Fact-Checked & Verified Editorial

Rande Gerber

Rande Gerber opened The Whiskey in 1991, co-founded Casamigos with George Clooney, and sold it to Diageo. The deal terms, his family, and what is not disclosed.

5 min read

•Verified Editorial

The Whiskey at the Paramount Hotel

Rande Gerber worked as a model before he went into the bar business. In 1991 he became, in the words of the trade magazine Bar & Restaurant, "the operator and face of The Whiskey at the Paramount Hotel" in New York. The magazine called the Paramount "arguably one of the first boutique hotels," and The Whiskey was the first venue of the Gerber Group, the nightlife company that grew out of it. The University of Arizona's alumni profile of Gerber names the Paramount opening as the start of that company and lists an earlier nightlife venture, Midnight Oil.

The growth came from putting bars inside hotels. Scott Gerber, who started as an investor, came in to run Gerber Group with plans to expand, and by 2012 its managing partner, Noah Weinstein, told Bar & Restaurant that the company had 22 venues around the world. Its rooms ranged from Whiskey Blue in New Orleans to Lilium in the W Union Square hotel in New York. Bar & Restaurant described Gerber Group then as "the first trendy hospitality brand to roll out in multiple locations," often in partnership with a hotel.

Marriage to Cindy Crawford in 1998

Gerber married the model Cindy Crawford in 1998, a date recorded by Bar & Restaurant and consistent with Business Traveller's 2022 description of Crawford as "his wife of 24 years." They have two children, Presley Gerber and Kaia Gerber. Both worked as models and became public figures in their own right.

Two Houses in Mexico and a Tequila for Friends

Casamigos began as a private supply. Business Traveller reported that Gerber and the actor George Clooney had built two houses next to each other in Mexico and often drank tequila there. They called the property Casamigos, Spanish for "house of friends." What they could not find was a tequila light enough to drink straight, so they brought in a friend, the property developer Mike Meldman, and started working with a distiller in Jalisco, trying hundreds of samples.

The private supply outgrew itself. The distillery called to say they were producing more than 1,000 bottles for themselves, their friends, and their families, which was more than the law allowed without a license. They could either get licensed or stop. Gerber, Clooney, and Meldman chose to license a brand and launched Casamigos in 2013, keeping the name of the houses. Diageo's later announcement listed the same three people as the brand's founders.

Gerber led the marketing, much of it through collaborations with other brands. One was a limited Omega Seamaster watch branded for Casamigos. Business Traveller reported that 80 were made, priced at $11,600 each.

Diageo's Offer in June 2017

On June 21, 2017, the drinks group Diageo announced that it would buy Casamigos. The price had two parts. Diageo agreed to pay $700 million up front, plus up to $300 million more over 10 years if the brand met performance targets. That structure is where the widely repeated $1 billion figure comes from: it is the maximum value of the deal, not the amount paid at closing.

Diageo's press release explained why it was paying that much for a four-year-old brand. Casamigos had sold about 120,000 cases in 2016, with a compound annual growth rate of 54 percent over the previous two years, and the company expected it to pass 170,000 cases by the end of 2017. Diageo's chief executive, Ivan Menezes, said in the release that the purchase "supports our strategy to focus on the high growth super-premium and above segments of the category," and that Diageo planned to take the brand to markets outside the US.

Gerber's statement in the same release went back to the houses in Mexico: "What started from a friendship and an idea to create the best tasting, smoothest tequila as our own house tequila to drink and share with friends, has quickly turned into the fastest growing super-premium tequila."

Chairman in Malibu After the Sale

Gerber did not leave when the sale closed. "Part of the deal with Diageo was that I would remain on as chairman and operate Casamigos exactly as I have from day one," he told Business Traveller in 2022. The magazine found him still working every day at the brand's headquarters, on the upper deck of a small retail park near Malibu Lagoon State Beach, with the company's original seven employees. He described the morning after the sale to the magazine this way: "The day after I announced I sold the company, I was in the office. Where else would I be? This is what I do. I love what I do."

What the Casamigos Deal Says About His Wealth

This article does not give a personal net worth figure for Gerber. The sale terms are public: $700 million at closing, and up to $300 million more depending on performance over 10 years, as stated in Diageo's June 2017 announcement. How that money was divided among Gerber, Clooney, and Meldman has not been disclosed by any of them or by Diageo, and the three founders' ownership stakes were never published.

Without the split, any single number for Gerber's share is a guess, and so is any figure that adds the value of Gerber Group or the earn-out payments actually received. The one input that can be stated with a source is the deal itself: a tequila brand that three friends started in 2013 was sold four years later for as much as $1 billion.

Presley Gerber's Death in September 2026

On September 20, 2026, Gerber's son Presley died in Los Angeles at the age of 27. Deadline and the Associated Press reported that he died at a rehabilitation facility and that a representative for the family confirmed the death and asked for privacy. Santa Monica police said they were investigating it as a possible overdose and saw no indication of foul play. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner deferred a ruling on the cause and manner of death pending further tests.

Sources

Filed Under Topics

#Business#Casamigos#Tequila#Nightlife#Diageo