After our tour of the Mayan Chocolate Company our tour concluded at the Barriecito tequila distillery. The Barriecito distillery is a small batch distillery on the mainland of Mexico and this location is an education center, tasting room and gift shop as true tequila, like champagne, can only be produced in a small area in Mexico with only blue agave plants. 

     The region in Mexico is named after the Tequila volcano and only blue agave grown in the volcanic sands can be used to make authentic tequila. So why isn’t Jose Cuervo your friend, because he is not true tequila. I have been learning a lot about distilling over the past ten years and have found out many unpopular truths about the business, like to be labeled Rye Whiskey, a distiller only has to have 51% of the product Rye, the other 49% can be corn. Likewise the Mexican government has allowed tequila distillers to use 51% blue agave tequila and typically 49% sugarcane alcohol to be called tequila.

     It is the use of the cane alcohol that has given tequila the bad name, to-kill-ya. Most tequilas sold here in America are blends and not 100% blue agave tequila. If it does not say 100% blue agave on the bottle, then it is not true tequila. 

     Tequila is a very time consuming spirit to make as it can take eight to ten years for the blue agave to reach maturity and be harvested. Once the agave blooms, which signals that it is mature, the leaves are chopped away and the base of the plant resembles a pineapple. It is this pineapple that is roasted and aged before it can be pressed to release its precious juices. That juice is further fermented and then distilled into what can be called true tequila. This single distilled tequila is clear and it does have a bite to it, but distilling again and aging tequila can take away that bite and produce an extremely smooth product. 

     Many distillers will age their tequila in oak barrels just like whiskey and rum distillers will do. This produces the yellow tequila that many people know as the top shelf tequila. Typically the darker the tequila the longer it has been aged, with some tequilas being aged twenty years or more. 

     Like champagne, because tequila can only come from one place, good tequila will fetch a much higher price than whiskey, rum or vodka. It is because of that high price that many store brand tequilas are only 51% tequila, so that the price can be lowered with the addition of cheaper alcohols like sugarcane. Just imagine if the French government decided that to be called champagne it only had to be 51% champagne and the other 49% could be any sparkling wine. If you didn’t know any better, how would you know as they are not required to tell you on the label. That is why all good tequilas will say 100% blue agave on the label, ussually right on the front, under the name. That is not something they want to hide in small print on the side of the bottle. 

     Well now that we are into March I guess it is time to start getting the garden ready for spring. With the milder weather, with the exception of Monday night, pests are starting to come out already. I already picked two ticks off Lily the last week in February, so the Seresto collars went on. But even though the winter has been fairly mild so far, beware the “Ides of March”.