“Tequila, it makes me happy, / Con Tequila it feels fine” goes the student anthem by Terrorvision. It is midnight, somewhere around the turn of the new millennium, and we are on the sticky dancefloor of a grotty union bar in Edinburgh, but it could be Bristol, Cambridge or Newcastle. You get the picture.
The song is greeted by whoops and an influx of revelers throwing drunken shapes. Meanwhile, some bastard in your friendship group who’s feeling flush is already elbowing his way to the bar to spank part of the student loan that’s just hit his account on a bottle of José Cuervo tequila, shot glasses, lemons and salt. Slammers all round!
Bleurrggghhhhh. Even with a quarter of a century’s distance, the thought still evokes the same Pavlovian response in me: a shudder, dry heaving, feelings of regret.
One of your flatmates will wake up in A&E, one in a pool of their own vomit, another in bed with one of their flatmates, another with a person of the gender they hadn’t hitherto considered their jam. All will have hangovers of Stygian proportions, with feelings of disgust and self-loathing lasting well into the following week.
But what do we know, we 1990s kids? Because tequila – which for us will forever be the one with the worm, the spirit that was only palatable with half a lemon and a gullet of Saxa table salt – is experiencing a boom. Helped by premium celebrity-owned brands, such as George Clooney’s Casamigos, tequila saw a 22 percent import growth last year, according to trade data from Volza.
“Import” is key, as tequila is made from blue agave almost exclusively in the Mexican state of Jalisco, where the locals prefer to sip rather than slam it. Sipping (excuse me while I dry-heave again) is possible, say aficionados, because the good stuff is smooth.
Kendall Jenner has her 818 brand. There’s Teremana by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Pantalones Organic by Matthew McConaughey. In 2026, you’re no one if you don’t have your own premium brand of tequila. It’s 40 years since Marks & Spencer launched its first “gin in a tin,” but even it has moved with the times and launched two “tequila tinnies” (on Instagram, of course): a tequila and tonic and a “vibrant tequila spritz with pink grapefruit.” M&S now sells two of its own “sipping tequilas,” too, and a three-pack of canned cocktails.
Gen Z are keen on the spirit, apparently, because it’s seen as a “clean” alcohol. A fellow Gen Xer tells me: “It’s all anyone drinks at the Farmhouse.” (She means the Soho House one, not the local pig penitentiary.) “The Paloma [tequila and grapefruit juice] is the most popular cocktail, and all the youngsters seem to drink tequila shots on the rare evenings I’m there after dark.”
The thought of young people swirling glasses of tequila in private members’ clubs, savoring the aroma before taking an educated sip, makes me and my student pals look incredibly gauche, what with our binge-drinking and chain-smoking.
So I’m relieved to learn that sales of BuzzBallz – those lurid, spherical premixed drinks – have also been driven by Gen Z. In the UK, the best-selling flavors are the tequila-based “Chili Mango” spicy margarita and the “Strawberry ’Rita.” The spirit of the 1990s is alive and well, though you may wish to hold the worm.
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