When Avion tequila first appeared on the HBO show “Entourage” in 2010, the product placement didn’t do much for sales. Most viewers simply thought it was a fictional brand.

At the time, Avion’s founder Ken Austin was only selling the tequila in New York and California and hadn’t built a distribution network. It took a while for “Entourage” fans to figure out they could actually buy the stuff, Austin said

Five years later, things have changed. The business is posting year-over-year sales gains of more than 100 percent and now has the backing of liquor giant Pernod Ricard SA, which bought majority control of Avion last year. When the tequila gets featured in the “Entourage” movie next month, Austin expects to get a bigger payoff this time.