Tesla Inc listed a limited edition run of Tesla Tequila for $420 on its online store on April 20, 2022, and shoppers cleared the entire batch of 420 numbered bottles within minutes, according to reporting from Mashable and other outlets that day.

The listing was Tesla's third tequila release, not its first. The company had already put Tesla Tequila on sale in November 2020 at $250 a bottle and restocked it once in March 2021 before issuing the numbered $420 set two years later.

What the $420 listing actually contained

The set surfaced around Tesla's first quarter 2022 earnings call, when the automated tracking account Tesla Shop Bot spotted it live on the company's site.

The $420 figure doubled as a callback to a 2018 Elon Musk tweet floating the idea of taking Tesla private at $420 a share. Each hand blown, lightning bolt shaped bottle in the batch carried its own serial number from 1 to 420 and came packaged with two sipping glasses and a pair of metal stands bearing Tesla's brushed T logo.

Who actually distills the liquid

Tesla does not produce the tequila itself. The añejo is made by Nosotros Tequila and Mezcal, a Southern California brand founded by Carlos Soto and Michael Arbanas that entered the market in 2017. Production is tied to NOM 1438 in the Los Valles district of Jalisco, a facility operating under the name Casa Mestri, according to a retailer product listing and Mexico's tequila regulator.

Per that listing, the spirit is distilled from 100 percent blue Weber agave sourced from a highland and lowland blend, matured for 15 months in French oak barrels, and bottled at 40 percent alcohol by volume.

Why it isn't called Teslaquila

The product's name traces back to an April Fools' joke Musk posted in 2018 showing himself passed out beside a Tesla Model 3 surrounded by bottles labeled Teslaquilla. Tesla later filed a U.S. trademark application for Teslaquila and pursued the same name in Mexico. Mexico's Tequila Regulatory Council, the body that oversees the tequila denomination of origin, objected in February 2019, and the country's Institute of Industrial Property ruled in March 2019 that the name was too close to the protected term to register. A final ruling on January 16, 2020 closed off any appeal. Martín Muñoz, head of the CRT's certification body, said the name could confuse consumers about the product's origin, and the agency told reporters that Tesla would need to partner with an authorized producer and seek formal approval to use anything resembling the word tequila. Tesla dropped the Teslaquila name that same year and brought the bottle to market as Tesla Tequila instead.

What is documented and what remains unconfirmed

Tesla has never published official sales figures for any of its tequila drops. CNBC noted at the time of the original November 2020 launch that the company had not revealed exactly how many bottles it sold or produced. A widely repeated figure claiming 20,000 bottles sold in four hours traces to social posts rather than a Tesla disclosure, and Electrek's contemporaneous coverage of that launch stated plainly that the bottle count was unknown even to reporters following the story closely. The 420-bottle ceiling on the 2022 batch is better documented, since it was built into the product itself through sequential engraving from 1 to 420. Independent of Tesla's own marketing copy, the spirit has drawn mixed notice from agave spirits critics; trade write-ups have cited a panel score of 65 for Tesla Tequila on the crowd-sourced site Tequila Matchmaker, well below scores typically posted by artisanal Jalisco producers.