Tequila Ocho has converted a bar space in Los Angeles's Venice neighborhood into a temporary brand outpost for August and September, running a series of dinners and events under the name Casa de Ocho. The Knockturnal covered one of the dinners, a multi-course tasting called Taste of Terroir hosted at 70 Windward Avenue.

The evening was hosted by Carlos Camarena, Tequila Ocho's co-founder and master distiller, who moved between tables discussing the tequila being poured and the individual agave fields, or estates, behind each pour, according to the outlet.

What Was Served

Rather than build the night around cocktails, the dinner paired a sequence of courses with different Tequila Ocho expressions. The meal opened with kanpachi and guacamole alongside a Terroir Select bottling labeled Rio Lerma 2026, followed by huitlacoche ravioli paired with Tequila Ocho Reposado and a Terroir Select release identified as El Nacimiento de Abuja 2025. Camarena stayed with guests through the courses, according to The Knockturnal, walking the room to explain how each estate and vintage shaped the liquid in front of them.

The Single-Estate Idea Behind the Brand

The dinner's format reflects the concept Tequila Ocho was built on. The brand was founded by Camarena, a third-generation master distiller from the Camarena family that has made tequila in Arandas, Jalisco for generations, together with the late Tomas Estes, a restaurateur who spent decades as an informal tequila ambassador in Europe before his death in 2020. Rather than blending agave from multiple sources to keep flavor consistent from year to year, Tequila Ocho names the specific rancho where each batch's agave was grown and dates each release to its harvest year, a practice the brand has used since its founding in 2008. Camarena's family also produces the Tapatío and El Tesoro brands out of La Alteña, the distillery his grandfather Don Felipe Camarena opened in Arandas in 1937.

Tequila Ocho itself now runs primarily out of a newer facility, Los Alambiques, which the brand opened in 2023 on a hillside above Arandas known as El Cerro del Gallo, fifteen years after Tequila Ocho was founded. The site includes a barrel cellar and a cantina named for Estes. Some recent vintages have reportedly shifted production back to the older La Alteña distillery as demand for the brand has grown, according to trade coverage of the facility.

Who Owns Tequila Ocho

Tequila Ocho is not independently owned. It sits inside Samson & Surrey, a craft spirits company founded in 2016 by Robert Furniss-Roe and Juan Rovira that also holds Widow Jane American Whiskey, Few Spirits, Brenne French Whisky, Bluecoat Gin and Mezcal Vago. Kentucky-based Heaven Hill Brands acquired Samson & Surrey in February 2022 for an undisclosed sum. At the time of the deal, Samson & Surrey's portfolio was tracking roughly forty million dollars in annual sales and growing at sixty percent per year, according to Heaven Hill's announcement. The division has continued to operate under Furniss-Roe and Rovira since the acquisition.

What This Means

A two-month bar takeover is a marketing exercise, not a production story, and nothing about the Venice pop-up changes how the tequila is made. What is worth watching is whether Heaven Hill leans further into the terroir narrative as a point of differentiation now that a wave of newer single-estate labels compete for the same shelf space. In this publication's own tastings, Tequila Ocho's Plata has scored 94 and carries a Verified Pure purity rating, a fact worth keeping in mind the next time a brand's storytelling outpaces what is actually in the bottle.