- January 10, 2025
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What do you get when you combine a love of music, a passion for travel and an appreciation of tequila? If you’re Chris and Geri Andrews, it’s your own spirits brand.
Chris, an engineer, musician, and music producer, and Geri, who’s had a long career in sales, marketing and finance, wanted to embark on a new passion project together. Chris has been a tequila fan for more than two decades, and the couple has traveled to Mexico a lot over the years. Developing their own tequila brand piqued their interest.
“The more and more we looked into it, the more it became a reality that, hey, we can do this,” says Chris, 63.
Because the Fort Myers couple really wanted to get hands on with the whole endeavor, it took a while to do it right. Tasting other tequilas on the market to gather info about what was already available — and what wasn’t — proved an important early step
“We used an engineering mindset where we would taste certain ones, then I would keep a matrix of all the data,” says Chris. “What did it smell like? What did it taste like? How is it made? Where is it made?”
With this info in hand, the couple began to formulate a plan. “We could say, okay, this is where we want to place our product,” says Chris. “This is what we think we want our product to be like, and we think we can make something a little unique in the market.”
Finding a partner to produce the tequila wasn’t easy. “There’s a lot of them that are, like, give me X amount of money and I’ll put your name on whatever,” says Chris. “And we didn’t want that.”
They listened to people they met along the way, gathering advice and recommendations that finally helped lead them to IBEV Casa Tequilera in the Amatitán area of Jalisco, México and Maestro Tequilero Hugo Yerenas Domínguez (the son of legendary Maestro Tequilero Don Luis Yerenas). The operation was ready to take on a few new clients and appreciated Chris and Geri’s vision.
“We ended up with just an amazing partner,” says Geri, 58. “I’m so grateful for them, because they want us to succeed as much as we want to succeed.”
Up next? Choosing a name. They started out considering options tied to the tequila’s production location. But the concept of music proved an idea with broad appeal, and they settled on the name Música Tequila (and called their Fort Myers-based LLC Music Spirits).
“Everybody loves music,” says Chris. “And most everybody who loves tequila probably loves music too…We truly believe that music breaks down borders and cultures. Because I’ve had people from all over the world together in a room where their politics would never get along, but the people get along fine. So that’s the spirit of what we wanted to bring forward.”
The brand goes beyond just enjoying music. Música Tequila supports Florida-based musicians and bands like DONEFOR and Matt Herd as well as the Save The Music Foundation that provides access to music education students around the country.
Música Tequila officially launched in May with three tequilas: Blanco, Reposado and Añejo. They’re made with an additive-free, all-natural, 100% blue agave tequila sourced from the lowlands of Zona Valles in Jalisco. The Reposado is rested in barrels made of American oak for three months and the Añejo is aged for a year and a half in the same kind of barrels.
“We really wanted something that was agave-forward and approachable,” says Chris. “We embrace the agave flavor. You can smell it, you can taste it, but it doesn't knock you over.”
The tequilas are sold in eye-catching bottles the couple designed themselves (and have won awards for bottle design). “We did our homework on that,” says Chris. “I did a lot of trend research and did a vision board on where all the bottles have gone in the last 20 years. We think the details matter.”
They appreciate how every consumer can see something different when they look at the bottle. “I’ve got one person that goes, ‘Oh, that’s a cello,’” says Chris. “Another says it’s a guitar or those are the five staff lines. Another one goes, those are guitar strings. I like that.”
With a product in hand, next came finding distributors. The couple had moved to Florida several years ago, after a long stint in Michigan where they still have a home and had once owned a deli and gourmet food store. They got hooked up with the largest distributor in Michigan pretty quickly. In Florida, they’re working with a craft distributor that only covers part of the state, but they’re hoping to expand.
Even before that, the couple was pounding the pavement talking with retail shops, bars and restaurants about their tequilas to get folks interested in the product and ready to order it once they could. “It was just going into store after store after restaurant, and we’d spend full afternoons and weekends doing that,” says Geri. “There’s so much of it that’s us doing it ourselves that if you’re a large company, you usually hire people to do all that. But that’s what we do, and nobody is going to have the passion that we do.”
Between Florida and Michigan, Música Tequila products are available at 150 locations. In Southwest Florida, that includes restaurants like Cantina 109 and The Standard and, soon, Total Wine in Fort Myers. The tequilas can also be purchased through their website, musicatequila.com. New products are coming down the road, like an Extra Añejo that should be ready next Christmas and some limited releases in early 2025.
The couple declined to disclose sales or investment figures for the brand. But Chris says they’re on track with their business plan and forecast models. The goal is to continue to grow, but in a measured way. “We didn’t start this to jump into 50 states and be everywhere,” says Chris. “We need to grow this brand based on its heart.”
