Margaritas are delicious and universal. Everyone is acquainted with the margarita. Whether it be through various underage trips to Tijuana, fine dining at the taco shack down the street, or the tequila-heavy concoction you end up with at home, we’ve all come across some form of the Mexican specialty at one point or another. Giovanni is quite aware of this fact. Giovanni is the Margarita King.Opposed to what you may be thinking, this isn’t a nickname he got from winning a marg-chugging bet. Capitalizing on our nation’s love for the salt-rimmed cocktail, Giovanni created the first premium bottled margarita appropriately called “Margarita King.”
With his signature drink by his side, Giovanni has ventured into some uncharted territories, celebrated with celebrities, and kicked some marg contest ass over the past six years. In fact, Giovanni has won the Beverage Tasting Institute’s gold medal (which Gio compared to “winning the Oscars for your movie”) for the past three years, a historic feat in itself.
But this “Margarita King,” ironically, hasn’t always been in the margarita business. Giovanni actually developed restaurants for over 20 years, a period of time where he’d “buy restaurants, build them and then sell them.” Serving award-winning margaritas at his establishments, he gradually picked up the alias lovingly given to him by the press, “the Margarita King.” However, the dot-com fiasco at the turn of the century led Giovanni to make a career change. Alas, it was time for Gio to hit the bottle: it was the perfect opportunity to develop not a restaurant, but his margarita.
Breaking ground for the alcohol industry, Giovanni aimed to bring a quality ready-to-drink cocktail to the masses. “Yes, before Margarita King, there were pre-mixed margarita in the market,” explained Sean Benz, executive assistant to the Margarita King, “but they weren’t really very well-known. Now you see more in the market – like Jose Cuervo – but the trend was started by the Margarita King.” Giovanni put a product on the shelf that provided the best: “I use natural juices, no artificial flavors, and no sugar.” To this day it still ravages competition being, amongst other titles, the only bottled marg to have a whopping 17% alcohol by volume.
What’s more is that the Margarita King doesn’t just sell booze. It neatly packages a ritzy lifestyle and all of Gio’s personality into one sleek bottle. In a way, the Margarita King is for margaritas what Cristal is for chamgapne. His energy has really gotten the drink in with the Hollywood homies. “So I’m standing behind Usher with my Margarita King,” Gio began to describe, “and he grabbed my hand, took the bottle, opened it in front of everyone, put the cork in his mouth and started pouring it for everyone.”
Some may credit Giovanni’s effervescent demeanor for giving the drink that extra somethin-somethin’, but it may actually be in his unusual tequila-making process. “If you play classical music in the factory, you can see how the tequila looks like it’s boiling,” Gio explains. “The music moves the tequila. People will say how the hell did this happen? Is it the music? It’s the music.”
Whether you believe in Bach upping your tequila-related endeavors or not, the Margarita King’s core message is an easy one to follow: “Remember that life is about having fun and having a good time.” Listen to him guys, he’s royalty.
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