Why The Keto Diet Could Be To Blame For Tequila's Popularity

Although the keto diet has seemed to be the talk of the town only in recent years, the diet has been around since the 1920s and was originally designed as a treatment for epilepsy (via Men's Health). Since it can be tough to remember the requirements for each diet, as a reminder, the keto diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet. And when we say low carb, we mean super low, like less than eating a single plain bagel (50g of carbs) low (via Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health). This diet is backed by science because when your body doesn't have any carbs to use for fuel, it burns stored fat, which can lead to weight loss.

Since there is no long-term evidence of how this high-fat diet affects the body, namely the heart, consulting a physician along the way is recommended, per Men's Health. Learning what you can and cannot eat on keto can be difficult, so there are resources out there like Ketogenic.com that can help people navigate challenging areas, like consuming alcohol while on keto. One popular recommendation for drinking while on keto is tequila, which is currently rising in popularity. But is this diet responsible for this popularity spike?

Drinking alcohol is not necessarily recommended while on the keto diet due to many drinks' carb contents, but there are naturally some drinks that are much more suited for the diet (via Elite Daily). Although there are a few low-carb beers out there, Ketogenic.com recommends that if you're drinking alcohol on the keto diet, it's best to consume spirits like gin, tequila, rum, and whiskey either neat in a glass or mixed with low-carb beverages like club soda or diet ginger beer. Tequila is well suited for the keto diet because one shot has 0 grams of carbohydrates (via the USDA) and is 40-46% alcohol, so you don't have to drink a lot of it to catch a buzz, per Ketogenic.com.

Plus, you most likely won't be drinking tequila alone. Although everyone has that story of drinking bad tequila in college and being soured on it for life, the spirit is growing in popularity. In 2021, tequila and mezcal were the "second-fastest growing spirits category" and nearly knocked vodka out of the first-place revenue spot that the spirit has held since the 1970s (via CNBC). One would think that margaritas, which are not as keto-friendly, would be on the rise as well, but according to DISCUS chief of public policy Christine LoCascio, sipping the best high-end tequilas on the rocks or neat is a growing trend instead (via CNBC). Perhaps tequila is just one of the foods you could eat/drink on a keto diet that you didn't know you could!