Introduction
In 2017 George Clooney sold a tequila brand he had started as a way to stock his own bar for a billion dollars. That single transaction changed celebrity business permanently: within five years a large number of A-list names had launched spirits brands, and the pitch to investors was always the same one. What has happened since is more interesting than the boom, because the numbers have started to come back.
1. Casamigos – Sold to Diageo for Up to $1 Billion (2017)
Clooney, Rande Gerber and Mike Meldman sold Casamigos to Diageo in a deal structured as 700 million dollars up front with a further 300 million contingent on performance, the earn-out running over ten years (Diageo’s own announcement). It remains the defining celebrity spirits exit and is widely credited with triggering the wave of brands that followed. The performance since is a caution rather than a vindication. Casamigos net sales fell 18 per cent in Diageo’s 2025 financial year, which the company attributed to increased competition and lower demand (Diageo’s FY2025 annual report, The Spirits Business), and the following year they fell a further 27.7 per cent (The Spirits Business). The buyer’s own accounts are the strongest available evidence on whether a celebrity brand sale worked, and here they say the brand has become harder to sell, not easier.
2. Aviation Gin – Sold to Diageo for Up to $610 Million (2020), Since Written Down to $51 Million
Ryan Reynolds sold Aviation American Gin to Diageo for a figure reported at up to 610 million dollars, of which a substantial portion was contingent. This is the most instructive entry on the list, because the outcome is documented rather than speculated: in its accounts for the year to 30 June 2025, Diageo took an impairment of 231 million dollars against the brand and its fixed assets, reducing the recoverable amount to 51 million – a figure drawn from the acquirer’s own audited reporting rather than from press estimation (Diageo’s published results). A celebrity brand can sell for a very large number and still destroy value for the buyer, and this is the only entry here where that outcome is confirmed in audited accounts rather than inferred.
3. Teremana – No Stake Sold, No Audited Valuation
Dwayne Johnson’s Teremana grew faster than Casamigos did, moving around 300,000 nine-litre cases in its first year against the 120,000 a year Casamigos was selling when Diageo bought it (Forbes), passing 600,000 cases in 2021 and crossing a million by 2023 (The Spirits Business). It is included here precisely because no stake has been publicly sold and no audited valuation exists. Figures attached to Johnson’s net worth on the basis of Teremana are estimates built on a hypothetical transaction that has not happened.
4. Ciroc – A Partnership, Not an Ownership Stake
The Ciroc arrangement between Sean Combs and Diageo was routinely described as ownership and was not: it was a profit-sharing partnership on a brand Diageo owned throughout. The relationship ended in 2023 amid litigation. The distinction matters for any wealth estimate, because a share of profits and an equity stake are valued in completely different ways.
5. 818 Tequila – Privately Held, Valuation Unconfirmed
Kendall Jenner’s 818 achieved significant volume quickly and has raised outside investment, but remains privately held with no disclosed valuation. Where figures circulate, they derive from funding rounds rather than from a sale, which values the company rather than her personal stake, and does not indicate what she would receive on an exit.
6. Cincoro – A Group Venture
Cincoro was founded by Michael Jordan alongside four other NBA team owners, which makes it unusual in the category: the celebrity is one of several owners rather than the brand’s sole face. No sale has occurred and no valuation has been disclosed. Any attribution of its value to Jordan personally must account for a split ownership structure that has never been made public.
7. Aviation, Casamigos and the Cooling Market
The category’s economics have shifted. On-premise data shows celebrity spirits underperforming the expectations set during the boom, and the two largest acquisitions in the sector have both disappointed their acquirer. Diageo, the buyer in both cases, has become notably more cautious. For anyone estimating a celebrity’s wealth from a drinks brand, the implication is direct: the exit multiples of 2017 to 2020 are not a reliable guide to what a brand launched in 2024 will fetch.
8. Why These Brands Are Worth Anything at All
The commercial logic is distribution, not liquid. A spirits brand’s hardest problem is shelf space and bar placement, and a globally famous founder solves it instantly, compressing years of trade marketing into a single announcement. That is what acquirers are buying. It also explains the subsequent declines: the advantage is front-loaded, and once the novelty of the founder’s involvement fades, the product competes on the same terms as everything else.
How These Figures Should Be Read
Three different numbers appear above and only one is reliable. A completed sale price is real, though usually structured with a contingent portion that may never be paid, and its aftermath is sometimes visible in the acquirer’s accounts (Diageo’s published results) – the difference between Casamigos’s 700 million up front and its billion-dollar headline. A funding round valuation values the whole company at a moment in time and says nothing about a founder’s personal proceeds. An analyst estimate for a brand that has never sold, as with Teremana, is informed speculation. Wealth estimates that fold in the third kind of number as though it were the first are among the most common errors in celebrity net-worth reporting.