(Photo: Don Julio)

From margarita cocktails to overpriced club bottles, tequila has spent the last decade and change dominating the spirits landscape. So what happens when two of the market’s most iconic brands suddenly post double-digit declines?

Last week, British spirits giant Diageo announced that its U.S. tequila net sales fell by 21% in fiscal 2026. According to the company’s preliminary financial results, the shift was driven by a 19.2% drop in sales for Don Julio — the blockbuster tequila brand that reported over 40% growth just a year prior. Diageo’s other flagship agave spirit, Casamigos, posted a net sales decline of 27.7%, deepening from an 18% drop in 2025.

These figures weren’t an anomaly. Diageo posted declines across most of its spirits segments in the United States, including a 15.9% drop for whisky brands like Crown Royal, a 1.1% drop for scotch and a 1% drop for vodka. Ready-to-drink cocktails were the only category that saw explosive gains, growing by 35.1% thanks in part to tie-in releases with the FIFA World Cup.

For the most part, Diageo’s ailing sales fall well in line with industry trends. The spirits boom that followed on the heels of the COVID pandemic cooled, flattened then iced over as people of all ages began drinking less. Whether that’s due to marijuana legalization, wellness trends, GLP-1 medications or some combination of the above is the subject of much debate. What we do know, however, is that tequila was long touted as the sole exception — the only category projected for growth in years to come; a glimmer of hope among a younger generation that (supposedly) had given up alcohol altogether.

Don Julio’s abrupt downswing changes the narrative. Last August, we wrote a piece that opened with the line: “Few success stories have baffled expectations quite like Don Julio.” The brand had just posted its biggest sales bump in history, and we attributed its successes to a string of savvy partnerships with the likes of Popeyes and Apple Vision Pro. So we ask again… what happened?

No, this isn’t the end of the tequila boom. Though it might be the waning of the tequila boom as we know it. According to Nielsen IQ data, the top 20 tequila brands in the United States — Don Julio, Jose Cuervo, Patrón and Casamigos, among them — witnessed a 1.5% sales decline in 2025. During the same time frame, craft tequila brands grew 28.5%.

There is no legal definition for “small batch” or “craft” spirits, though drinkers who use these words in the agave scene usually have a particular type of brand in mind. These are tequilas that almost always tout themselves as additive-free, and increasingly, as either artisanal, single-estate or tahona-crushed. Their websites might talk at length about the importance of transparency, and they may even harken back to those ill-defined “old-school” production methods that agave nerds are always talking about on Instagram.

A recent list from The Tequila Report suggests that brands like LALO, La Gritona, G4 and Tequila Ocho are witnessing some of the biggest gains in the $1 million-plus in sales category, while up-and-coming favorites like Aguasol, Wild Common and Cambio are showing strong velocity growth in the less than $1 million in sales segment.

Chances are, none of these brands will ever enjoy the broad, celebrity-friendly appeal of a titan like Don Julio. But their success signals a changing of the guard for consumer preferences, reflecting the shift toward “better living” that’s made its way into every nook and cranny of the zeitgeist over the past few years.