TEQUILA KOMOS’ NEWEST EXPRESSION, XO, EMBODIES THE SPIRIT OF CELEBRATION THAT INSPIRED THE BRAND
by Amanda M. Faison
Richard Betts’ resume is not short. He was one of only 275 Master Sommeliers in the world (though he resigned from the Court on principle in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020). He spent eight years overseeing the wine program at revered Aspen, Colorado, resort The Little Nell. He went on to launch two wine brands, Betts & Scholl and Scarpetta, which he then sold; he also created Sombra Mezcal and Astral Tequila in 2006 before selling his share of the company that produced them in 2018. Along the way, he wrote a series of adult scratch-and-sniff books to help further the public’s understanding of wine, whiskey, beer, and cannabis. Today, Betts and his wife, Carla (who currently live in Amsterdam but are moving to Majorca, Spain), produce wine under the label An Approach to Relaxation from one of the world’s oldest Grenache vineyards in Australia.
To say that Betts lives life to the fullest, then, is an understatement. And with his latest brand, he aims to help consumers do the same. Having had a heck of a time sourcing high-quality tequila while living in Europe, he talked it over with his business partner, Joe Marchese—who had himself recently come from a wedding in Greece where, you guessed it, there was a dearth of good tequila. The pair decided that there was an untapped market for luxury tequila and that they were going to do something about it. Noting that “people typically drink high-end tequila in a fine restaurant or bar, in a club, by a pool, on a boat, or on the beach,” Betts determined that this was the vibe he intended to capture; these were the occasions he wanted to be a part of.
That conversation took place in 2018. By late 2020, Tequila Komos, an ultra-luxury tequila designed to evoke the good life, had made its way to market. The spirit is named after Komos, a figure of festivity and revelry in Greek mythology; as Betts puts it, “He was responsible for all kinds of wild parties, and we thought that was apropos for what we’re trying to communicate.” Make no mistake, this is not tequila for a collegiate bash on Cinco de Mayo; instead, it’s made for a night of dancing on the deck of a gleaming yacht.
The portfolio currently comprises five expressions—Reposado Rosa ($130); Añejo Cristalino ($150); Añejo Reserva ($170); Extra Añejo ($500); and Komos XO ($2,000), an ultra-ultra-luxury label that was released in October. All five start out the same way: as a blanco made from blue agave that’s culled from the highlands and lowlands of Jalisco, Mexico; roasted in a traditional volcanic stone oven; fermented with native yeast; and double-distilled in pot stills.
Most tequila and mezcal brands tout the fact that they only use agave from the highlands, but Betts, who leans on his winemaking skills in the production of spirits, also specifically seeks out plants from the lowlands. “What I wanted to create in Komos was a three-dimensional form,” he explains. “And how do you fill out all the pieces of the form? You do it by adding subtle shadings for depth, height, and width. You don’t do it with a solo note; you create a chorus. Highlands [agave] is just one note. I want several notes—I want the rich roundness of the lowlands.”
The juice is then aged in French oak barrels that maintain the distinct essence of the wines they previously held, made in Napa and Sonoma. The Reposado Rosa has rosé-like qualities imparted from two months of aging in red-wine barrels; the Añejo Cristalino sits for at least a year in white-wine barrels before being charcoal-filtered for crispness; the Añejo Reserva, which calls to mind allspice and citrus, spends a minimum of 12 months in a combination of French oak, bourbon barrels, and Sherry casks; and the Extra Añejo is aged in a combination of American whiskey barrels and white-wine barrels to yield a spirit akin to a Japanese whisky, according to Betts.
And then there’s the extremely limited, incredibly special Komos XO. “We don’t look at anything we do as [though] we’re supposed to follow what’s been done,” Betts says. “You choose what flavor fluoride they give you at the dentist and what kind of cheese you want to buy. So why should there be one prescriptive way to do things?” XO bucks all convention to tell a story of exquisite craft and patience.
For this blend, the Komos team selects only the very best lots that have been aging in bourbon barrels of American oak and red- and white-wine barrels of French oak for a minimum of three years and up to 11 years. The liquid is then transferred into Spanish Oloroso Sherry casks for what Betts calls the final kiss. The result is “a flavor that fits on top and alongside but doesn’t obscure the depth,” in his words. “It’s like Lake Tahoe—there are points where you can see straight down; you can see all the details and it’s totally transparent.” Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that the XO bottle is the only one in the Komos collection made of etched crystal: The idea is that you can stare starry-eyed into the elixir’s golden richness.
But be it crystal or clay, the bottle is a work of art all its own. Featuring slender, feminine lines, its shape is inspired by the Mediterranean region. “There’s a museum in the Aegean Sea [region] with one of the earliest depictions of human form in the Mediterranean,” Betts explains. “The [Komos] form is very reminiscent of that.” The colors also evoke the seacoast: creamy white for the Añejo Reserva, cerulean for the Extra Añejo, deep ocean blue for the Añejo Cristalino, and delicate pink for the Reposado Rosa. The whole collection feels as sun-dappled as an island in an ocean breeze.
XO, which possesses silky, luxurious notes of chocolate and dried fruit, is meant to be prized by the lucky few who acquire it: Only 3,000 bottles were released. “This is a single batch and it’ll never taste again like it does today,” Betts says. “This is what I want to express from the oldest stuff in our cellar. If I have the opportunity to—we have thousands and thousands of barrels aging now—if something strikes, maybe someday there will be X1 or X2.”
In short, though he has proven that he has a magic touch, it’s the perfectionist in Betts that keeps him pushing for more. “Someday I want to do a mistakes seminar. I have a zillion car crashes in the shed behind the house,” he says with a laugh. “But all of those things that didn’t work, they’re points of information to hone the vision for what will work.”
And the undisputed fact is that Tequila Komos works on all counts, becoming one of the fastest-growing luxury tequila brands in the world. (It should be noted that The Tasting Panel has given the Komos portfolio its highest ratings for tequila, including its first 100-point score for the Extra Añejo.) Tequila sales—especially at the high end—have been on the rise since the pandemic. Betts is catching, and in many ways shaping, that wave as Komos finds footing beyond the U.S. in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and northern and Sub-Saharan Africa. “Tequila is going to be a global phenomenon,” he says, adding that Komos embodies this potential while, in true luxury fashion, serving as an aspirational brand: “Komos is a little bit of the compass that is the Mediterranean lifestyle.”
