Kirkland Signature Tequila Falsely Advertised as Made With 100 Percent Blue Agave, Class Action Claims

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A class action lawsuit claims that Costco’s Kirkland Signature tequila products, unbeknownst to consumers, are adulterated with cane sugar alcohol rather than made exclusively from 100 percent blue agave as advertised.

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The 25-page lawsuit against Costco alleges that Kirkland Signature tequila products do not meet the legal requirements or definitions for a 100-percent blue agave spirit. Per the suit, U.S. law specifies that an agave spirit may be called “tequila” only if it was made in Mexico and produced in compliance with tequila manufacturing regulations set forth by the country’s Tequila Regulatory Council (CRT), and that any added flavoring may make up no more than 2.5 percent of the final product’s volume.

According to the lawsuit, CRT tequila regulations state that a product with the label “100% agave [azul]” or “100% de agave” may not be enhanced during the fermentation process with sugars from anything other than the blue variety of the tequilana weber plant grown in the Mexican states of Jalisco, Tamaulipas, Nayarit, Michoacán or Guanajuato.

“In short, no sugars other than those obtained from the tequilana weber blue variety should be found in a tequila labeled as 100% agave,” the class action lawsuit summarizes.

The filing claims that, despite these stringent definitions, the purportedly 100-percent Blue Weber agave Kirkland Signature tequila varieties are diluted with cane sugar-derived alcohol, a practice the suit says became common during a period of especially high agave prices and has remained a way for manufacturers to cut costs even after agave prices dropped from their peak.

The lawsuit reports that the lead plaintiff commissioned nuclear magnetic resonance testing, a widely used and supported food chemistry test that analyzes the carbon composition of ethanol, on the Kirkland Signature tequila products. The tests, the suit relays, found that the percentage of blue agave-specific carbon isotopes in the Kirkland tequilas not only fell short of the amounts found in other samples of 100% blue agave tequila, but also were below the required range for “mixito” tequilas, i.e., tequilas made with a minimum of 51 percent blue agave.

The complaint contends that the plaintiff and other consumers paid a premium price for the Kirkland Signature tequila varieties at issue because of their reliance on the defendant’s representations that the products were made from 100 percent Blue Weber agave.

The Costco class action lawsuit seeks to represent anyone in the United States who, during the applicable statute of limitations period, bought any bottle of Kirkland Signature Tequila Blanco, Reposado, Añejo, Añejo Cristalino or Extra Añejo that was advertised as made of “100% de Agave” and “100% Agave Azul” from Jalisco, Mexico.

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