Cazcanes Just Put 100-Proof Tequila Into Apricot Brandy Barrels
Tequila / New Release
Cazcanes Just Put 100-Proof Tequila Into Apricot Brandy Barrels
Two new single-barrel reposados, one finished in a cask that held Mirabelle eau-de-vie, the other in one that held apricot brandy. Both at 100 proof, both under 300 bottles, both $99.99. It is a strange idea, and it is the clearest sign yet that tequila now wants to be treated like enthusiast whiskey.
By Vim, Editor of 12×75
In brief
- Cazcanes launched its Experimental Single Barrel series on September 29, 2026 with two releases of its Reposado No. 9.
- One is finished in a barrel that previously held Mirabelle eau-de-vie, a plum spirit; the other in a barrel that held apricot brandy.
- Both are bottled at 100 proof (50% ABV), priced at $99.99, and limited to fewer than 300 bottles each.
- Available from Cazcanes.com first, with selected retail, bar and restaurant placements later in the fall and winter. The brand says more single-barrel trials are underway.
- The base is Cazcanes’ certified organic, low-intervention reposado. Whether stone-fruit casks improve it is a question only the glass can answer.
For most of its modern history, tequila has been sold on smoothness, a famous name and a heavy bottle. Over the last few years a different kind of tequila drinker has appeared: one who reads NOM numbers, asks about additives, and wants the spirit stronger, stranger and more specific. That drinker is exactly who Cazcanes is talking to with its new releases, and exactly the drinker the market is increasingly rewarding.
On 29 September the brand announced two single-barrel reposados finished in casks nobody would have associated with tequila a decade ago. It is the latest in a run of experiments I have been following this month, from Música ageing its tequila to music to Patrón teaching bartenders agave. The pattern is not subtle. Tequila is borrowing the whiskey playbook, page by page.
Two very strange reposados
Cazcanes Experimental Single Barrel
LaunchedSeptember 29, 2026
Release oneReposado No. 9, Mirabelle Eau de Vie Single Barrel
Release twoReposado No. 9, Apricot Brandy Single Barrel
Strength100 proof, 50% ABV
Price$99.99 each
BottlesFewer than 300 per expression
WhereCazcanes.com first; selected retail, bars and restaurants later in fall and winter
Base tequilaCazcanes Reposado No. 9, from certified organic Blue Weber agave
WaterNavichi Springs
Sources: Cazcanes via BevNET; The Daily Pour.
Mirabelle is a small golden plum grown mostly in Lorraine, in north-east France, and distilled into a clear, intensely aromatic eau-de-vie. Apricot brandy is a fruit spirit in the same broad family. Both leave behind a barrel saturated with stone-fruit character, and the bet is that a year-ish reposado picks up some of that without losing itself.
Cazcanes describes these as first-of-their-kind casks. That is the brand’s claim and I cannot independently verify that nobody has ever put tequila in either before; given how obscure both spirits are as cask sources, it would not surprise me if it is true. What I can say is that they are unusual enough that the novelty is the story.
Why 100 proof matters
Most tequila is bottled at 40% ABV, the legal minimum for the US market, because it is cheaper to make and easier to drink. Bottling at 50% is a statement, and it is one borrowed directly from bourbon.
Higher proof carries more flavour. Many aromatic compounds are more soluble in alcohol than in water, so a spirit diluted less before bottling tends to be richer, oilier and more intense, and it gives the drinker the choice of adding water rather than having the producer make that choice for them. It is also a signal to a particular audience: enthusiasts read proof the way wine drinkers read vintages, and a bottle at 100 is announcing that it was made for them rather than for a party.
That matters more with a cask finish than without one. A delicate stone-fruit influence at 40% could easily vanish into water. At 50%, there is a better chance both the agave and the barrel have enough concentration to be tasted.
Practical note. 50% ABV is 25% stronger than a standard tequila. Treat a pour accordingly, and try it with a few drops of water; high-proof spirits often open up considerably with a little dilution.
Fewer than 300 bottles
Under 300 bottles per expression means a single barrel, which is precisely what single barrel means: no blending across casks to average out the differences. Every bottle in a release is from the same cask, and the next release, from a different cask, will taste different.
That creates the collectability every enthusiast category eventually develops. In bourbon it produced lotteries, secondary markets and absurd prices. In tequila, at $99.99 through the brand’s own website, it is still at the sensible stage, where a curious drinker can simply buy one. Enjoy that while it lasts; small batches with numbered bottles have a way of attracting people who never open them.
Under 300 bottles, $99.99, from the brand’s own site. This is tequila collecting before it gets silly, and it will not stay this way.
Tequila is borrowing tricks from whiskey
Line up what Cazcanes is doing against the modern bourbon enthusiast market and the parallels are exact.
The whiskey playbook, applied to agave
1Single barrels: bottled from one cask, unblended, variation celebrated rather than smoothed away. Bourbon built an entire culture around barrel picks.
2Higher proof: barrel proof and cask strength have become premium markers in whiskey; tequila is following.
3Unusual finishing: Scotch spent twenty years finishing in sherry, port, Sauternes and rum casks. Tequila is now doing the same with stranger woods.
4Bottle counts: printing the number of bottles is a scarcity signal enthusiasts respond to.
5Direct sales: selling first through the brand’s own site, to the most engaged buyers, before retail.
The reason is commercial as much as creative. The top end of tequila has had a difficult year, with premium giants softening. Enthusiast releases do not need mass volume; they need a few hundred people willing to pay a fair price for something specific, and that audience is growing even as the mainstream flattens.
But the agave still has to survive
This is the tension at the heart of cask-finished tequila, and it deserves to be stated plainly. Tequila’s entire case, especially among the drinkers these releases target, is the agave: cooked, fermented and distilled blue agave, tasting of the plant and the place. Put that into a barrel that held an intensely aromatic fruit spirit and there is a real risk the barrel wins.
It is exactly the argument that surrounds additives: whether the liquid still tastes of agave or of something applied to it. Cask finishing is a legitimate technique, not an additive, and it is transparent about what it is doing. But it can still overwhelm, and the best cask-finished spirits in whiskey are the ones where you can taste the base and the finish, not just the finish.
A reposado, crucially, is a sensible base for this. It has spent enough time in oak to have some structure, and not so long that the agave has already been buried under wood, which is part of why reposado is often the most interesting of the three classes.
What to watch for. I have not tasted either release, and any tasting notes you read are, for now, the brand’s. Cask finishing does not automatically improve a spirit; it changes it. The question for each bottle is simply whether you can still taste the agave underneath the plum and apricot.
More experiments are coming
Cazcanes says further single-barrel trials are already under way, which makes this a platform rather than a stunt. That is the right way to do it: if the Experimental Single Barrel series produces some releases that work and some that do not, and the brand is honest about which is which, it becomes genuinely useful to drinkers trying to understand what wood does to agave.
For anyone deciding whether to buy, the case is reasonably simple. At $99.99 for a 100-proof, organic, single-barrel reposado from a producer with a low-intervention reputation, this is priced like a serious enthusiast bottle rather than a luxury object. If you already know what you like in tequila and want to understand how cask influences it, a bottle of each, tasted side by side against the standard Reposado No. 9, would be a small education. If you want a safe bottle for a dinner party, buy something else.
Quick answers
What are the Cazcanes Experimental Single Barrels?
Two single-barrel releases of Cazcanes Reposado No. 9, launched September 29, 2026: one finished in a Mirabelle eau-de-vie cask and one in an apricot brandy cask. Both are 100 proof and limited to fewer than 300 bottles each.
How much do they cost?
$99.99 each, sold first through Cazcanes.com, with selected retail, bar and restaurant placements later in fall and winter 2026.
What is Mirabelle eau-de-vie?
A clear fruit spirit distilled from Mirabelle plums, a small golden variety grown mainly in Lorraine in north-east France.
Why is the tequila bottled at 100 proof?
Higher proof carries more flavour and concentration, gives drinkers the option to add water, and signals an enthusiast release. Most tequila is bottled at 40% ABV.
Does cask finishing make tequila better?
Not automatically. It changes the flavour, adding character from the previous contents of the barrel. Whether that improves a tequila depends on whether the agave character survives.
The last word
A tequila finished in a plum-spirit barrel would have been a joke in 2015. In 2026 it is a $99.99 limited release aimed at people who own a bottle of barrel-proof bourbon and a glass with a narrowing rim. That shift, from party spirit to enthusiast category, is the most interesting thing happening in tequila, and Cazcanes is about as clear an example of it as you will find.
Tequila spent a decade trying to be smooth. The interesting end of it now wants to be strong, strange and numbered.
Sources
- Cazcanes via BevNET: Cazcanes debuts high-proof reposado single barrels, September 29, 2026
- The Daily Pour: Cazcanes No. 9 Reposado Single Barrel Apricot Brandy
Product details and the first-of-their-kind claim are Cazcanes’ own. The author has not tasted either release; any tasting descriptions elsewhere are brand statements. Correct as of September 30, 2026. Please drink responsibly.
