Old Vines at Mercato, a restaurant inside the Mercato retail and dining complex in Naples, Florida, is ending its Summer Spirits Dinner Series on Wednesday, Aug. 12, with a dinner built around Tequila Ocho, according to a release distributed by Priority Marketing and picked up by Florida Weekly and the Above Board Chamber. The event runs from 6 to 8 p.m. and is hosted in partnership with The Supper Club, the restaurant's recurring dining collaborator.
The Tequila Ocho evening closes a series that opened June 24 with Angel's Envy Bourbon and continued through Ilegal Mezcal on July 15 and Elijah Craig Bourbon on July 29, according to the restaurant's promotional materials. Tickets for the finale are priced at 125 dollars per person, excluding tax and gratuity, with the dinner restricted to guests 21 and older and reservations required.
What is on the menu
The dinner is structured as a four course tasting menu paired against a range of Tequila Ocho expressions, from blanco through extra añejo, according to the release. It opens with an amuse bouche, then moves to seared scallops served with passionfruit aquachile, avocado, radish and tomato, paired with a cocktail built on Ocho's Plata expression. The second course, pork belly lollipops with sesame, snap pea, scallion and pineapple, is paired with a cocktail made with Ocho Reposado. Details of the remaining courses were not included in the materials reviewed.
The brand behind the dinner
Tequila Ocho was founded in 2007 as a partnership between the Camarena family, longtime agave growers and distillers in Jalisco, and Tomás Estes, a spirits entrepreneur credited with helping popularize tequila in European markets. The brand's identifying claim, repeated in the restaurant's promotional copy, is that it bottles single estate, single vintage tequila, with each release traceable to a specific harvest year and field rather than blended across lots. The release also describes the brand as relying on solar power to support its production and on what it calls responsible growing practices, though it did not detail specific certifications or third party verification for either claim.
The dinner series and the venue
Old Vines at Mercato operates out of Strada Place in the Mercato development in Naples and markets itself around an extensive wine program, a Wine Locker storage service for regulars, and chef driven collaborations run through The Supper Club. The Spirits Dinner series was framed in the restaurant's June announcement as an extension of that wine focused identity into whiskey, bourbon, mezcal and tequila, with each installment following the same format: a fixed 125 dollar price, a two hour window, and tasting notes delivered jointly by brand representatives and the restaurant's culinary staff. The Aug. 12 date and the four courses tied to Tequila Ocho are the only specifics confirmed for the finale beyond what has already run in June and July.
What this means
This is a single restaurant promotion rather than an industry event, and none of the sustainability or terroir claims made in the release have been independently verified here. Tequila Ocho's own bottlings have scored well in blind evaluation: Tequila Ocho Plata carries a Verified Pure rating in the database this publication maintains separately from any coverage, for readers who want a benchmark beyond the marketing language attached to this dinner.