In the spirit of sisterhood, a McLean resident and three other women are challenging the male-dominated tequila industry by launching 1953 Tequila.
“Women have worked in tequila for years,” says Lindsey Davis Stover, co-president and founder of the brand. “They just have not received the recognition and have not been promoted to the positions they deserve to be in. So when we built this company, that’s what we put our focus on.”
She came up with the idea several years ago and approached her political-rival-turned-friend Alison Kiehl Friedman about it over breakfast not long after the two lost their 2018 bids to represent Virginia’s 10th District in the House.
“I actually went to her wanting her to tell me I was crazy,” Davis Stover says. “When I told her, she kind of paused and I even filled it: I was like, ‘Please tell me I’m crazy.’ And she said, ‘Actually, I think this is my kind of crazy.’”
Kiehl Friedman, who lived in McLean and moved to the West Coast, brought in Shivam Mallick Shah, who lives in D.C.
A former investment banker and McKinsey & Co. consultant, Mallick Shah said the prospect of “taking on a male-dominated industry…definitely resonated with me.” She signed on as the third co-president and founder.
They officially formed the company in January 2020, naming it 1953 Tequila after the year that women in Mexico—the birthplace of tequila—secured the right to vote.
Among their first tasks: finding a female distiller to make the product. Although there are 3,000 tequila brands coming out of 200 distilleries worldwide, women own only a fraction of them.
“We did the research to figure out who those women [owners] were, how many years their families have been in tequila [and] what their reputation was around tequila,” Davis Stover says. When they met with Adriana Lopez, owner of the Bonanza distillery in Guadalajara, Mexico, the connection was instant.
“She was very clear that this had not been done before but that she wanted to be a partner,” Davis Stover says. “It really was that moment when all of our values aligned.”
Lopez introduced the team to yet another female foursome—sisters who run their family farm in Mexico’s Jaliscan Highlands region, known for its blue agave plant production. “When these four daughters decided to step up and take over their family farm, it’s not a path that these women had seen before,” Davis Stover says, adding they wanted to be role models for girls in a nearby high school. “They wanted those young girls in that high school to see them take this on and to know they too could do things that they want to do, even if they had never seen women do it before.”
The partners next turned their attention to bottle design. They interviewed women bartenders about the pros and cons of existing tequila bottles and learned that many are short and squat, making them hard to hold and pour. The 1953 Tequila is pretty much the opposite—tall, with an easy-to-grab thin neck and pleating.
“The shape of the bottle and pleating is inspired by midcentury modern lights that were around during the time of 1953,” Mallick Shah says.
The idea was to make it artistic so that people could reuse it. Davis Stover says she’s seen social media posts of people upcycling the sleek white bottle as a candlestick or vase. The cork is reusable, too.
The brand launched six months ago with an ultra-premium, additive-free añejo tequila made of Blue Weber agave and aged for 15 months in vintage American oak barrels previously used to age premium bourbon. The first bottles became available for purchase on Oct. 17, 2023, which is, not coincidentally, the 70th anniversary of Mexican women earning suffrage. A 750 mL bottle costs about $205.
“It’s made by women, but it’s for everyone,” says Mallick Shah. “We can see sales in markets across the country. … Folks are giving us really good feedback on the tequila itself, so that’s been really heartening.”
They’re getting attention: The Today Show did a segment on them and Men’s Journal named 1953 Tequila one of the best additive-free tequilas.
But the women-centric mission is always a priority, she adds.
“We were told ‘no’ a lot by a lot of different people, and at first pass, it’s a crazy idea. But because it’s a crazy idea is why it was also worth doing,” Mallick Shah says. “Anybody who asks us [for advice], we always start with, ‘Just believe in yourself, bet on yourself.’”
Find 1953 Tequila at Virginia ABS stores around the region or online.