13 Best Celebrity Liquor Brands: Diddy, Jay-Z, Drake & More

Type: Champagne with notes of peach, apricot, red berry, citrus, and orange blossom
Founded: 1763

If you know anything about Jay-Z, you probably know that at one point he touted Cristal, a high-end Champagne, in his raps. But in 2006 when Frédéric Rouzaud, former managing director of Cristal, was asked about hip-hop’s love of the Champagne, he told The Economist: “We can’t forbid people from buying it. I’m sure Dom Pérignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business.” Following this, Jay-Z called for a boycott of Cristal, and purchased a piece Armand de Brignac, a luxury Champagne brand. Jay-Z introduced us to Armand de Brignac, which would be nicknamed Ace of Spades after the Ace of Spade logo featured on the gold bottle, in the “Show Me What You Got,” music video that debuted in 2006. Ace of Spades has been described as a “soft and creamy” Champagne infused with peach, apricot, red berry, citrus, orange blossom and sprinkles of brioche. It costs between $300 and $64,999 for a 30-liter bottle, and Jay-Z has made it synonymous with his jet-setting lifestyle. He rapped about it on songs ranging from “On to the Next One,” (“I used to drink Cristal, the motherfucker’s racist, so I switched gold bottles onto that Spade shit”) to the “We Made It Freestyle” with Jay Electronica (“I’m on my Lupita Nyong’o, stuntin’ onstage, after 12 Years A Slave, this Ace of Spades look like an Oscar.”) He even set up a $105,000 tower of bottles at a fundraiser he hosted in 2012 for President Barack Obama. By 2014, Sovereign Brands, the company that owned most of Armand de Brignac (“Ace of Spades”) Champagne sold its interest to a company led by Jay-Z. The artist and entrepreneur must have known the brand’s value was only going to increase, and it did. According to Forbes, Ace of Spades sales helped push Jay-Z into the Billionaire Club in 2019—in 2018 he rapped on Meek Mill’s song “What’s Free,” that Ace of Spades was valued at $500 million. And earlier this year, LVMH purchased a 50 percent stake in the company, which according to Forbes, values the brand at more than $600 million, giving Jay-Z a cash payment of $300 million. The LVMH deal will give the brand more organizational and distribution support, and is yet another monumental business deal for Jay-Z.—Aria Hughes