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Entertainment | July 2006  
Top Mexican Tequila Sells for $225,000 a Bottle
Reuters
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| Next goal is to create a million-dollar tequila bottle made from diamond-encrusted platinum and auction it at Sotheby's next year. | Forget about the kind of tequila you slam down on the bar or knock back at parties in throat-burning shots with salt and lemon. If you're paying six figures, you might prefer to savor it in small sips.
 An impossibly upmarket brand of tequila - 100 percent blue Agave lovingly aged for six years and sold in a limited edition platinum bottle with fancy artwork on the label - went on sale in Mexico on Thursday night for $225,000 a bottle.
 "Tonight we are trying for the Guinness Book of Records with the most expensive bottle in the world," Fernando Altamirano, chief executive of producer Tequila Ley .925, told a launch party for the liquor.
 Tequila Ley .925 has produced 66 bottles of the "Pasion Azteca" tequila, half of them pure platinum bottles and half of them gold and platinum-decorated bottles that sell for the slightly less extravagant price of $150,000.
 "Since we started out, we began with the idea of making the finest, most expensive bottle of tequila in the world," Altamirano told Reuters.
 For those on a smaller budget, there are 999 bottles of the same tequila in silver and gold bottles priced at $25,000.
 Showing off one of each type, Altamirano said they had already been sold to a collector, but declined to give away the buyer's identity.
 Altamirano, whose company has won awards for its stylish bottles, said his next goal was to create a million-dollar tequila bottle made from diamond-encrusted platinum and auction it at Sotheby's next year. | 
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