Ryan Reynolds’s Aviation Gin soars to a $610 million acquisition by Diageo

Aviation Gin, co-owned by Ryan Reynolds, just entered the golden circle of spirits with an acquisition from multibillion-dollar alcoholic beverage company Diageo.

In 2018, Reynolds bought a stake in Portland-based spirits company Aviation Gin, becoming its co-owner and creative director. What was already the fastest growing gin brand in the world was turbo charged with Reynolds’s engineering savvy marketing campaigns such as throwing a 21st birthday for a woman born on a Leap Day in 1936 and giving the Peloton ad woman a redemptive story arc. (Reynolds is one of Fast Company‘s Most Creative People in Business for 2020.)

Celebrities have certainly made liquor their investment playground—Sean Combs and Cîroc, George Clooney and Casamigos, Matthew McConaughey and Wild Turkey, etc.

But with Reynolds’s eye for the irreverent, Aviation Gin has earned a unique kind of cultural cachet that’s been hard to ignore.

Enter Diageo.

Announced today, Diageo, which owns brands including Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, Cîroc, Casamigos, and Tanqueray, has acquired Aviation Gin and its parent company Davos Brands for $610 million.

“A little over two years ago, I became an owner of Aviation Gin because I love the taste of Aviation more than any other spirit,” Reynolds said in a statement. “What I didn’t expect was the sheer creative joy learning a new industry would bring. Growing the brand with my company, Maximum Effort Marketing, has been among the most fulfilling projects I’ve ever been involved with.”