Danny McBride has his own tequila. Is Don Gato and its massive mythology any good?

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

The box arrived on a typical Wednesday. This was not unusual; my job reviewing various boozes and foods has made my house a regular stop on the delivery circuit and led to slightly weird but ultimately rewarding relationships with our UPS and FedEx drivers.

What's inside the box was unusual, however. A dirty banker's box adorned with stickers of cats and luchadores. Wiping off the simulated (?) dust gave way to a plethora of weird effects. A small framed photo. A fake VHS case with a real thumb drive inside. A small action figure. Two bottles of Don Gato tequila. And, to tie them all together, Danny McBride's "personal" journal -- the contents of which I cannot reprint here due to Gannett's standards and prose that uses curse words the way an old time telegraph used the word "stop."

Welcome to McBride's celebrity liquor venture. It's exactly as bat[expletive] as he is.

The Don Gato backstory is dense. He's a fictional Mexican wrestler who took McBride and Steve Little under his wing, both at his dojo and in the sweltering agave fields outside. He's like a Scrabble-playing Hulk Hogan, but with more cats and less racism.

Together, McBride brought Gato's tequila to life -- just in time to be prominently featured in the final season of The Righteous Gemstones. Those trailers where Eli is enjoying retirement on a boat? The bottle that millionaire mega-pastor has on board is none other than Don Gato.

Which makes this a good time to dig in to the latest celebrity booze venture in a long line of them. McBride promises additive-free tequila at under $40 per bottle and a dense mythology behind its namesake. Is it any good?

Don Gato Reposado: B-

There's a bit of a yellow tint to it in the bottle. Pour it over ice and it fades to nearly clear. It smells slightly sweet, slightly salty and a little boozy. You pick up notes of that roasted agave; it mostly smells like a generic tequila.

The first sip tells you what that lack of color suggests. This didn't spend much time in the barrel. There's some minor oak and vanilla, but my first impression is this is all very light. That's great news if you're looking for an easy sipper (and mixer that's easy to get lost in even the laziest cocktails) but a bummer if you're looking for a little more nuance.

Toward the end you get a bit of the cinnamon and allspice that I'd really like to see more of. There's definitely a big "what if" about all this, as though we were maybe a few more months of aging from having something really interesting. But as is, it's a perfectly cromulent tequila. There's agave and certain vegetable-adjacent notes. More importantly, there's only a little heat involved here -- nothing in terms of burn.

It wouldn't be my first choice. but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its place. This is a totally fine tequila bumped up a notch by its fictional and glorious backstory. If George Clooney came out with a story about how he cut his buddy's foot off outside a Mexican wrestling school, I'd probably have fonder feelings for Casamigos, too.

Don Gato Blanco: B+

This is a bit spicier and more agave forward than the reposado out of the bottle. The smell is strong, but appealing. You get a little bit of that earthy spice, somewhere between cinnamon and mint, that comes out of properly aged agave.

The opening sip backs this up. There's much more volume to this pour. The flavor is more defined, stronger. There's a gentle fruitiness and a little, almost creamy vanilla that's backed with just a minor spice. That cinnamon/wintergreen agave flavor kicks in toward the end to give you something to linger on, along with a lasting sweetness that sends you off happy. Like the reposado, there's no burn involved. You can drink this all day.

I'm not getting the ethanol and sting of other celebrity tequilas. Where it shines is the price point; at less than $40 per bottle you're getting a blanco that offers a little extra complexity. It's similar to Lalo -- backed by a moderately known name (from different worlds) and offering a slightly buttery tequila at a good price. It might not bring as much to the table as a bottle of Gran Centenario, but at half the cost it doesn't have to. It's just a pretty dang solid tequila.

Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?

This a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Don Gato over a cold can of Hamm’s?

The reposado will be blended into margaritas and other basic cocktails. The blanco can stick around as a sipper. But Don Gato's early offerings are a success; one decent tequila and one good one along with some truly funny history surrounding it. Not actual history, mind you, but that hardly matters.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Don Gato tequila review: Does Danny McBride make a proper spirit?