A distillery bought in Tequila and three generations of one family.

Sauza’s story starts in the town of Tequila, Jalisco, where, English Wikipedia says, Cenobio Sauza settled in 1858 and went to work at the distillery of José Antonio Gómez Cuervo, learning to farm agave and to distil. In 1870 he leased a distillery of his own, La Gallardeña, and on 1 September 1873 he bought the La Antigua Cruz distillery and renamed it La Perseverancia. The company dates its beginning to that purchase and marked its 150th anniversary in 2023, though the Mexican business magazine El CEO gives 1888 for the change of name. English Wikipedia also credits Cenobio Sauza with the first shipment of tequila into the United States: three casks and six jugs, taken across the border at El Paso del Norte in 1873.

The business passed through three generations. The company’s own timeline says Eladio Sauza took over the family enterprise in 1903, at twenty, steered it through the Mexican Revolution and, in the 1930s, set up Guadalajara’s first commercial radio station. His son Francisco Javier Sauza came next: English Wikipedia’s article on the brand dates his takeover to 1931, while its article on him gives 1946 and says he ran the company until 1988.

Under Francisco Javier the house added Hornitos in 1950; the company says it was launched on 16 September, Mexican Independence Day, and the name means “little ovens.” Sauza Conmemorativo followed in 1963 for the 90th anniversary of La Perseverancia, and for the distillery’s centenary in 1973 came Tres Generaciones, named for Cenobio, Eladio and Francisco Javier. English Wikipedia credits him with redesigning the brand’s bottles and labels and with promoting tequila at fairs in Mexico, the United States and Europe, and the company says he petitioned the Mexican government in 1974 for the denomination of origin that ties tequila to Mexico.

A rooster, a crest and a monogram in the glass.

Sauza’s emblem is a bird. The company says the Gallo, a rooster, has been part of the Sauza crest since 1873, chosen by Cenobio Sauza himself to stand for courage, passion and perseverance, the last of which is also the name of his distillery. The crest and the rooster are the constants a designer can follow through the brand’s labels, while product names and bottle shapes have changed around them.

Two documented refreshes show how. In September 2010 Harpers reported new labels for the United Kingdom, where the brand was distributed by Maxxium: Sauza Blanco became Sauza Silver, Sauza Hacienda Reposado became Sauza Reposado, the Sauza Crest was given more prominence and the labels carried the line “Made From Fresh Blue Agave,” while the bottle shape and the liquid stayed the same. Emma Heath, Sauza’s marketing controller, told the magazine the new labels reflected the brand’s Mexican heritage.

A bigger change followed in 2015. Beam Suntory announced on 13 May what it called the largest rebrand in Sauza’s history, to appear from June. Every variant got a redesigned label with a prominent Gallo, and a new bottle with the Tequila Sauza crest and monogram embossed on the glass; the premium Sauza Blue 100% agave line was renamed Sauza Signature Blue and given a cork and wood closure, the announcement said, as reported by BevNET and Supermarket News. The roll-out was planned for North America and for newer markets including Japan, Brazil, Russia and China.

The range itself is broad. English Wikipedia lists the Sauza line of Blanco, Extra Gold, Blue Silver and Blue Reposado alongside Conmemorativo, and gives Hornitos and Tres Generaciones their own families of Plata, Reposado and Añejo; Hornitos adds Black Barrel, and every Tres Generaciones expression is triple-distilled, the article says.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all tequila and whisky names: Sauza, Don Julio, Olmeca, El Jimador, Herradura, Espolòn and Canadian Club. Spirits brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family houses that still carry a founder’s name to labels that now belong to much larger drinks groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a corner shop to a bar list.

A spirits brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single bottle than by a label, a name and the place it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its tequila or whisky is actually distilled and bottled.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its spirit is made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From a family house to a chain of corporate owners.

The family era ended in the 1980s. English Wikipedia says Sauza entered a partnership with the Spanish brandy producer Pedro Domecq in the 1970s, and that Domecq completed its purchase of the Sauza distillery in 1988; its article on Francisco Javier Sauza says he sold for personal reasons. A chain of corporate owners followed. Allied Lyons acquired Domecq in 1994, forming Allied Domecq; Sauza passed to Fortune Brands when Allied Domecq was taken over and divided in July 2005; Fortune’s drinks business was spun off as Beam Inc. in October 2011; and Suntory bought Beam in April 2014, creating Beam Suntory, which renamed itself Suntory Global Spirits in May 2024. The brand’s current site carries a copyright line for Sauza Tequila Import Company of New York and links to Suntory Global Spirits.

Through those changes the tequila has stayed at the same address. English Wikipedia says Sauza products are still distilled at La Perseverancia in Tequila. In May 2015 Shanken News Daily, citing Impact Databank, reported that Sauza ranked second only to José Cuervo among tequilas in the United States by volume. The two houses share a town and an early link: the distillery where Cenobio Sauza learned his trade was Cuervo’s.

The names need a little care online. The brand’s site is sauzatequila.com, while Hornitos, sold under the Sauza house, has its own site at hornitostequila.com.

For a design guide, Sauza shows how a nineteenth-century crest and a rooster can carry a tequila through five corporate owners and two documented relabels while the spirit stays at one distillery in one town. Compare José Cuervo, its older neighbour in Tequila, and Jim Beam, its corporate stablemate under Suntory Global Spirits. For this guide we use agave green, Gallo red and crest gold with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Sauza’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.