One of the coolest moments from the season two premiere of Better Call Saul was the little tequila grift that Jimmy and Kim — I’m sorry, Viktor and Gisele St. Clair — pulled on the loudmouth investment bro at the resort. Seeing anyone who repeatedly spouts the phrase “pure donkey balls” into his phone at a public bar get his comeuppance is fun, but it turns out there was an extra layer to it all that makes it even more fun.
The high-end tequila they tricked him into buying, the same one Jimmy wanted to spend $50 a shot on earlier, was called “Zafiro Añejo.” Zafiro Añejo is not a real brand of tequila, but it might have sounded familiar to you anyway. And the reason it might have sounded familiar is…
Yup, Zafiro Añejo was the fictional brand of high-end tequila that Gus Fring used to poison Don Eladio and the members of the Mexican cartel in the season four Breaking Bad episode, “Salud.” You remember, the thing where Gus excused himself to the bathroom and calmly vomited up the poison while the Don and all of his crew collapsed by the pool outside the scenic hacienda? Quite a history Zafiro Añejo has in the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul universe. Turns out the investment douche* got off pretty easy, all things considered.
As far as how Zafiro Añejo came to be, well, there’s a pretty good explanation for that, according to the Breaking Bad Wikia.
Zafiro Añejo is a fictictious [sic] brand of tequila created by the writers of Breaking Bad. It was created after attempts to find a product placement fell through after being told that the scene contained people dropping dead minutes after drinking their placed product.
I mean, yeah.
Anyway, I’m not exactly sure if the Zafiro Añejo shout out in the premiere counts as reverse foreshadowing or a backwards callback because of the screwy prequel chronology, but I do know that these Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul guys are pretty good at these things, whatever they’re called.
* The tequila douche was actually a one-off Breaking Bad character.
