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If you were incredibly late to the party, you’ll have become aware of celebrities making their own brands of alcohol in March, when Margot Robbie’s artisanal gin, Papa Salt, hit the rocks. Specifically, bars were refusing to stock it because oyster shells had been involved in its distilling.
It was such a charming tale; Robbie fell in love with London when she lived in Clapham in the 2010s, and wanted to give something back, namely, a gin with the flavours of Australia: wattleseed, wax flower, and oyster shell. “But what barman wants to have to ask every customer that orders a gin and tonic whether they’re allergic to shellfish?” was the question posed by Joanne Gould, food and drink writer and regular tester of alcohol on the Filter, with devastating inarguability.
A follow-up question, with more possible answers: what the hell has got into celebrities, that they are all bringing out drinks, even the ones who don’t drink? In my youth, all celebs had a perfume (many still do), and I can see the point of that: even if your life holds no rational prospect of ever smelling her, you could easily imagine Ariana Grande, say, being your smell role model. Drinking George Clooney tequila, by contrast, will bring you no closer to his suavity, nor in any imaginable way, into his orbit.
But no question, it works: Clooney sold that brand, Casamigos, in 2017 for $1bn. Tequila stands out as the spirit most likely to get a star boost – drinks industry figures from 2023 show a 16% rise in celebrity-endorsed tequila sales, against 3% for the spirit overall, while big-name whiskies got an 8% lift, compared with 2% overall growth. Stars gravitate towards tequila for its short production times, and that’s fair enough. Imagine you were famous, then you were in some donkey of a film that was incontrovertibly your fault, and your career evaporated: how depressing to be left with a job lot of remaindered pineapple rum.
It must work, or there wouldn’t be knock-offs: Chilean actor Pedro Pascal is in a legal battle with a Chilean piscomonger that named its spirit Pedro Piscal. I was surprised, because he looks too chill to worry about what they’re making pisco sours out of in Chile, but that was before I learned the numbers involved in monetising your vibe. Whether you decide to or not, there’s too much at stake to just give it away.
Why drinkers favour some celebrity drinks over others remains a mystery; partly because almost nobody admits to being swayed by the star. Only 1% of drinkers in the UK say they are influenced by celebrity endorsement. Yet we have to put that down to shy celebrity worship, since the same study found that 53% of Britons would be more likely to buy booze from a famous person they had warm feelings towards.
This suggests the real fantasy is even wilder than “I will drink this and behave or look more like George Clooney” – it’s closing your eyes and imagining yourself drinking with the star. Then it all starts to make sense: why does Kylie Minogue sell more pink prosecco than anyone else in the UK? It’s the flight of fancy. You could just as well be in a bar with Kylie – on a beach in a magical land very like Ibiza – maybe in matching gold hot pants, with two striped parasols, one over your head, a tiny one in your drink. And each glass – light at 10.5% and going down like Tizer (which it emphatically isn’t) – makes it feel more and more real.
This also answers the secondary question: why these celebrities, why now? Why Alex James and not Damon Albarn? Why Idris Elba and not Dominic West (I’m going back to The Wire days)? Why Elton John and not Chris Martin? It’s because they’re the people you’d want to have a beer with, even if it’s a zero. If this recalls the famous polling question in US elections, that’s probably no coincidence. If we could cast a vote for Ricky Gervais, perhaps we’d do that as well (or perhaps we wouldn’t – jury still out).
The prime question, though, even for vibe, is: are these drinks any good? I sat down with Jo Gould and my 18-year-old stepdaughter, Cicely Higham, and made my way through a lot of them. We were rigorous about a fizzy water palate cleanser between each, at least for the first six, before Iron Maiden’s powerful red obliterated any possibility of cleansing. We started with the most expensive, as any discerning home drinker would, but otherwise prioritised low alcohol by volume (ABV), doing the zeros early. A Ritz cracker would have been pro, but instead I made some mini meat pies, for the sense of occasion.
These findings are about taste and general appeal. It’s not possible for me, Jo and Cicely to say how far this mimicked drinking with the stars. Everyone will have their own answer to that.
The best celebrity drinks put to the test
Idris Elba’s Porte Noir champagne
It’s a blanc de blancs, Jo noted, so it hasn’t got the red grape, pinot noir, typical in a champagne. I found it inoffensive and within range of what you’d expect from fizz, maybe a bit sweeter than usual. “It’s a bit girlie, lighter than normal, more floral, orchardy,” she continued. We were a bit baffled by why he’d go that way, which feels at odds with his persona – except Cicely, who said: “I literally have no idea who he is except that middle-aged women all have a crush on him.”
Champagne is a tough market, even when you’re occupying a very particular niche (girly flavours from a fabled hard man). “Big names on discount are hard to beat on wow factor and consistency,” Jo concluded. We all found it quite lightweight, but most of us didn’t mind.
Elton John Zero 0% blanc de blancs
Elton John is one of the longest sober celebrities on earth (35 years), and must know his way round the no-alcohol market – its successes and failures, trials and errors – so we were expecting something much better than Shloer. It looks aeons classier: a fancy shape, a star on the E of Elton, it says in the clearest voice possible: “You, not-drinking guest, are as dear to us as all the others.”
“It has no wine character in it,” Jo said. “It doesn’t taste like chardonnay at all. It’s so sweet you’d end up with a headache.” “It tastes like that cheap flavoured water you get in a meal deal,” Cicely said. Granted, it’s very like Appletiser, and no, it doesn’t even remind you of alcohol. But it’s just tart enough that you wouldn’t feel you were being patronised, as a non-drinking member of a celebration, and looks (it is!) expensive enough that you’d feel cherished.
For more, read the Filter’s guide the best low- and no-alcohol drinks
Kylie rosé prosecco
The stealth bomber in the celebrity booze arsenal, the one everyone points to and says: “Wait, this is not just popular, it is also good.” “It’s big on the raspberries and strawberries,” Jo said. “It must have something other than the prosecco grape – or the grapes are picked at a time when they’re almost overripe, which gives you that very jammy flavour.”
It’s only been a few years since they were allowed to make rosé prosecco and still call it that, Jo pointed out, which has lightened the guardrails on how you could blend it, creating this “party-ready, crowd-pleasing drink”. All those adjectives, and yet it’s very unassuming; you really could drink it without noticing. Jo’s mother keeps the bottles and fills them with fairy lights. Cicely thinks it tastes like Squashies.
Alex James’s Britpop cider
The bassist may have been the first, and was definitely the loudest of the Britpop era to fall out of love with booze. These days, he’s keen to maintain his ascetic edge, remarking last year: “I make music and sell booze, I’m basically a monk.” The cider smells incredible, so appley that it almost changes the season for you. Cooking with it – I did some pork chops later – is a pleasure. It packs that punch when you taste it, but is thin on the exit, so you feel short-changed. “I’d drink it in a pub, but I wouldn’t buy it,” Jo said, and Cicely said it smelled a bit like clean washing.
Tom Holland’s Bero Kingston Golden Pils
A dry January turned into sobriety for actor Tom Holland in 2022, after which, he said, he “craved a product that helped [him] feel included”. For that, he could have tried Asahi Zero, which is deliciously inclusive, but instead, we have his Golden Pils. “It tastes like honey and lemon, and then it tastes of nothing,” Cicely said, doubling down. “But I’m more offended by the nothing than the mead.” Jo identifies that all celebrities are working under a split imperative: to make a mark at the same time as going mass market, which creates this contradiction of sometimes alarmingly strong flavours that are evanescent. I found it too sweet and autumnal to make a satisfying pils, with or without alcohol.
Gary Barlow Wines sauvignon blanc
“It smells of nothing, though I would probably guess it was a sauvignon blanc,” Jo said. “There’s a hint of tropical, a bit of gooseberry and grassiness, but they don’t come through. Even the colour of it – it’s meant to be South African, but where’s the sunshine?” It’s very easy drinking because there’s nothing to it, but that’s not really what you want; wine is not a session drink. Cicely said it was wine for people who don’t like wine.
That said, within its price range, it’s clean and inoffensive, and between the hyper-masculine block font and “GARY BARLOW” right there in bronze, it certainly looks like a choice you’ve thought about.
Matthew McConaughey’s Pantalones tequila
“Blanco generally is the cheapest, and it’s not a sipping tequila,” Jo cautioned. At the same time, if you throw it down your throat with a mouthful of salt and a lime slice chaser, it could be anything; so we do have to sip it. “This is a decent-quality blanco, though,” she said. “There’s a silky agave-iness to it.” You could differentiate it from paint stripper, for sure, but whether or not you could tell it from the all-purpose supermarket tequila with the hat on is another matter. Tequila is a bit like retsina – the process is so distinctive that you have to climb way up the price points before you can tell one from another.
You can also read the Filter’s rundown of the best tequila and mezcal
Emma Watson’s Renais gin
Watson is the closest you’ll come to a celebrity with an authentic purpose and hinterland in this market. With her brother, she’s created a gin from salvaged grape skins, on the Burgundy estate where their father has been making wine for 30 years. Watson senior has an award for his chablis, which they almost never give anyone who isn’t French. The headline flavour is a compelling, soft citrus, orange-like scent, not a blare. Cicely and Jo both picked up basil, making it the drink version of one of those classy, unexpected River Cafe salads of the 90s. Delicious, with no harshness, you could drink it neat. The photographer was Italian and raised the inconvenient objection that a spirit made of grape skins is a grappa. That just wouldn’t sound very Watson, though.
Iron Maiden Darkest red wine
We spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether this was a product tie-in with Stranger Things, in which The Trooper was played in its finale, a testament to the character, Eddie Munson, who loved Iron Maiden. Nope – this is the band’s own work, and what a satisfying punch in the face it is. You cannot see through it. “Loads of fruity flavours, a bit of leather – considering what it could be, it’s much easier drinking than I expected,” Jo said. It reminded me of the bottle of wine you pick up at a Whistlestop for the train back from the world’s best day trip, which is to say that things could have gone really badly, but instead they turned out fine. Cicely loved it, saying it tasted like black forest gateau.
Margot Robbie’s Papa Salt coastal gin
Ah, the controversy gin, the object lesson in why celebrities should remain on the customer side of the cocktail equation: Robbie fell in love with Infernos – a fabled nightclub in Clapham – when she lived in London. And yet it was that very sort of bar, 25 deep and very thirsty, that couldn’t possibly have stocked her original version, due to the allergy issues. Robbie has now altered the manufacturing process to take out the problematic shellfish element, but the flavour is still distinctly coastal, and, coupled with the fact that we won’t stop talking about oysters, means that all I can taste is fish. Maybe it isn’t fish, maybe it’s sea, but I’ve never tasted any drink I thought would be better with a trace of fish. Jo takes a firmly different view: that it’s saline – the taste of the bracing sea. She liked it, as did Cicely.
Rod Stewart’s Wolfie’s whisky
“This smells quite strong, like smoked cheese,” Cicely said, “and tastes like cork,” Jo finished. “It’s a blend that’s going for harmony, but it’s so blended that it’s lost any character.” It’s hard to stand up to the main producers; with whisky, they’ve been doing this a hell of a long time. But the people who favour this particular spirit love distinctive and complex flavours, so it’s hard to pull off an all-purpose crowd pleaser. For this to work, you’d have to really like Rod Stewart, but – newsflash – some people do.
Ricky Gervais’s Dutch Barn black cherry vodka
“They put all kinds of rubbish in vodkas,” Jo said, which explains why the Dutch Barn website is worded quite unusually, “no cheap ethanol”, “no bad apples” – most drinks don’t preface their origin story with the fact that they haven’t deliberately distilled with bad ingredients. The black cherry is pretty extraordinary: it doesn’t taste artificial, which a cherry flavour situated in anything but cherries usually does. “You could put it in any summer cocktail,” (Jo). “You could put it in hot chocolate” (Cicely). “It’s great that it’s still 38%, normally with flavoured vodkas the ABV drops.” (Jo). “I would take this to a party” (Cicely). Didn’t see that coming, that the prom king and queen of all this would end up Kylie Minogue and Ricky Gervais.
For more, read the Filter’s pick of the best gin for G&Ts, martinis and negronis and the best whisky
