Tomas Estes, Who Put Tequila on a Pedestal, Dies at 75
Starting with a popular Mexican restaurant in Amsterdam, he helped place the drink on the same shelf as fine cognac and single-malt Scotch.
Tomas Estes outside Café Pacifico in Amsterdam in 1976, the year it opened. His solution to escaping middle-class American life was to open a restaurant in Europe.Credit.via Jesse Estes
April 30, 2021
Tomas Estes, who gave up a career teaching high school English to open Mexican bars and restaurants across Europe, in the process helping to transform the image of tequila from frat-house rotgut to a fine spirit that could sit on a shelf alongside cognac and single malt whisky, died on April 25 at his home in Ashland, Ore. He was 75.