Tequila Ocho opened Casa de Ocho on August 12, 2026, a two-month pop-up at 70 Windward Avenue on the Venice Boardwalk in Los Angeles, running through the end of September with tastings, dinners and guest bar takeovers.

The brand, owned by Kentucky-based Heaven Hill Brands, announced the residency in a release describing it as a multi-level space built around agave, food and programming tied to its Jalisco origins. Heaven Hill said the calendar spans August and September and includes new product rollouts alongside the parties and tastings.

What Is Happening Inside Casa De Ocho

According to Heaven Hill's announcement, the space sits beneath Venice's landmark string-light sign and will host bar takeovers from El Gallo Altanero of Guadalajara, a World's 50 Best Bars honoree, Denver's Yacht Club, which won the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Award for Best US Cocktail Bar in 2024, and two Los Angeles bars, Mirate and Daisy. Co-founder Carlos Camarena is scheduled to host a seminar covering tequila and coffee, while his daughter Fany Camarena, Tequila Ocho's Commercial Director for Mexico, is set to lead a rooftop session on puntas, the cut of distillate taken between the heads and the heart of the run. The Knockturnal reported from an early dinner inside the space, describing a multi-course tasting menu built around different Tequila Ocho expressions, including a course pairing kanpachi and guacamole with the brand's Rio Lerma 2026 terroir-select bottling, with Camarena moving through the room describing the individual fields behind each pour.

Who Owns Tequila Ocho And Why Stage It In Venice

Tequila Ocho was founded by master distiller Carlos Camarena and the late tequila ambassador Tomas Estes, who died in April 2021 at his home in Oregon. The brand built its identity on a single-estate model, bottling vintages tied to specific agave fields around Arandas, Jalisco, rather than blending harvests together. Heaven Hill acquired the brand in February 2022 through its purchase of Samson & Surrey, the six-brand portfolio that also included Widow Jane American Whiskey, Few Spirits, Brenne French Whisky, Bluecoat Gin and Mezcal Vago; the deal was for an undisclosed sum, though Samson & Surrey was reported at the time to be generating roughly $40 million in sales and growing at about 60 percent a year. In the release announcing Casa de Ocho, Chris Dunn, Heaven Hill's Assistant Vice President of Agave Spirits, described Tequila Ocho as growing out of an early effort by Camarena and Estes to test whether the concept of terroir could apply to spirits, saying the goal was to prove that terroir exists in spirits, and credited California specifically for embracing that pitch, calling the residency a way to thank the market.

What Led Up To The Venice Residency

The Los Angeles activation lands roughly eight months after Tequila Ocho said it would resume production at Destilería La Alteña, its original home base and the site where Camarena and Estes began distilling in 2007, in order to add capacity beyond its newer Los Alambiques distillery, opened in 2022 on a hillside above Arandas. The company said at the time that select vintages would be produced at La Alteña, located about fifteen minutes from Los Alambiques, with staff reassigned between the two sites to handle demand without changing production standards.

What This Means

Casa de Ocho is a marketing and hospitality push rather than a liquid or ownership story, and Heaven Hill has not disclosed what the promised new product rollouts inside the space will be. Tequila Ocho Plata already carries a score of 94 and Verified Pure status in Tequila Watch's blind database, so what happens inside a Venice storefront changes none of that; the bottle worth watching is whatever gets poured for the first time on that rooftop.