30 Nov 2025 Inzalo Agave Spirits: bold new local challenger to tequila

After 25 years abroad, Sebastian O’Keefe has returned home to SA with a mission: to put the country on the global agave map, using plants introduced in colonial times that are now used as cattle feed.…

Having held senior roles at Foster’s Group, Gartner, and Amazon — where he led the wine and spirits category — O’Keefe decided it was time to stop building brands for others and create one of his own.

In this interview, O’Keefe tells Biznews how he and his partner criss‑crossed the country testing plants and discovered rare ‘Red Agave’ thriving in a dry, salty, high‑altitude place in the Klein Karoo near Ladismith.

Harvested by hand, gently steamed in dairy tanks and fermented with wild yeast, the first batch of Inzalo Agave Spirits are about to hit the shelves.

Deliberately not called tequila or mezcal (those names are protected), Inzalo is being positioned as the founding member of an entirely new, proudly South African category of agave spirit.

He says as they started working with the spirit, their ambitions grew to not only create the greatest agave spirit outside of Mexico but to create a new class of agave spirits, something that is completely unique to South Africa.

And it will include two varieties, Batch One, a white spirit that shines in cocktails, and one that’s smooth, complex, and designed for sipping neat.

Hear more here!

Source: BizNews.com