For the past five years, the ultra-premium producer has released limited editions (only 10,000 bottles are available worldwide) to mark Day of the Dead, each focusing on a different sensory aspect – Sabores (Flavours), Colores (Colours), Aromas and last year’s Música, appropriate, given the known-by-some Clase Azul trick of adjusting the metal stopper so you can ring it like a bell. Recuerdos (Memories) brings the series to a more contemplative conclusion.

All Clase Azul tequilas and mezcals come in a distinctive hand-painted ceramic decanter (many of which have their own afterlife as a lamp stand or candlestick!). The craftsmanship nudges up a degree for the Día de Muertos Edición Limitada.

Artist Erika Rivera, born in Guadalajara (capital of Jalisco, the state where tequila is made) but living in Melbourne, has painted the natural clay-coloured decanter with the evident yearning for home of an ex-pat. Spirits and golden energy surround an ofrenda – the home altar where families place pictures of lost loved ones, candles, incense sticks and marigolds, as well as glasses of tequila.

The most remarkable detail is a milagro ornament on the bottle – a 24k-gold-plated locket, with intricate details all around it (created by Milagros de Latón, a family-run brass workshop in Zapopan, Jalisco), which opens to reveal an obsidian mirror. The idea is to allow spirits to recognise themselves when they are called to the ofrenda.

Created by Milagros de Latón, a 24k-gold-plated locket adorns Clase Azul’s 2025 special release

The tequila inside the decanter is certainly not hiding behind a ceramic shield of luxury. It is as elevated as the artwork. For Recuerdos, Clase Azul master distiller Viridiana Tinoco has produced an añejo blend of tequilas aged between 12 and 38 months (an añejo needs only to be aged a year; after three, it becomes an extra-añejo; when blending both, the distiller can only call it an añejo).

Ageing was in first-fill ex-American whiskey casks, wrapping the agave spirit in smoothness, vanilla cream and butterscotch. And part of that agave was cooked in a traditional pit oven to lend it a touch of mezcal-style smokiness and weave in extra complexity.

On the nose, it delivers aromas that will carry it well beyond Halloween and the Day of the Dead into the Christmas period and through the winter – oranges in caramel, dried tropical fruit and citrus peel, panettone, but also woody and green notes. On the palate, the cooked-agave character comes through more strongly and the touch of bitterness gives texture to the citrus notes (Seville marmalade, lemon zest) and spicy sweetness. A crackle of fire smoke wafts in and out of the whole experience and lingers on the finish.

Clase Azul Reposado is sometimes criticised for leaning too far towards a marshmallow sweetness and lacking the vegetal and herbal notes that make agave spirits so special. This amber-hued añejo may, too, have a touch of the permitted caramel, the sweet notes seem more naturally achieved and are perfectly balanced – this is an approachable but very characterful tequila.

Tinoco describes it as ‘a nostalgic return to my grandmother’s kitchen, to the woodfired stove where she made tortillas’. Given the theme of the bottling, she was in a reflective mood as she conceived the style: ‘Creating this tequila was a way to relive those moments with the heart and transform them into a liquid tribute,’ she reflects. ‘More than a tequila, it is an act of love – one that turns nostalgia into presence.’

It is certainly a bottle to gather your near and your dear ones around, to share as you keep alive the old stories and make new memories.

Día de Muertos Edición Limitada: Recuerdos is available from Hedonism Wines, Selfridges and Berry Bros & Rudd, from £2,200. claseazul.com