Once a spirit hits the tongue, it doesn’t matter much what packaging it came in, or what its provenance is, because everything you need is in that first taste, and the sips that follow.
Tequila was once relegated to the ranks of paltry lubrication of the rowdy – both young and old.
Now, in the modern mainstream, tequila has levels, and even the non-drinkers know general ranks when shopping for their next group hangouts, or shopping for someone to impress. Discernment has come with:
- time,
- a refinement in maker processes & distribution,
- and prevailing trends which pop culture blossoms.
Yet, regardless of the initial thrill some get for scoring a Hollywood star’s latest branded offering, the manifestation of consistent sales which follow the initial popularity boom occurs when the taste of the product is fundamentally good, and creativity runs rampant as consumers DIY recipes and tequila moments that suit their mood and setting.
The good bottle which came out the door swinging, and managed to impress across every unit of measure, is Tequila Komos – that’s why it sits on my shelf, and I order it wherever I go.
It does not slip in quietly. It does not wait to be noticed. It sits on a shelf or a bar cart the way a piece of art languishes in a gallery – fully aware of its own presence, and daring you to assume that presence is all there is to it.
This is the other side of the good bottle, and one I have been meaning to get to since I first wrote about restraint. Because if Raventós i Blanc and Can Sumoi taught me that luxury can be about knowing when less will do, then Tequila Komos has taught me something that sits comfortably alongside it: that spectacle, when it is built on genuine craft, is not the opposite of discipline. It is discipline, dressed differently.
I have spent time with two expressions from the Komos portfolio: the Reposado Rosa in its blush ceramic vessel, as well as the Añejo Cristalino in its deep blue one, and what struck me most was not how different they look from each other, but how similar the thinking is underneath.
Tequila Komos: A Winemaker’s Argument for Agave
Tequila Komos was founded by Richard Betts, a master sommelier who, in 2003, became the ninth person ever to pass the Court of Master Sommeliers’ Master Exam on the first attempt. Before Komos, Betts had already built Sombra Mezcal and Astral Tequila, so agave spirits were not new territory for him. What was new was the ambition behind this particular project, which launched in late 2020, in the middle of a pandemic that was making it difficult for most distillers to even source bottles.
The idea, as Betts has told it, began with a conversation. His business partner, Joe Marchese, had just come from a wedding in Greece and was visiting Betts in Amsterdam. Marchese remarked on how little good tequila he could find in Europe, and the two of them landed on something that felt obvious once it was said aloud: most tequila is made and marketed in more or less the same way, and that approach rarely reflects how people actually drink it, which is to say, as part of a wider, sun-soaked, unhurried way of living.
That is where the name comes from too. Kōmos, in ancient Greek, referred to a joyful, ritualistic procession of revellers, closely associated with the festivities around Dionysus. It is a fitting reference for a brand that treats tequila less as a shot to be endured and more as something to be sipped, slowly, in good company.
The tequila itself is made at Tequila Orendain de Jalisco, under NOM 1110, one of the four founding families of the category.
- Komos uses 100% blue Weber agave sourced from both the highlands, or Los Altos, and the lowlands of the Tequila Valley – a blend that gives the base spirit its layered starting point.
- The piñas are roasted in traditional stone ovens, while the resulting juice is fermented with native yeast,
- and the spirit is double distilled in copper pot stills, which is a fairly traditional process up to that point.
What is not traditional is what happens next. Rather than resting in used bourbon or American whiskey barrels, as most aged tequila does, Komos leans on Betts’ winemaking background and finishes its expressions in French oak barrels previously used for wine, a technique borrowed directly from Mediterranean winemaking. Every expression is also gently aerated before bottling, a process winemakers use to soften and round out a wine’s mouthfeel – applied here to tequila instead.
One of the things that drew me in was the bottle design, of course. The bottles themselves are handmade vitrified porcelain, hand-dipped in a reactive glaze that shifts unpredictably in the kiln, so no two are ever quite identical. They are also, deliberately, made to be upcycled once the tequila is gone, whether as a vase, a water carafe, or simply an object worth keeping on a shelf.
There is a sustainability thread running through the brand too. In 2019, Betts and his distillery partners launched the Komos Foundation, which repurposes agave waste, the fibrous byproduct left over after distillation, into adobe bricks used to build local infrastructure around the town of Tequila, Jalisco.
It is not the part of the story most people reach for first, but it is a meaningful one, and it explains a lot about how seriously this brand takes the place it comes from.
Tasting Panel Magazine has called Komos the highest-rated tequila portfolio ever assembled, including the first 100-point score given to any tequila. Both expressions I tried individually scored 98 points from the same publication.
Reposado Rosa: Colour as Craft, Not Costume
The pink bottle is the one that gets stopped for. I will admit that much upfront.
But the colour is not painted on, and it is not artificial. Reposado Rosa begins as Komos’ blanco base, then rests for around two months in French oak barrels that previously held Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Left in contact with the residual red grape skins in those barrels, the spirit slowly takes on its rose gold hue, entirely through contact and time rather than any added colouring. It is then gently aerated, the same tumbling technique used across the Komos range, softening the texture and adding a touch of natural roundness before it goes into its blush ceramic bottle.
On the nose, there is a lot happening at once, rose petal, ripe red berries, a warm thread of vanilla, and something close to caramel apple sitting underneath. On the palate, that fruit carries through, strawberry and dark cherry mostly, balanced against cooked agave, a little butterscotch, and a faint, savoury note of white pepper that keeps it from tipping into dessert territory. The finish lingers, and it lingers specifically in the direction of chocolate-covered strawberries, which sounds almost too neat a description until you taste it and realise it is exactly right.
What I appreciated most, tasting it slowly over an evening rather than pouring it as a shot, was how composed it stays throughout. The colour suggests something soft and simple. The flavour is not that at all. It is structured, a little savoury at the edges, and genuinely more interesting the longer you sit with it.
This is, unsurprisingly, an easy bottle to gift.
It photographs beautifully, it opens a conversation before anyone has tasted a drop, and it is bottled at 40% ABV, so it behaves like a spirit meant for sipping rather than one built for speed. For anyone assembling a festive season gift list, or simply looking to add one considered, conversation-starting bottle to a home bar, it earns its place on looks alone, and then earns it again once poured.
Añejo Cristalino: Clarity, Built the Long Way
The blue bottle asks a different kind of question, because a cristalino tequila is, by definition, a small act of contradiction. It looks like a blanco. It tastes like something that has spent real time in wood.
Komos’ Añejo Cristalino starts the same way as the Rosa, but is aged for a minimum of twelve months in French oak white wine barrels, considerably longer, and in a different kind of barrel, to most aged tequilas that lean on American whiskey wood. Once that ageing is complete, the spirit is dripped slowly through a column of activated charcoal, which strips away the colour and any lingering impurities while, ideally, keeping the flavour complexity the barrel time has built. From there it rests in amphorae, the ancient clay vessels associated with Greek winemaking, imported specifically for this stage of the process, before a final gentle aeration and bottling in that striking, opaque blue ceramic.
On the nose, it opens with sugared pineapple and a bright hit of lime zest, agave sitting comfortably underneath rather than dominating. On the palate, that tropical fruit carries through alongside vanilla, a gentle oak presence, dark chocolate, and an unexpected, pleasant flicker of pink peppercorn. The finish is long and mineral-driven, with the citrus and spice lingering well after the sip is gone.
It is the more contemplative of the two bottles, which is not what its clarity would lead you to expect. Sipped neat or over one large cube, there is a genuine sense of layering, tropical up front, warmer and spicier underneath, that rewards a slower glass rather than a quick one.
For a South African summer, heading into the busiest, sunniest stretch of the year, this is the bottle I would reach for at a braai, poured over ice with good company and no particular agenda. For anyone north of the equator settling into a colder season, it works just as well slowed right down, sipped neat by a fire. Few spirits move this comfortably between both moods.
The Discipline Behind the Spectacle
It would be easy to file Komos under maximalism and leave it there. The bottles alone would justify that filing.
But spend real time with what is actually in the glass, and a different picture emerges. This is a tequila brand run by someone with a winemaker’s instincts, applying the same patience and technical rigour, barrel selection, ageing time, aeration, that shapes a serious bottle of wine, to a spirit that most of the market still treats as an afterthought behind the bar.
That is the part worth paying attention to. The theatre is real, and it is not incidental. But underneath the ceramic and the colour and the reactive glaze sits a genuinely considered process, one built by someone who clearly cares as much about what happens inside the bottle as what happens on the shelf.
Whether it ends up wrapped and under a tree this festive season, poured at a braai as the Cape Town summer properly arrives, or simply kept as the centrepiece of a home bar collection, Komos makes the case that spectacle and substance are not, in fact, in competition with each other.
Sometimes the loudest bottle in the room has earned the right to be.
What Makes a Good Bottle…
I keep returning to the same idea, whichever direction this series takes me: A good bottle does not need to choose between being quiet and being seen.
It only needs to be honest about which one it is, and good enough at it to be believed.
Disclosure:
Tequila was provided for editorial consideration. All views remain independent and reflect personal tasting experience.
