If you’ve been to a bar or liquor store lately, you’ve probably noticed a growing lineup of tequilas that look more like bottles of designer perfume than booze. Those sleek, crystal-clear spirits are cristalinos, aged tequilas that get filtered until they’re clear, smooth, and just a little mysterious.
Now, one of Mexico’s best-known tequila names is jumping in with something new. El Jimador Cristalino isn’t just a new bottle, it’s part of a bigger brand refresh that gives the longtime favorite a more modern look and feel while introducing drinkers to a style that’s taking over the category.
A Fresh Look, a Familiar Heart
El Jimador’s revamp is all about simplicity and substance. The updated bottle design is sleek and minimal, the label feels elevated but approachable, and the messaging leans on what really matters: how it tastes. No gimmicks, no celebrity face on the box, just good tequila made by the people who’ve been doing it for decades.
The new Cristalino fits right into that mindset. The Cristalino starts like every tequila with 100% Blue Weber agave, gets double-distilled, then spends two months in deeply charred American white oak barrels. After aging, it’s charcoal-filtered until it’s perfectly clear, resulting in a silky, easy-drinking tequila that looks crisp in the glass and goes down even smoother.
You’ll get notes of vanilla, caramel, citrus, and delicate fruit, plus a hint of herbs and flowers on the nose. It finishes soft and clean, the kind of tequila that’s just as good neat as it is in a Carajillo or on the rocks at the end of the night.
The Cristalino Moment
Cristalino tequila as a style started as a bit of an experiment. Around the early 2010s, producers wondered what would happen if you stripped the color from an aged tequila without losing its depth. The result turned out to be something of a phenomenon — smooth enough for casual drinkers, complex enough for agave lovers, and photogenic enough to dominate Instagram.
As el Jimador brand ambassador William Brooks explained in a phone interview, “This category is on fire and el Jimador have had a cristalino in Mexico, where it’s been really popular. And now that we’ve seen that demand in the U.S., it’s been like, okay, it’s our turn to bring this to the U.S. now.”
Brooks said he wasn’t always sold on cristalinos until he tried this one. “I was never the biggest cristalino lover, and so when I first took a sip of this… we were just looking at each other like, wait, what? This is incredible.”
What makes it different, he says, is balance. “Cristalinos are typically really calm, sweet, vanilla-forward flavor profiles… el Jimador’s is coming in with definitely that nice sweetness, but it balances it with green. For me, this is like bold vegetable and herbaceous notes like bell pepper and black pepper, things we see from really quality blanco tequilas, and they’re shining here inside this bottle too.”
Who It’s For
El Jimador Cristalino is the kind of tequila that doesn’t pick sides. Brooks calls it “our Swiss Army knife bottle,” because it works for just about everyone.
“It is super approachable, so we are finding it’s really good for those that are new to tequila, especially if they’re coming from whiskey, where they’re used to barrel aging,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s the one that I’m seeing will be sipped the most from el Jimador.”
With a $29.99 price tag and a 40% ABV, it’s an easy add to any bar cart — polished enough to sip neat, forgiving enough to mix, and accessible enough to share.