The Additive Tequila Problem — and How to Find Bottles Worth Buying

Up to 1% of additives are legally permitted in tequila without disclosure. Here's what that means, and how to find the real thing.

In 2021, a group of tequila enthusiasts published the Tequila Matchmaker Additive Report — a crowdsourced investigation naming brands using glycerin, caramel coloring, oak extract, and sugar syrup to smooth out mass-production shortcuts. The industry fought back. Consumers leaned in. The category hasn't been the same since.

The dirty secret of tequila pricing is that additives can make a mediocre spirit taste expensive. Glycerin adds the round, oily mouthfeel associated with aged spirits. Caramel coloring mimics barrel aging. A $20 bottle can be engineered to taste like a $60 bottle — until you know what you're tasting.

The Additive-Free Certification

The Additive Free Alliance (AFA) now certifies brands that submit to third-party testing. Names you'll find at Liquor Depot that are certified or known additive-free: Lalo, G4, Siembra Valles, Terralta, and El Tesoro. These are the real thing — agave-forward, complex, and entirely honest.

What About Mezcal?

Mezcal operates under stricter traditional production requirements and generally skews additive-free by default. The smoke comes from pit-roasting of agave hearts, not flavoring agents. The terroir is detectable in the glass in ways tequila rarely achieves.

How We Select at Liquor Depot

When we pick a tequila for the shelves, the first question is always: what's in here? We taste with the Tequila Matchmaker database open and cross-reference AFA certifications. The bottles that make it are the ones that taste like agave because they are agave.