THE STORY BEHIND SALAZAR: A NAME, A LEGACY, A SPIRIT
It is strange how a name can follow you, even years before it matters.
Back in 2019, when we first branded Gate Eleven, we launched as a simple branded house. Gate Eleven Gin, Gate Eleven Vodka, Gate Eleven Rum, Gate Eleven Kentucky Whiskey. Everything wore the same uniform because that was the most efficient way to get the distillery off the ground.
Somewhere in the middle of that early brand work, I made an off-hand joke to Bill. I told him, if he ever made a tequila, I already had the perfect name. Once. Spanish for eleven. A cute alignment with the distillery and guaranteed to be mispronounced in Tennessee as the English word once. I found that entertaining, and Bill humored me with one of his polite smirks, the kind he gives while mentally calculating fermentation variables.
There was no agave spirit on the horizon. No plan for one. It was just a passing moment.
Except the name did not disappear. It lingered.
The Shift from a Branded House to a House of Brands
By 2024, Gate Eleven had grown beyond its original structure. We had begun experimenting with individual identities long before we admitted that was what we were doing. Spirits like Infame our Blanche Absinthe. A full series of whiskeys and bourbons inspired by Bill and Wanda’s family history. And, of course, the original Once.
All of those exceptions made it clear that Gate Eleven was not meant to stay a single-identity brand forever. There were too many stories. Too many products that deserved their own world. Too many categories that needed a name beyond Gate Eleven.
So we made the shift to a house of brands. And that meant our agave spirit needed its own name. Not a placeholder. A real one. Something that could stand on a shelf by itself.
How the Liquid Came to Exist and Evolve
When Bill finally decided to explore agave, he did it the way he approaches everything. Quietly. Methodically. Relentlessly.
In 2021, he released the first agave expression: Once. My old tequila joke had become something real.
In 2022, he released Once Oro, the aged expression that would eventually become the base for Salazar Reposado.
These were not simple product launches. They were Bill’s experiments. His sandbox. His chance to take raw agave and figure out how to ferment, distill, and age it with a level of precision that most people would never see.
While we were brainstorming names, Bill was busy perfecting the liquid that would make the name worth anything at all.
Naming the Spirit: A Journey Through Every Possible Idea
Once the transition to a house of brands was set, we threw ourselves into naming. Every idea was allowed in the room.
Travel-inspired names:
La Viajera
La Pasajera
El Navegante
Names that carried motion and movement. All beautiful. None felt grounded enough for the spirit we were building.
Geography, heritage, and family:
Magdalena, which is both a town in Jalisco and my great-grandmother’s name.
El Valle and Del Valle, nods to the regions where agave is grown.
All meaningful, but each one carried a story that led in a slightly different direction than the one we needed.
Tributes to Bill:
Don Guillermo
Guille
Memo
Warm and heartfelt, but they also sounded like the owners of upscale cigar lounges. Bill did not need that kind of pressure.
Rhythm and mood:
Jarabe
Paso Doble
Reflejo
Lugares
Extranjero
Poetic, musical, interesting. They all created a feeling, but none created the feeling we were trying to capture.
Names we immediately knew were not right:
Traicionera (treacherous)
Adulacion and Zalameria (flattery and suavity)
Sometimes naming sessions go places they probably should not go.
We explored dozens of ideas. Everything had some merit, but nothing had the weight we needed. Then the dark horse appeared, thanks to someone who had quietly been there all along.
Benjamin Lee, investor, advisor, and one of the original members of our family spirits evaluation group, finally looked at all of us and asked Bill the question we had somehow managed to avoid.
“Why are you ignoring the best name we have here? Salazar.”
It was one of those moments that seems obvious in hindsight. We had spent weeks chasing new ideas while overlooking the one sitting right in front of us.
Not long after, Bill sent one of the shortest emails I’ve ever received from him:
“Early feedback supports
Navegante
And a dark horse suggestion of the name Salazar (Old Hall)”
Classic Bill. No sales pitch. No dramatic explanation. Just enough information to get the conversation moving.
My immediate reaction was to dismiss it. It was my last name. I have always been much more comfortable behind the scenes than on the front of the label.
But the suggestion refused to leave the room. And once Bill started digging into the history behind the name, it became much harder to argue against.
Why the Name Finally Worked
Bill was the one who researched the meaning and origins of the name. Salazar was not just a Basque surname. It meant hall of stone or old manor.
Then he drew the connection that finally made it make sense.
We are inside the old train station. The Chattanooga Choo Choo. Stone walls. History in every direction. A literal old hall.
The name stopped being about me and immediately became about the place. About the structure that holds us. About the legacy beneath the distillery and the tradition that anchors the work we do.
The more Bill explained it, the more everything clicked. I could finally see it. The name reflected the building just as much as the spirit.
At that point, the decision became obvious.
The Spirit Today
Blanco: Bright, clean, unfiltered honesty. Nothing to hide behind.
Reposado: Built from Once Oro. Oak influence, vanilla, caramel, rounded warmth.
Añejo: Time doing what only time can do. Toasted oak, dried fruit, subtle depth
Each expression feels like its own chapter, but they are clearly part of the same story.
Why Salazar Matters
We cannot call it tequila. Geography decides that. But not being tequila gives us room to build something that honors tradition without repeating it.
Salazar is a collaboration between the farmers in Jalisco, Bill’s mastery in Chattanooga, and the evolution of Gate Eleven from one brand to many.
It is not imitation and it is not rebellion. It is its own thing.
What Comes Next
We will grow intentionally. We will respect the agave, the building we are in, and the craft that brought us here.
I still smile thinking about that moment in 2019 when I told Bill I had the perfect name for a tequila. And that people here would pronounce it like the English word once. Five years later, the real name came from a quiet line in Bill’s email. The dark horse. The name that tied together the building, the spirit, and the future of the brand.
Salud.
Here is to the Old Hall and everything we are building inside it.
