not Clooney, George. Rick says George, with the relaxed authority of a man who has been to the house in Cabo, which he has not, and follows it with the sale price, billion, with a B, delivered as though Rick himself had advised on the deal.

He knows the origin story the way Murph knows Michael Collins. It is possible Rick knows it better than George does at this point, because George has been allowed to forget details, and Rick has not. He refers to the rest of the celebrity tequila shelf with gentle pity.

The Rock's brand, Kendall's brand, the way a first wife regards the later ones. They're fine, but they weren't there at the beginning, and Rick, in his own telling, was there at the beginning. Here's the mechanism, and it's almost elegant.

Rick is not buying tequila. He's buying adjacency. Every pour is a tiny screening of a movie in which Rick and George are friends. The kind of friends who don't need to talk, which is convenient, because they never have.

The bottle does the talking. It says relaxed. It says successful. It says Cabo.

It says this could be us, to four insurance guys on a patio in Scottsdale. And the genius of the brand, the actual billion dollar insight, is that the tequila's smoothness never interrupts the movie. Nothing about the liquid demands attention.

It is a beverage designed to let you keep talking about George. And Rick's version of the movie has sequels. The Casamigos appears at his fourth of July party, his daughter's graduation, the agency's Christmas thing, always presented, never just poured.

The label angled out the way Sloane angles her bells. And every appearance comes with the same warm, worn liner notes. His wife can recite them. His foursome can recite them.

There's a guy at the agency who does a Rick impression, and the impression is just the phrase, billion with a B. And Rick has seen the impression. And Rick loves the impression.

He owns the hat. He owns the golf towel. He entered a sweepstakes to visit the distillery in Jalisco, and speaks about not winning it the way other men speak about a narrow miss with the draft, solemnly, and with

the sense that his life bifurcated there. And here's the affectionate part, because there's always one. The parasocial friendship is ridiculous. But look at what Rick built with it.

The golf trip is 19 years running. The foursome has survived two bypasses, a divorce and a bankruptcy. And it was Rick, organizer, pourer, keeper of the group text, who held it together through all three.

One smooth, conflict-free, pour at a time. George made a tequila about friendship and sold it for a billion dollars. Rick bought it and actually ran the friendship at retail for two decades, which makes him either the mark of the century or the only person who used the product as directed.

So pour it, Rick. You know George still drinks it every day. So do you. That's the whole point.

The famous man made a drink for his friends. And somewhere in Scottsdale, a man nobody's heard of keeps making friends for the drink. And honestly, of the two of them, we're no longer sure who got the better deal. Well the glass is empty and the verdict is officially in.

That's going to do it for this episode of Character Proof. If you enjoyed the show, please hit subscribe, leave us a five-star review, and share it with that one friend whose whiskey shelf costs more than their car. You know exactly who I'm talking about.

Want us to put your go-to bottle to the test? Drop your favorite pour in the reviews or hit us up on socials and we might just profile you next. Until next time, drink responsibly, pour generously, and always check your character flaws.

Cheers.