From Old Hall to New Spirit: Building an Intentional Agave

Chameleon Collective partnered with Gate Eleven, where I served as Fractional Brand Strategist, Creative Director, and Minority Owner, leading the development of Salazar Agave Spirits from concept through launch. The liquid began quietly, with early agave experiments released under the working name Once in 2021, followed by an aged expression in 2022. While the distilling team refined fermentation, distillation, and aging, we explored a wide range of naming directions.

The final name, Salazar, was not my recommendation and one I initially resisted.
That changed when its Basque meaning “old hall” or “hall of stone” revealed a direct connection to Gate Eleven’s home inside the historic Chattanooga Choo Choo train station. The name shifted from personal to architectural, grounding the brand in structure, history, and place.

From there, we built a cohesive brand system spanning positioning, identity design, label architecture, and core messaging across Blanco, Reposado, and Añejo expressions. The creative direction emphasized restraint, material honesty, and credibility for agave-literate bartenders and buyers.

Salazar Agave Spirits launched as a refined, award winning agave portfolio defined by intention rather than trend. The brand strengthened Gate Eleven’s evolution into a house of brands, expanded its presence beyond traditional American spirits.