Good afternoon. Fortune Here, senior writer Trey Williams replaces Ruth.
There’s nothing funny when actor-comedian Kevin Hart talks about his new venture – a tequila partnership with one of the oldest names in the industry, Jose Cuervo.
Spirits brand Gran Coramino launched last year and is just the latest in a string of recent ventures Hart has founded and investment deals he has made. In October, his venture capital firm Hartbeat Ventures received an undisclosed investment from JP Morgan, and in April he merged his digital network Laugh Out Loud and production business Hartbeat to create a new media and entertainment company using a $100 million investment from a private equity firm . Abry Partners.
Thanks to investments in lifestyle brands like Mitchell & Ness, Savage Hart (Rihanna) quickly added another hyphen to his name: businessman.
In 2020, he partnered with Global Brand Equities CEO James Morrissey, who released a whiskey with Grammy-nominated rapper A$ap Rocky and a rosé with musician Post Malone, as well as Jose Cuervo CEO Juan Domingo Beckmann, a tequila maker in ’11 generation to begin work on Gran Coramino. Tequila debuted in 2022, marking the second-fastest new premium tequila sales growth (more than $50 per bottle) in the past two decades, according to beverage market research firm IWSR. The brand ranks in the top 5% of sales in the entire tequila category, according to Nielsen.
It was a learning curve for the North Philadelphia native, who grew up away from the world of business and investing, but Jumanji And Ride alone the actor was present at every decision.
“There’s a big difference between putting your name on something as a celebrity and actually owning it,” Hart says. Fortune. “This was an opportunity to invest and be part of the process from the ground up.” Together with Beckmann, he helped develop the tequila’s flavor, bottle, marketing and branding.
“I don’t think I’ve done anything to date that required half effort or a one-leg-in, one-leg-out approach,” Hart says. “Either you participate, move and work in the ecosystem you create, or you don’t.”
Hart is the latest to join the incredibly crowded market of celebrity endorsers of tequila brands. This list includes the likes of Kendall Jenner, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, LeBron James and George Clooney. Morrissey acknowledges this, stating that the tequila market is probably the most competitive and saturated in history. However, he believes tequila will become the most popular spirits category within the next 10 years. Tequila is quickly becoming one of the world’s leading spirits, and research firm IMARC estimates the global tequila market to be worth approximately $15 billion and could reach $30 billion by 2028, according to Nielsen’s spirits market share report.
This growth, coupled with Hart’s shared understanding of efficient business practices, made the decision to partner with Gran Coramino an obvious choice for Morrissey.
“We do business with Kevin Hart, who, yes, is a famous face and a widely recognized artist. But for us, the main thing is the entrepreneurship it offers,” says Morrissey. “When we saw him act like a businessman, it was really impressive.”
Trey Williams
@Trey3Williams
trey.williams@fortune.com
This story was originally published on Fortune.com.