{"id":439445,"date":"2026-05-13T10:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T10:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/439445\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T10:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T10:34:08","slug":"fame-fantasy-and-fish-celebrity-drinks-put-to-the-test-celebrity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/439445\/","title":{"rendered":"Fame, fantasy \u2026 and fish? Celebrity drinks put to the test | Celebrity"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you were incredibly late to the party, you\u2019ll have become aware of celebrities making their own brands of alcohol in March, when Margot Robbie\u2019s artisanal gin<\/a>, Papa Salt, hit the rocks. Specifically, bars were refusing to stock it because oyster shells had been involved in its distilling.<\/p>\n

The Guardian\u2019s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.\u00a0Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was such a charming tale; Robbie fell in love with London when she lived in Clapham in the 2010s, and wanted to give something back, namely, a gin with the flavours of Australia: wattleseed, wax flower, and oyster shell. \u201cBut what barman wants to have to ask every customer that orders a gin and tonic whether they\u2019re allergic to shellfish?\u201d was the question posed by Joanne Gould<\/a>, food and drink writer and regular tester of alcohol on the Filter, with devastating inarguability.<\/p>\n

A follow-up question, with more possible answers: what the hell has got into celebrities, that they are all bringing out drinks, even the ones who don\u2019t drink? In my youth, all celebs had a perfume (many still do), and I can see the point of that: even if your life holds no rational prospect of ever smelling her, you could easily imagine Ariana Grande, say, being your smell role model. Drinking George Clooney tequila, by contrast, will bring you no closer to his suavity, nor in any imaginable way, into his orbit.<\/p>\n

But no question, it works: Clooney sold that brand, Casamigos, in 2017 for $1bn<\/a>. Tequila stands out as the spirit most likely to get a star boost \u2013 drinks industry figures from 2023 show a 16% rise in celebrity-endorsed tequila sales, against 3% for the spirit overall, while big-name whiskies got an 8% lift, compared with 2% overall growth. Stars gravitate towards tequila for its short production times, and that\u2019s fair enough. Imagine you were famous, then you were in some donkey of a film that was incontrovertibly your fault, and your career evaporated: how depressing to be left with a job lot of remaindered pineapple rum.<\/p>\n

It must work, or there wouldn\u2019t be knock-offs: Chilean actor Pedro Pascal is in a legal battle with a Chilean piscomonger that named its spirit Pedro Piscal<\/a>. I was surprised, because he looks too chill to worry about what they\u2019re making pisco sours out of in Chile, but that was before I learned the numbers involved in monetising your vibe. Whether you decide to or not, there\u2019s too much at stake to just give it away.<\/p>\n

Why drinkers favour some celebrity drinks over others remains a mystery; partly because almost nobody admits to being swayed by the star. Only 1% of drinkers in the UK say they are influenced by celebrity endorsement<\/a>. Yet we have to put that down to shy celebrity worship, since the same study found that 53% of Britons would be more likely to buy booze from a famous person they had warm feelings towards.<\/p>\n

This suggests the real fantasy is even wilder than \u201cI will drink this and behave or look more like George Clooney\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s closing your eyes and imagining yourself drinking with the star. Then it all starts to make sense: why does Kylie Minogue sell more pink prosecco than anyone else in the UK? It\u2019s the flight of fancy. You could just as well be in a bar with Kylie \u2013 on a beach in a magical land very like Ibiza \u2013 maybe in matching gold hot pants, with two striped parasols, one over your head, a tiny one in your drink. And each glass \u2013 light at 10.5% and going down like Tizer (which it emphatically isn\u2019t) \u2013 makes it feel more and more real.<\/p>\n

This also answers the secondary question: why these celebrities, why now? Why Alex James and not Damon Albarn? Why Idris Elba and not Dominic West (I\u2019m going back to The Wire days)? Why Elton John and not Chris Martin? It\u2019s because they\u2019re the people you\u2019d want to have a beer with, even if it\u2019s a zero. If this recalls the famous polling question<\/a> in US elections, that\u2019s probably no coincidence. If we could cast a vote for Ricky Gervais, perhaps we\u2019d do that as well (or perhaps we wouldn\u2019t \u2013 jury still out).<\/p>\n

The prime question, though, even for vibe, is: are these drinks any good? I sat down with Jo Gould and my 18-year-old stepdaughter, Cicely Higham, and made my way through a lot of them. We were rigorous about a fizzy water palate cleanser between each, at least for the first six, before Iron Maiden\u2019s powerful red obliterated any possibility of cleansing. We started with the most expensive, as any discerning home drinker would, but otherwise prioritised low alcohol by volume (ABV), doing the zeros early. A Ritz cracker would have been pro, but instead I made some mini meat pies, for the sense of occasion.<\/p>\n

These findings are about taste and general appeal. It\u2019s not possible for me, Jo and Cicely to say how far this mimicked drinking with the stars. Everyone will have their own answer to that.<\/p>\n

The best celebrity drinks put to the test\u2018It tastes like honey and lemon \u2013 and then nothing\u2019: Cicely, Zoe and Jo try the drinks. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi\/The GuardianIdris Elba\u2019s Porte Noir champagne\u00a359.80 at Porte Noire<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a blanc de blancs, Jo noted, so it hasn\u2019t got the red grape, pinot noir, typical in a champagne. I found it inoffensive and within range of what you\u2019d expect from fizz, maybe a bit sweeter than usual. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit girlie, lighter than normal, more floral, orchardy,\u201d she continued. We were a bit baffled by why he\u2019d go that way, which feels at odds with his persona \u2013 except Cicely, who said: \u201cI literally have no idea who he is except that middle-aged women all have a crush on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Champagne is a tough market, even when you\u2019re occupying a very particular niche (girly flavours from a fabled hard man). \u201cBig names on discount are hard to beat on wow factor and consistency,\u201d Jo concluded. We all found it quite lightweight, but most of us didn\u2019t mind.<\/p>\n

Elton John Zero 0% blanc de blancs Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi\/The Guardian\u00a310 at Sainsbury\u2019s<\/a>\u00a310 at Tesco<\/a><\/p>\n

Elton John is one of the longest sober celebrities on earth (35 years), and must know his way round the no-alcohol market \u2013 its successes and failures, trials and errors \u2013 so we were expecting something much better than Shloer. It looks aeons classier: a fancy shape, a star on the E of Elton, it says in the clearest voice possible: \u201cYou, not-drinking guest, are as dear to us as all the others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has no wine character in it,\u201d Jo said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t taste like chardonnay at all. It\u2019s so sweet you\u2019d end up with a headache.\u201d \u201cIt tastes like that cheap flavoured water you get in a meal deal,\u201d Cicely said. Granted, it\u2019s very like Appletiser, and no, it doesn\u2019t even remind you of alcohol. But it\u2019s just tart enough that you wouldn\u2019t feel you were being patronised, as a non-drinking member of a celebration, and looks (it is!) expensive enough that you\u2019d feel cherished.<\/p>\n

For more, read the Filter\u2019s guide the best low- and no-alcohol drinks<\/a><\/p>\n

Kylie ros\u00e9 prosecco\u00a311.50 at Tesco<\/a>\u00a39.79 at Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

The stealth bomber in the celebrity booze arsenal, the one everyone points to and says: \u201cWait, this is not just popular, it is also good.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s big on the raspberries and strawberries,\u201d Jo said. \u201cIt must have something other than the prosecco grape \u2013 or the grapes are picked at a time when they\u2019re almost overripe, which gives you that very jammy flavour.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only been a few years since they were allowed to make ros\u00e9 prosecco and still call it that, Jo pointed out, which has lightened the guardrails on how you could blend it, creating this \u201cparty-ready, crowd-pleasing drink\u201d. All those adjectives, and yet it\u2019s very unassuming; you really could drink it without noticing. Jo\u2019s mother keeps the bottles and fills them with fairy lights. Cicely thinks it tastes like Squashies.<\/p>\n

Alex James\u2019s Britpop cider\u00a336 for 12 bottles at Laithwaites<\/a><\/p>\n

The bassist may have been the first, and was definitely the loudest of the Britpop era to fall out of love with booze. These days, he\u2019s keen to maintain his ascetic edge, remarking last year: \u201cI make music and sell booze, I\u2019m basically a monk.\u201d The cider smells incredible, so appley that it almost changes the season for you. Cooking with it \u2013 I did some pork chops later \u2013 is a pleasure. It packs that punch when you taste it, but is thin on the exit, so you feel short-changed. \u201cI\u2019d drink it in a pub, but I wouldn\u2019t buy it,\u201d Jo said, and Cicely said it smelled a bit like clean washing.<\/p>\n

Tom Holland\u2019s Bero Kingston Golden Pils\u00a310 for six cans at Morrisons<\/a>\u00a320 for 12 cans at Bero<\/a><\/p>\n

A dry January turned into sobriety for actor Tom Holland in 2022, after which, he said, he \u201ccraved a product that helped [him] feel included\u201d. For that, he could have tried Asahi Zero<\/a>, which is deliciously inclusive, but instead, we have his Golden Pils. \u201cIt tastes like honey and lemon, and then it tastes of nothing,\u201d Cicely said, doubling down. \u201cBut I\u2019m more offended by the nothing than the mead.\u201d Jo identifies that all celebrities are working under a split imperative: to make a mark at the same time as going mass market, which creates this contradiction of sometimes alarmingly strong flavours that are evanescent. I found it too sweet and autumnal to make a satisfying pils, with or without alcohol.<\/p>\n

Gary Barlow Wines sauvignon blanc Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi\/The Guardian\u00a37.58 at Asda<\/a>\u00a38.50 at Tesco<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt smells of nothing, though I would probably guess it was a sauvignon blanc,\u201d Jo said. \u201cThere\u2019s a hint of tropical, a bit of gooseberry and grassiness, but they don\u2019t come through. Even the colour of it \u2013 it\u2019s meant to be South African, but where\u2019s the sunshine?\u201d It\u2019s very easy drinking because there\u2019s nothing to it, but that\u2019s not really what you want; wine is not a session drink. Cicely said it was wine for people who don\u2019t like wine.<\/p>\n

That said, within its price range, it\u2019s clean and inoffensive, and between the hyper-masculine block font and \u201cGARY BARLOW\u201d right there in bronze, it certainly looks like a choice you\u2019ve thought about.<\/p>\n

Matthew McConaughey\u2019s Pantalones tequila\u00a334 at Waitrose<\/a>\u00a336.50 at Master of Malt<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBlanco generally is the cheapest, and it\u2019s not a sipping tequila,\u201d Jo cautioned. At the same time, if you throw it down your throat with a mouthful of salt and a lime slice chaser, it could be anything; so we do have to sip it. \u201cThis is a decent-quality blanco, though,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s a silky agave-iness to it.\u201d You could differentiate it from paint stripper, for sure, but whether or not you could tell it from the all-purpose supermarket tequila with the hat on is another matter. Tequila is a bit like retsina \u2013 the process is so distinctive that you have to climb way up the price points before you can tell one from another.<\/p>\n

You can also read the Filter\u2019s rundown of the best tequila and mezcal<\/a><\/p>\n

Emma Watson\u2019s Renais gin\u00a333 at Ocado<\/a>\u00a345 at Renais<\/a><\/p>\n

Watson is the closest you\u2019ll come to a celebrity with an authentic purpose and hinterland in this market. With her brother, she\u2019s created a gin from salvaged grape skins, on the Burgundy estate where their father has been making wine for 30 years. Watson senior has an award for his chablis, which they almost never give anyone who isn\u2019t French. The headline flavour is a compelling, soft citrus, orange-like scent, not a blare. Cicely and Jo both picked up basil, making it the drink version of one of those classy, unexpected River Cafe salads of the 90s. Delicious, with no harshness, you could drink it neat. The photographer was Italian and raised the inconvenient objection that a spirit made of grape skins is a grappa. That just wouldn\u2019t sound very Watson, though.<\/p>\n

Iron Maiden Darkest red wine Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi\/The Guardian\u00a312.49 at Drink Supermarket<\/a>\u00a313.25 at Ocado<\/a><\/p>\n

We spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether this was a product tie-in with Stranger Things, in which The Trooper was played in its finale, a testament to the character, Eddie Munson, who loved Iron Maiden. Nope \u2013 this is the band\u2019s own work, and what a satisfying punch in the face it is. You cannot see through it. \u201cLoads of fruity flavours, a bit of leather \u2013 considering what it could be, it\u2019s much easier drinking than I expected,\u201d Jo said. It reminded me of the bottle of wine you pick up at a Whistlestop for the train back from the world\u2019s best day trip, which is to say that things could have gone really badly, but instead they turned out fine. Cicely loved it, saying it tasted like black forest gateau.<\/p>\n

Margot Robbie\u2019s Papa Salt coastal gin\u00a340 at Tesco<\/a>\u00a331 at Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

Ah, the controversy gin, the object lesson in why celebrities should remain on the customer side of the cocktail equation: Robbie fell in love with Infernos \u2013 a fabled nightclub in Clapham \u2013 when she lived in London. And yet it was that very sort of bar, 25 deep and very thirsty, that couldn\u2019t possibly have stocked her original version, due to the allergy issues. Robbie has now altered the manufacturing process to take out the problematic shellfish element, but the flavour is still distinctly coastal, and, coupled with the fact that we won\u2019t stop talking about oysters, means that all I can taste is fish. Maybe it isn\u2019t fish, maybe it\u2019s sea, but I\u2019ve never tasted any drink I thought would be better with a trace of fish. Jo takes a firmly different view: that it\u2019s saline \u2013 the taste of the bracing sea. She liked it, as did Cicely.<\/p>\n

Rod Stewart\u2019s Wolfie\u2019s whisky\u00a329.99 at Wolfie\u2019s<\/a>\u00a329.99 at Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis smells quite strong, like smoked cheese,\u201d Cicely said, \u201cand tastes like cork,\u201d Jo finished. \u201cIt\u2019s a blend that\u2019s going for harmony, but it\u2019s so blended that it\u2019s lost any character.\u201d It\u2019s hard to stand up to the main producers; with whisky, they\u2019ve been doing this a hell of a long time. But the people who favour this particular spirit love distinctive and complex flavours, so it\u2019s hard to pull off an all-purpose crowd pleaser. For this to work, you\u2019d have to really like Rod Stewart, but \u2013 newsflash \u2013 some people do.<\/p>\n

Ricky Gervais\u2019s Dutch Barn black cherry vodka\u00a332 at Waitrose Cellar<\/a>\u00a331.15 at Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey put all kinds of rubbish in vodkas,\u201d Jo said, which explains why the Dutch Barn website is worded quite unusually, \u201cno cheap ethanol\u201d, \u201cno bad apples\u201d \u2013 most drinks don\u2019t preface their origin story with the fact that they haven\u2019t deliberately distilled with bad ingredients. The black cherry is pretty extraordinary: it doesn\u2019t taste artificial, which a cherry flavour situated in anything but cherries usually does. \u201cYou could put it in any summer cocktail,\u201d (Jo). \u201cYou could put it in hot chocolate\u201d (Cicely). \u201cIt\u2019s great that it\u2019s still 38%, normally with flavoured vodkas the ABV drops.\u201d (Jo). \u201cI would take this to a party\u201d (Cicely). Didn\u2019t see that coming, that the prom king and queen of all this would end up Kylie Minogue and Ricky Gervais.<\/p>\n

For more, read the Filter\u2019s pick of the best gin for G&Ts, martinis and negronis<\/a> and the best whisky<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you were incredibly late to the party, you\u2019ll have become aware of celebrities making their own brands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-439445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}