Tequila

We live less than two hours from Tequila, so it’s somewhat surprising it took us five years to visit, but visit we did! The town and its eponymous liquor are world famous now, but the town retains its classic Mexican pueblo character, which made for a rewarding visit.

Of course the highlight of any visit to the town is a tequila experience. There are many to choose from: a train from Guadalajara that drops you off already well-lubricated, several similar busses, local tours in barrel-shaped vans, numerous tasting rooms, several distillery tours, and a few all-day experiences where you can plant an agave, harvest a piña, and of course drink mucho tequila. We visited the world’s oldest distillery, and the most famous brand, Jose Cuervo.

We had a sedate, personal tour with Juan Carlos, a former English teacher who now doubles as a bilingual tour guide. He expertly walked us through La Rojeña, the oldest of Cuervo’s distilleries. We watched the piñas being front-end loaded into the ovens, the baked piñas then passed to a series of presses, and the raw agave juice collected and briefly fermented. Here is where today’s tequila is different from the spirit the indigenous people drank. They consumed this cooked liquid, which contain both ethyl (good) and methyl (bad) alcohol along with many impurities. This pre-Hispanic liquor brought warm feelings, hallucinations, blindness, seizures, and sometimes death. The Spanish brought knowledge of additional heating to separate the methyl alcohol and impurities, rendering the tequila liquor we know today.

Tequila is a denomination of origin (like Champagne): it must be produced solely from blue agave, and only in a small region in and around the Mexican State of Jalisco. It comes in two forms: pure tequila, which is only the juice of the blue agave, and mixed, which can have other flavors or additives. It is classed based on aging: the initial clear drink is blanco or platino (silver), which is unaged. Reposado or “rested” tequila is aged in barrels for less than one year. Anejo or aged is left for one-to-three years, and extra anejo is aged for three-to-seven years. Tequila develops more color and more distinct flavors and aromas the longer it is aged in the (always) American or French oak barrels.

The main plaza in Tequila is defined by the Church of Santiago Apostal (Saint James the Apostle). A real treat for us was to visit the shrine inside the church to Toribio Romo González, also known as Santo Toribio. He was a young priest during the 1920s Cristero war in Mexico, and was secretly ministering to the people of Tequila when government soldiers found and summarily executed him. Then-Pope John Paul II canonized him in 2000. During his ministry, Toribio was known for counseling Mexicans not to migrate north to the United States, because staying home and taking care of and participating in one’s family is far more important. However, after his death numerous Mexican migrants, lost in the desert border region, reported a young Mexican priest who led them to safety, and they identified him from pictures as Toribio. Thus he became the patron saint of migrants worldwide. We feel a special attachment to him as our Spanish teacher is from Santo Toribio’s family.

We enjoyed our visit, learning about the liquor and the secret of how to sip it without the telltale throat-burning sensation. We also enjoyed chewing on the tequila cocido snack, which contains the sweet agave sugar in a pulpy fiber much like coconut fiber. While there were a lot of classic tourist offerings (voladores, cheap tastings, all-you-can-drink stands, mariachis, etc.,), it was never overwhelming, even on a crowded Sunday. Tequila the town was a pleasant day (or two) trip, and one to be remembered fondly, if one can remember it at all!