Casa Dragones: A Brand Name Born from Rebellion

Tequila is synonymous with Mexico for good reason. It’s a carefully cultivated distilled spirit that’s agave-grown, guided, and guarded by Mexico’s Tequila Regulatory Council (TRC)—even when it comes to naming¹.

However, there’s one brand name that stands out to me. It truly captures the story of rebellion and the nation’s fight for independence: Casa Dragones. Let’s raise a glass to this memorable brand name and savor the rich cultural heritage behind it.

What is Casa Dragones?

Casa Dragones is a brand of distinctly smooth sipping tequila carefully crafted in Mexico. Its hallmarks are sustainable, high quality, handmade craftsmanship with meticulous attention to detail down to the artisan bottle.

The tequila is made in small batches from blue agave plants grown in nutrient-rich soil located in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (Eje Volcánico Transversal) in Tequila, Jalisco.²

They offer five sipping tequilas:

• Casa Dragones Joven
• Casa Dragones Añejo
• Casa Dragones Reposado
• 200 Copas by Casa Dragones (new) 
• Casa Dragones Blanco

Who Created the Brand?

In 2009, Bertha González Nieves and MTV creator Bob Pittman c0-founded Tequila Casa Dragones. Nieves currently leads Casa Dragones as its CEO.

Along with other cool accomplishments, Nieves is also the first female Maestra Tequilera certified by the Mexican Academy of Tequila Tasters (Academia Mexicana de Catadores de Tequila).

Furthermore, she and Pittman are also pretty good at naming. This 2023 story in the The New York Times highlights their inspiration behind the brand name:

In 2008, when [Nieves] began brainstorming with [Pittman] on what would become their cult tequila brand, Casa Dragones, she often stayed at the guesthouse he kept not far from his hillside estate in San Miguel de Allende, about 170 miles northwest of Mexico City. While Pittman’s house was grand, González Nieves’s living quarters, on a narrow plot on Calle Recreo, a bustling street in the middle of town, were relatively modest. Still, the property, hidden from passers-by behind a narrow cyan blue facade, was steeped in historic significance. Parts of the complex — three stand-alone buildings gathered around a courtyard, some containing only a single high-ceilinged room — dated to 1671. It had once been the site of stables for Dragones de la Reina, the cavalry regiment of Ignacio Allende, an army captain who helped Mexico gain independence from Spain in the early 19th century. How better to honor him, the entrepreneurs agreed, than to name both the house and the tequila after his troop?

Inspired by the rebellious and independent spirit of Ignacio Allende and the Dragones, Casa Dragones celebrates the courage and spirit behind the Mexican War of Independence. It began with the Cry of Dolores (Grito de Dolores or El Grito de Independencia)—a rallying cry and uprising— on September 16, 1810.

Together with the name, there are other elements of this brand’s identity that commemorate Mexican Independence:

• The number ’16’ (a nod to September 16, 1810) appears on its labels and n the bottom of the bottles. It’s also the address of La Casa Dragones.
• The blue color in the flag of the Dragones cavalry regiment inspired the brand’s signature blue box.

Further Distilling the Brand Name

The name Dragones is a descendant of the word Dragoon, a mounted European infantryman of the 17th and 18th centuries armed with a firearm called by the same name.

While Dragoon appears to have a connection to the word dragon, scholars disagree on the origin of the word dragon. Furthermore, it’s also hard to find an agreed-upon origin of the name dragoon. Several possible explanations exist:

It possibly derives from an early weapon, a short wheellock, called a dragon because its muzzle was decorated with a dragon’s head. The practice comes from a time when all gunpowder weapons had distinctive names, including the culverin, serpentine, falcon, falconet, etc. It is also sometimes claimed a galloping infantryman with his loose coat and the burning match resembled a dragon. It has also been asserted that the name was coined by Mansfeld as a comparison to dragons represented as “spitting fire and being swift on the wing.” Finally, it has been suggested that the name derives from the German tragen or the Dutch dragen, both being the verb to carry in their respective languages. Howard Reid claims the name and role descend from the Latin Draconarius.³

However, what we do know is that dragoons remained among elite units of the Spanish Colonial Army into the early 1800s. And many of them played a leading role in the Mexican War of Independence, namely Ignacio Allende. He fought together with the leader of the Mexican War of Independence in the early stage of the rebellion.

In fact, the hometown of Tequila Casa Dragones is the city of San Miguel de Allende, named after its national hero.

Related Naming-Fact

The name Tequila for the distilled spirit is actually a place-name from the town of Tequila in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. This location is a primary place for tequila production.

As a matter of fact, the Mexican government established ownership of the name Tequila as intellectual property in 1974. Similar to Champagne, for instance, proper tequila is made from blue agave within specific regions of Mexico, like Jalisco.

Casa Sauza is one of the oldest commercial tequila distillers (1873!). And it’s founder, Don Cenobio Sauza, is first to export tequila to the U.S.

Therefore, it’s fitting that Sauza’s website offers a great version of the history of tequila’s name and its legend:

The Nahuatl origin (tequitl: work or trade; tlan: place) of the word, makes reference to a place of work. However, a complementary version of the origin of the word, makes reference to the rock that is typical of that region: obsidian. These rocks that were carved to be used as a tools, were known as tecatlis, and the person who handled them was called tecuilo. Thus, it became a habit to first call this place Tecuila and later in time, Tequila.

Among the legends that explain the origins of this drink, there is one that says that tequila was discovered during a thunderstorm, when lightning struck a crop of agaves and because of its intensity, caused a fire. The vapors that were produced heated the agave it produced at honey of sweet taste and pleasant aroma, which caught the attention of the natives.

They also discovered that, when fermented, it had relaxing powers and produced effects of euphoria when drinking it. Thus, Mexican natives considered this beverage a gift from the gods of drunkenness. This explains why we can see Bacchus God in many of the paintings that make reference to this beverage.

Interestingly, Baccus, Greek god of wine, must’ve first tried tequila when it was named “Vino de Mezcal de Tequila,” or “Wine from Mezcal from (the town of) Tequila.”

Parting Thoughts

Zinzin always says that the best names tell a great story. Tequila and Casa Dragones both have fascinating ones woven into the very fiber of Mexico.

From Dragoons we get Dragones. And from Dragones, we get a brand that upholds quality, craft, and connection to cultural heritage.

Finally, the fact that co-founder and CEO, Bertha González Nieves, is the first— and hopefully not the last—Maestra Tequilera certified by the Mexican Academy of Tequila Tasters tips the scales to make it this namer’s favorite.

¡Salud!

---

¹ Guidelines to Register a New Tequila Brand Name, by author and master tequila taster, Daniela Baldenebro
² Casa Dragones, Art of the Craft
³ Wikipedia, Dragoon

---

See also: High-spirited Naming: American Celebrities and their Tequila Brands