CT Residents Launch C.O. Jones Tequila: New Haven Restaurant To Artisanal Tequila

“The whole reason I opened c.o.jones was because I visited a friend in old town San Diego and went to a Mexican restaurant with like 400 bottles of tequila, and it was fantastic. I left the restaurant, went to Old Town Liquors, and drank two bottles of the stuff with everyone around me on the plane.”

So begins my conversation with Bob Potter, owner of former Mexican restaurant, tequila bar, and primary setting for at least three of my own tequila stories, c.o.jones. He opened the concept in 1999, he says, as a way to educate people about tequila.

On a personal note, I credit the place with no reservations as being the start of my own tequila education, which to that point included: Jose Cuervo Gold, plastic handles of Pepe Lopez, and regret. After scanning the menu’s page(!) of tequila options for my margarita on my first trip, I asked for “This one?” and was rewarded with an excellent margarita, and a tiny booklet with one fresh stamp in the shape of an agave, a sort of credit for choosing – however accidentally – one of their higher end options. At seven stamps I believe you got a free drink. I still have the t-shirt they gave me for 21.

Potter’s tequila dream lasted for 17 years (the location currently houses Tavern on State), during which time he found space to launch Prime 16, and partner with tequila expert Cecilia Shea, but something else was happening during the tequila boom of the early 21st century.

“All these new brands started coming out, and when I tried them, I noticed they were getting farther and farther away from what tequila is supposed to be,” Potter told us. “The celebrity brands, they all had these additives, which by law in Mexico you don’t have to disclose on the bottle as long as it’s only one-percent. That may not sound like much, but you’re looking at 1% by volume of super-concentrated sweeteners and flavors.”

He explains tequila is supposed to use 6- to 8-year-old blue Weber agave plants for tequila, and industrialized tequila brands frequently use 2-year-old agave to increase efficiency and please shareholders, hence the need to prop up the flavor profile.

“People take shortcuts,” he says.

“Then he asked if I wanted to make a tequila,” says Shea. 

The pair spent two and a half years visiting tequila agave plantations in Jalisco, Mexico, trying over 100 kinds of blanco tequila.

“We needed to be there to document the process from start to finish,” Potter explained. “And narrowed it down to one distillery. We liked their transparency – no additives, we saw eye to eye – and we started our first run of only 6,000 bottles of blanco by October, 2024.”

“Out of 260-something tequila producers in Mexico, only about a dozen are still doing things the pure, artisanal way.”

Cecilia says the main difference is “industrial brands,” as she calls them, focus on flavor and uniformity of product, while the artisanal approach is about profile: the agave plant and its age, the soil and water profiles, fermentation and distillation methods. 

The result is the return of c.o.jones in liquid form. A tequila-inspired idea taking physical form in a restaurant, and the former restaurant returning as the essence of its inspiration seems to complete the circle.

The partnership’s c.o.jones tequila hit shelves last winter, and now has the blanco, plus two variations rested (reposado) in French and American oak barrels. It’s moderately priced at between $35-40 a bottle, currently available in New Haven, Hamden, and West Hartford.

“We’re surprised at how many people still remember c.o.jones, maybe because the name makes sense in both English and Spanish,” Potter thinks. “Those people are everywhere now, so we’re starting to see orders from other states.”

I recently bought a glass at the Playwright in Hamden. Ordered neat and room temp, the c.o.jones blanco tequila was mild on the nose, with none of the head-snapping petrochemical haze which wafted off the fool’s gold tequilas of my youth. It’s clean, crisp, and peppery on the palate, with a finish of cooked agave and residual sweetness.

“It shows people what tequila is supposed to taste like, and ours isn’t overwhelming,” says Shea.

I think it may have something to do with the saying on a scrap of c.o.jones receipt this author placed in his wallet, some long-ago night out on the lash:

“El tequila hace me la sensacion bonita.”

Yes, it does.

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