Tequila
In the late 1990s, Hagar began selling his patrons a house brand of hand-made tequila he commissioned from a family-owned distillery in the state of Jalisco. In 1999, a wine importer from Napa Valley began to import the tequila in to the United States. An instant success, sales rose from 37,000 cases the first year to 140,000 cases in 2006, making it the second-best selling premium tequila in the United States.
Several of the Cabo Wabo offerings have performed quite well at international spirit ratings competitions. For example, the añejo offering received three silver, one gold and one double gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition between 2008 and 2012. Its reposado tequila received a score of 92 from the 2008 Beverage Testing Institute.
In May, 2007 it was announced that Hagar would sell an 80% interest in Cabo Wabo Tequila to Gruppo Campari, the world's sixth-largest spirits company, for $80 million. Skyy Spirits of San Francisco, a vodka producer and subsidiary of Milan's Gruppo Campari, planned to market Cabo Wabo globally, with continued participation by Hagar. Gerry Ruvo, president and chief executive of Skyy Spirits, said, "Sammy has done a fantastic job building the brand, so we are going to obviously spend time with him and work with him to continue our efforts to take the brand to an even larger level, both here in the U.S. and, more important, globally." Ruvo said Great Britain, Spain, Australia, Southeast Asia, Japan, Germany and Italy are considered key expansion markets for Tequila.
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