Lewis Hamilton’s non-alcoholic tequila brand Almave, never really fascinated Sergio Perez, who likes the real stuff. Perez hails from Mexico where the drink originates from and admitted that he would rather stay away from Almave. However, ahead of the Canadian GP, the 34-year-old seemingly contradicted his own words as he poured himself a drink during a press conference.
Hamilton and Perez were part of the same group appearing in front of the media on Montreal on Thursday. While Hamilton was answering a question, Perez appeared to be making himself a glass of Almave.
checo trying to secretly pour himself some almave and then gossiping with lewis pic.twitter.com/MFPAynjjLJ
— sin ⁴⁴ (@44britcedes) June 6, 2024
The bottle was blue, which suggests that was the Almave Blanco, one of the two variants of Hamilton’s brand available online. It costs $36, and Hamilton launched it in collaboration with Ivan Saldana. The other variant, Almave Ambar, costs $40.
After Perez took a sip of the Blanco, he turned sideways and exchanged a chuckle with the Briton. Whether they spoke about the drink, or something else remains a mystery, but Perez certainly seems to have changed his mind after making some strong claims against Almave earlier this year.
Sergio Perez preferred “real tequila” before Almave adventure
Perez hasn’t spoken in favor of Almave yet, but certainly decided to try it out. However, he had strong reasons to be against its consumption, as he revealed in May this year.
Perez hails from Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico. It is the same state where tequila originates from, and Almave too came out of there. But, Perez wanted “real tequila” and not the non-alcoholic variant. In interviews, he revealed that he likes having it neat, or with different mixers.
Additionally, Perez is the face of Patron, a tequila brand worth $5 billion.
Perez partnered up with Patron in 2021, and has been full of praise over its quality ever since. This could be a major reason behind him not publicly endorsing Hamilton’s non-alcoholic version.
Hamilton launched Almave because of people like himself, who miss the taste of alcohol, but cannot consume it freely. F1 drivers need to be physically and mentally sharp, which is why the effects of alcohol cannot be allowed to linger. Perhaps this is why Perez decided to try it out for himself.
