Cabo Wabo

Cabo Wabo is the name of three nightclubs and restaurants located in Cabo San Lucas, BCS, Mexico, in Harvey's Lake Tahoe in Stateline, Nevada, and Fresno, California as well as a popular brand of tequila, all founded by rock musician Sammy Hagar.

Cantina

Hagar, already a successful rock musician, visited the Mexican town of Cabo San Lucas in the early 1980s. Hagar joined the band Van Halen in 1985 after the departure of its former singer, David Lee Roth. Seeking a place for himself and his friends to relax and play music, he convinced the Van Halen members to partner in opening a large bar, restaurant, and performance space. The cantina was originally a financial failure, leading Hagar to buy out his band-mates. Under new management, the bar became popular with both locals and tourists as the town quickly grew into a major resort. In 2004, after plans fell through to open in Las Vegas, Nevada, Hagar opened a second location in the basement of the historic Harveys casino on the South Shore of Lake Tahoe. [cite news|title=Hagar Brings 'Cabo' To Tahoe|date= 2004-03-18|accessdate=2007-11-28|publisher=Billboard|author=Barry A. Jeckell|url=http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000465641] [cite news|name=Sioux City Journal|accessdate=2007-11-28|title=There's life after Van Halen|author=Bruce R. Miller |date=|url=http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2007/11/16/entertainment/local/fa0a3be58262c91786257394006c8ae7.txt] A third location was opened in Fresno, California in 2008. [cite news|title=Mas tequila at the new Cabo Wabo in Fresno|date=2008-08-29|accessdate=2008-08-29|publisher=The Fresno Bee|author=Mike Osegueda|url=http://www.fresnobee.com/entertainment/story/830413.html]

Hagar claims he coined the name after watching a man walk unsteadily along a local beach after a heavy night's partying. Using the town's nickname, Cabo (which means "cape" in Spanish), and shortening "wobble" to "wabo" he said of the man that he was doing the "Cabo wabo". In 1988 he wrote a song of the same name for Van Halen's 1988 album "OU812". In 1990 he hired Noel Vestri an innovator in computer graphic designs through Van's Tennis Shoes to design a logo which is still used today.

Tequila

In the late 1990s Hagar began selling his patrons a house brand of hand-made tequila he commissioned from a family-owned distillery in the state of Jalisco. In 1999 a wine importer from Napa Valley began to import the tequila in to the United States. An instant success, sales rose from 37,000 cases the first year to 140,000 cases in 2006, making it the second-best selling premium tequila in the United States. [cite news|publisher=Business Week|author=Stacy Perman|url=http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_18/b4032082.htm|title=Tequila With A Rock 'n' Roll Chaser: How Sammy Hagar took Cabo Wabo from a vanity hangout to a $60 million business|accessdate=2007-11-28|date=2007-04-30]

In May, 2007 it was announced that Hagar would sell an 80% interest in Cabo Wabo Tequila to Gruppo Campari, the world's seventh-largest spirits company, for $80 million. Skyy Spirits of San Francisco, a vodka producer and subsidiary of Milan's Gruppo Campari, planned to market Cabo Wabo globally, with continued participation by Hagar. Gerry Ruvo, president and chief executive of Skyy Spirits, said, "Sammy has done a fantastic job building the brand, so we are going to obviously spend time with him and work with him to continue our efforts to take the brand to an even larger level, both here in the U.S. and, more important, globally." Ruvo said Great Britain, Spain, Australia, Southeast Asia, Japan, Germany and Italy are considered key expansion markets for Tequila. [cite news
author = George Raine
url = http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/05/08/BUGVHPMM3V1.DTL&type=business
title = Wild for Wabo: $80 million will lift Hagar's spirits
publisher = San Francisco Chronicle
date = May 2007]

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.cabowabo.com Cabo Wabo official website]
* [http://www.vanhalenstore.com/shop/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=CW Official Cabo Wabo merchandise]
*" [http://www.tequilaaficionado.com/article.php?sid=133 Interview with Sammy Hagar from Cabo Wabo Tequila] ", includes the origin of the tequila
* [http://www.boozebasher.com/?p=20 BoozeBasher review of Cabo Wabo Reposado]