Kilinga
Bacanora, On Its Own Terms
We refused the agave playbook — no terroir worship, no margarita — and gave Bacanora a signature drink that opened menus no other agave could reach.
- Signature serve strategy
- New menu placements
- Category codes broken
The challenge
Bacanora is unknown outside Sonora, and every convention available to it — Mexican terroir, agave reverence, the margarita — would have filed it behind tequila and mezcal.
What we did
We positioned Bacanora as a stand-alone revival rather than a tequila alternative, sensuous and a little naughty, and changed the category's behavior through a signature drink: Kilinga chilled, straight up in a flute, garnished with an orange slice dusted with cinnamon.
The consequence
A serve that broke the expected agave drink code and commercially opened menu placements no other agave brand was pursuing.
Scored on the
consequential triangle.
- Talkability
- A drink nobody has seen before gets ordered out loud and photographed.
- Defensibility
- Owning the serve means owning how the category is poured.
- Indispensability
- Once it is the house pour, taking it off the menu is the loss.
Your turn.
We take a small number of engagements at a time. Tell us what's at stake.