Peace, Love, & Tequila!!!
Peace, Love, & Tequila! This is the slogan of the Tres Cabo Amigos who brought the new, exciting, and exquisite taste of BAJARRIBA Tequila to the forefront of distribution. This newly formed company was started by three long-time friends, Rico Austin, managing member & co-founder; Jay Nance, co-founder; and Michael Hill, co-founder.
In the beginning stages of bringing this tequila to life, Michael had the idea of designing the bottle as the Baja California Peninsula upside down. This idea was expanded upon and the Tres Cabo Amigos combined the words baja and arriba to form BAJARRIBA. This loosely translates to “Bottoms Up.” Connie Austin, Rico’s wife, designed the bottle, adding mountains, towns, and the lone highways that connect transportation from the beginning of the Baja Norte to the southernmost tip of Baja Sur of Cabo, where the famous Land’s End Arch divides the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean. This is where the Tres Cabo Amigos’ story began over 20 years ago. The artisan collector’s bottle is hand-painted with an engraved medallion cork.
Mike (Miguel) Hill is originally from California. He started a maquiladora in Ensenada in 1984, where he was making backpacks when he met his first wife, Josefina Collins, at the San Nicolas Hotel and Casino. Her family was one of the four original families who founded Cabo. Mike loved Cabo as much as his new girl, and they decided to move there in late 1989. Soon after, they married and later had a beautiful daughter. Mike pursued his music career and formed his band, Miguel Hill and the Cabo Cowboys. From 2004 to 2010, Mike and Josefina ran their family restaurant and bar, Miguel Loco’s. During this time, Mike also founded his tequila brand, Arco del Cabo, which was a two-piece bottle in the shape of the famous Land’s End Arch. Mike later became dangerously ill in 2016. After his illness, he moved to Payson, Arizona where he met and married his second wife, Pamela Jolley.
Jay Nance is originally from Iowa. In 2004, he moved to Cabo and purchased the Cabo Lounge. He later sold it in 2009 and moved to Las Vegas to work as a marketing manager for a start-up company. After this, Jay lived in Texas and Nevada and worked as an investment banker, licensed stockbroker, and entertainment promoter. Jay met his wife Marinette in Las Vegas. The two moved to Mesa, Arizona in 2018 to help care for Jay’s aging parents. They have a daughter and grandson who still live in Nevada that they visit regularly. Jay is a boating enthusiast and spends most of his weekends on Canyon Lake on his 40-foot Carver yacht.
Rico Austin grew up in Idaho and moved to Arizona in 1991. In 1999, he then met his wife Connie, his next-door neighbor. They proceeded to get married in 2004. Rico has worked in various jobs in several roles during the last 50 years, including as a real estate agent, land developer, marketing manager, and a Western region sales manager for an international tire company. Rico visited Cabo for the first time in 1992 and has been traveling back and forth to see friends, vacation, fish the waters, and drink tequila ever since. In his spare time, Rico loves to write. He has published ten books and novels, including the award-winning best-seller, My Bad Tequila. This book has won over 15 national and international awards. His latest short story DOG took first place honors in the 2021 Arizona Authors Association Literary Contest, which had entrants from all 50 states. Rico has a Ph.D. in tequila and states, “I wasn’t drinking, I was studying,” when asked about it. Yes, this is a real thing that less than 200 people in the world can lay claim to!
Connie is originally from the small town of McIntosh, Minnesota. She was raised on a 660-acre dairy farm where they raised cattle and sheep. Connie left for Arizona in August 1990 and has been living in the land of the sun ever since. Connie works as a graphic design artist and has done the final cover touch-ups for each and every one of Robert Redford’s Sundance Catalogs for the last 23 years. Connie first visited Cabo in 1986, all the way from Minnesota. She went before most people knew about Cabo San Lucas, Baja California, Mexico.
Next month, I will expand on when and how the Tres Cabo Amigos all met in Cabo and reunited in Arizona to form what is now the most anticipated tequila.
Peace, Love, & Tequila!!!
Rico Austin