Public relations in the wine and spirits industry runs on storytelling, brand heritage, and consumer engagement rather than product claims, which regulation limits sharply in this category. The six campaigns below show how brands without regulatory room to make health or lifestyle claims still built durable category position through community relationships, education, and cultural relevance instead of paid reach.
Why PR Carries More Weight Than Advertising in This Category
Wine and spirits marketing operates inside tighter constraints than most consumer categories: strict rules on health claims, minimum-age targeting, and platform-level restrictions on paid alcohol advertising on Meta and Google in several markets. That constraint pushes budget toward earned media, sampling, and community relationships, channels PR runs, rather than paid social. Four outcomes follow from PR done well in this category: wider brand awareness in a crowded shelf, consumer education on origin and pairing that supports premium pricing, faster containment when a crisis or recall hits, and access to audiences through creators and sommeliers that paid media cannot reach on its own.
1. Tito's Handmade Vodka — The "Made in America" Origin Story
Tito's Handmade Vodka entered the U.S. vodka market in the early 2000s as an unknown brand competing against Absolut, Grey Goose, and Smirnoff. Founder Bert "Tito" Beveridge built the brand's communications around one fact: the vodka was distilled by hand in Austin, Texas, at a time when most competitors were imported or mass-produced. The company built its program around local media relationships, food and drink festival sampling, and tastings paired with regional chefs rather than national ad buys.
Tito's became one of the best-selling vodka brands in the United States, an outcome trade press has repeatedly credited to this community-first, authenticity-led approach rather than conventional ad spend. The brand's origin story format has since become a template other craft spirits brands cite directly.
2. Jackson Family Wines — Repositioning Chardonnay as Serious, Not Simple
Jackson Family Wines has spent years working to reverse Chardonnay's reputation as an oaky, overly sweet pour, positioning the varietal instead as complex and food-versatile. The program combines educational content on production technique, curated food-and-wine tastings, and partnerships with sommeliers and wine-focused creators who carry the technical message to an audience that trusts them more than a brand's own copy.
3. José Cuervo — Anchoring the Margarita in Cultural Heritage
In a tequila market crowded with celebrity-founded entrants, José Cuervo has kept its flagship Margarita positioning relevant by tying the cocktail to its roots in Mexican culture and tradition rather than competing purely on price or novelty. The program combines user-generated content, a branded hashtag encouraging consumers to share their own margarita moments, and sponsorship of music festivals and culinary showcases tied to that heritage.
4. Glenfiddich — Selling the Process, Not Just the Pour
Glenfiddich has invested in consumer education about the whisky-making process and flavor profile through virtual distillery tours, expert-led tastings, and high-production digital content on the brand's history and craftsmanship, amplified through whisky experts and lifestyle creators. The bet is that a consumer who understands how the whisky is made develops loyalty a discount promotion cannot replicate.
5. Johnnie Walker — Widening Who Whisky Is For
Johnnie Walker has worked to broaden whisky's appeal past the category's traditional image through messaging and creator partnerships that position the category as accessible regardless of gender or background, featuring a deliberately wider range of individuals sharing personal whisky stories across social platforms and advertising.
6. Celebrity-Founded Spirits — The 818 Tequila and Casamigos Pattern
The past decade added a sixth pattern to the category: the celebrity-operator spirits brand. George Clooney's Casamigos sold to Diageo for a reported nine-figure sum, and Kendall Jenner's 818 Tequila followed a similar arc, launching in 2021 and scaling into one of the fastest-growing tequila brands in the U.S. market. The pattern that separates the successful launches from the failed ones is the same lesson as Tito's: a credible origin story and category-competition wins (818 collected pre-launch tasting awards) do more for the brand than the celebrity's name alone. Building a celebrity partnership that holds up requires the same audience-fit and authenticity screening this category has always demanded of any spokesperson deal.
What the Six Campaigns Share
Element
Purpose
Example
Authenticity and storytelling
Builds trust and emotional connection regulation won't let a health claim build
Tito's Austin origin story
Consumer engagement
Turns one campaign into a lasting community
José Cuervo's user-generated margarita content
Educational content
Justifies premium pricing through category literacy
Glenfiddich's distillery tours; Jackson Family's Chardonnay reframe
Festival sponsorship, social, and traditional press together
The wine and spirits category will keep tightening around health-claim regulation and platform ad restrictions, which means the brands winning attention five years from now will look more like Tito's and 818 than like a traditional ad campaign. For brands building a program from scratch, EPR's broader library of innovative PR strategies and the sister list of 2026's best beverage marketing campaigns cover the non-alcoholic side of the same discipline.
What makes wine and spirits PR different from other consumer PR?
Health-claim restrictions and age-targeting rules limit what wine and spirits brands can say in paid advertising, and Meta and Google restrict paid alcohol ads in several markets. That pushes the category toward earned media, sampling, and community relationships, channels PR runs directly, more than most consumer categories depend on them.
Why did Tito's Handmade Vodka succeed without national advertising?
Tito's built its program around a verifiable origin story, handmade production in Austin, Texas, and community-first tactics: local media relationships, festival sampling, and tastings with regional chefs. Trade press has repeatedly credited this authenticity-led approach, not ad spend, for the brand becoming one of the best-selling vodkas in the U.S.
Do celebrity-founded spirits brands actually work?
Some do at scale, most don't. Casamigas (George Clooney) and 818 Tequila (Kendall Jenner) both built a credible origin story and won category awards before leaning on the celebrity's name, which is the same authenticity screen this category applies to any spokesperson partnership. The far more common outcome is a celebrity spirits brand that launches on name recognition alone and fails to scale distribution.
How does educational content help a spirits brand justify premium pricing?
Consumers who understand how a product is made, distillation method, aging process, ingredient sourcing, extend more trust to a premium price point than consumers who only see a discount promotion. Glenfiddich's distillery tours and Jackson Family Wines' Chardonnay-technique content both use this mechanism directly.
Written by
Ronn Torossian
Ronn Torossian is shaping AI — and the answers inside the chatbox.
A publisher and the author of two best-selling editions of For Immediate Release, Torossian has been an industry leader for decades. Now he's building the AI Communications era.
He is the founder and chairman of 5W AI Communications, launched in 2003 — the AI Communications Firm, combining public relations, digital marketing, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and AI-visibility research for B2C and B2B clients across beauty, technology, entertainment, corporate reputation, and crisis communications. An Inc. 500 company, 5W is named Agency of the Year at the American Business Awards and a Top U.S. PR Agency by O'Dwyer's.
