Category: tequila

Paloma Recipe Round-Up: 20+ Paloma Variations

In my research on the Paloma I have come across many variations on the drink, so I thought I'd link to them here.

Typically the Paloma is made with tequila (always use 100% agave!), grapefruit soda such as Squirt or Jarritos, a squeeze of a lime wedge and a pinch of salt. Esquire's standard recipe is here. A version using fresh grapefruit and soda water is here.

Here are some Paloma variations from around the internet.

Blood Orange and Thyme Paloma by Airda Molenkamp [recipe]

Nuestra Paloma by Thad Vogler of Beretta, SF. It contains St. Germain, bitters, Cointreau, and grapefruit juice. [recipe]

The Charred Grapefruit Paloma by Warren Bobrow [recipe]

Paloma, Mi Amante by Paul Clarke – A Paloma using strawberry-infused tequila. [recipe]

Paloma Variation – A Paloma using IPA beer, plus tequila, grapefruit cordial, and lime. [mentioned here; no recipe]

Palomita – A Paloma without tequila; just using Coinreau, lime, and grapefruit. [recipe]

Green Palomarita – Mezcal, lime, grapefruit, Chartreuse [recipe]

Dove & Daisy – Tequila, lime, Aperol, orange liqueur, salt, soda water. [recipe]

La Paloma – Grapefruit liqueur, tequila, grapefruit juice, lime, soda. [recipe]

Cantarito – A Paloma variation using lemon, lime, and orange juices in place of the lime squeeze. [recipe]

Paloma Brava by Dushan Zaric – Contains tequila, lime, orange, grapefruit, grapefruit soda, agave nectar, and salt. [recipe]

La Canterita by Ashley Miller – Tequila, triple sec, agave nectar, grapefruit, lemon, lime, orange. [recipe]

Strawberry Paloma with strawberry-infused tequila, honey, lime, and grapefruit. [recipe]

Reunion Cooler by Jennifer Colliau- Tequila, peppercorns, pineapple, grapefruit peel, lime. [recipe]

The 212 by Aisha Sharpe and Willy Shine – Tequila, Aperol, grapefruit [recipe]

Siesta by Katie Stipe – Tequila, Campari, lime, grapefruit, simple syrup [recipe]

Acapulco by Salvatore Calabrese – Tequila, rum, grapefruit, pineapple. [recipe]

Cardarita by Ago Perrone – Tequila, almond-cardamom sugar, grapefruit, Galliano, ginger ale [recipe]

Salty Chihuahua – Tequila, grapefruit juice, salt [recipe]

Ginger Paloma – Ginger-grapefruit syrup, tequila, lime, club soda [recipe]

Tequila Fresa Punch – Starwberry-infused tequila, triple sec, orange, lime, grapefruit soda, orange bitters [recipe]

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May 20, 2013
A Few Things Learned in the Agave Fields in Mexico
On my recent trip with the Tahona Society, we visited took ATVs into the agave fields and "helped" harvest some agave.

There, Olmeca Altos tequila Master Distiller Jesus Hernandez filled me in on some details about agave I didn't know, so I thought I'd share them:
- The quiote, the giant asparagus-shaped sprout that shoots up from a mature agave plant in order to spread its seed, only comes from the female plant. This is nearly always cut soon after sprouting so that it doesn't drain energy from the agave heart.
- After the quiote sprouts, you have a year and a few months to harvest the plant – it can go through one rainy season after sprouting but not two.
- Only the male plants that do not sprout quiotes have a cogollo, a dense circle of leaves where the quiote would have been. Most quality producers make sure to cut out the cogollo when harvesting or before baking the agave, as this negatively impacts the flavor of tequila.
- Agave can be harvested year-round but they tend to harvest less/none in the rainy season. This isn't because the agave are waterlogged and therefore have a lower sugar-to-weight ratio, as Hernandez says that mature plants aren't effected so much by this, but because logistically it's hard to get the trucks in and out of the muddy fields to collect the heavy agave after harvest.
- Sometimes you'll see an agave field with the tips of all the spiky leaves cut off. Hernandez says that some producers think that this helps the heart of the agave grow stronger, but he doesn't believe this is true. However, he says it is common to cut off the tips of the leaves when they come through annually to apply pesticides and herbicides, just so that they can get through the dense rows of agave without getting cut on the leaves.
- The leaves of the agave plants grow and die annually and new ones grow above them, much like how a palm tree grows with rows of dead leaves left lower down. I always thought they were the same leaves just growing bigger each year!
- They apply pesticides and herbicides annually up until the year before harvest, as they don't want any of that residue around for harvest.
- At the base of agave plants sprout rhyzomes, little baby agaves called hijuelos. These are cut and replanted after the mother agave plant is 3-4 years old.
I also learned something from Guillermo Sauza, distiller/owner of Fortaleza Tequila.
- You can get huge agave hearts in the Lowlands, you just have to fertilize the fields. Sauza says that people don't usually do that in the area anymore since the current prices are so low for agave.
September 12, 2012
A Visit to the Sauza Distillery in Tequila, Mexico

Today on the Tahona Society trip to the tequila regions of Mexico we visited the distillery of Sauza. Yesterday’s visit to La Fortaleza was an example of the most primitive/traditional production methods for tequila. Today at Sauza we say the most high-tech.

I last visited Sauza about a year ago, and that post on Alcademics is here, and probably a bit more thorough than this one. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures in most of the distillery, so mostly text will have to do.

Sauza uses what they call “soft extraction” of the sugars from agave plants. While almost every tequila maker bakes agave plant hearts (pinas) then crushes the baked plants to extract the fermentable sugars from the plants, at Sauza first they crush the plants then they cook the liquid.

The agave is first run through a big roller mill, and then a diffuser, a huge machine that specializes in getting the most of the sugars out of agave. Then this liquid is cooked at 120 degrees Celsius for 4-5 hours.

This sugary liquid is then fermented super fast- 24 to 26 hours- then it is distilled.

Distillation for Sauza products takes place first in a column still, where they distill up to anywhere from 24 to 35 percent alcohol depending on the product, and then in a copper-lined stainless steel still up to 56-65%.

An interesting fact I learned on this trip is about their mixto tequila – tequila distilled from the fermented sugars of at least 51% agave and 49% other sugars, usually sugar cane. However at Sauza, where they do use the minimum 51/49 percent ratio, the sugar used is corn syrup, not sugar syrup.

September 6, 2012
La Fortaleza Distillery Visit

Yesterday I visited the La Fortaleza distillery. This tiny distillery makes 100% tahona tequila, in the heart of the city of Tequila in the Lowlands.

The distillery was rebuilt in a 100 year old distillery site by Guillermo Sauza, 5th-generation Sauza family. His grandfather sold Sauza to the company who sold it to Jim Beam. Guillermo decided to return to distilling the traditional way.

The tahona is a volcanic stone wheel that is rolled in a pit to crush baked agave. Most distilleries use a diffuser, rollermill, or a combination of rollermill and tahona.

The fibers are removed and the sugary water and pulp remain. These are fermented in wooden fermenters.

Then they are distilled in the tiniest little pot stills.

The aging room is about as big as a two-bedroom apartment.

The view from the hill behind the distillery is amazing- they own 80 acres right in the city of Tequila.

There are caves underneath this hill. In the caves they’ve put a bar. We were in there for a good two hours.

Short blog post, but an amazing distillery and a great night!

September 6, 2012
Filtration in Spirits: A Primer

For CLASS Magazine online at DiffordsGuide.com, I wrote an article about filtration in spirits. This was based on the research I did for my talk on the subject at the Manhattan Cocktail Classic earlier this year.

Don't Forget the Filtration Factor
By Camper English

Nearly every spirit undergoes some sort of filtration, yet we rarely acknowledge it as part of production. But filtration makes vodka what it is today, practically defines Tennessee whiskey, is the standard in making white rum, and is changing the look of tequila. Filtration is important.

Generally speaking, filtration refers to the mechanical process of passing a liquid or gas through a medium that keeps out solids of a certain size. But in spirits, we include carbon filtration (sometimes called carbon treatment) as filtration too. Carbon filtration works differently: by absorption, the adhesion of particles to a surface, like flypaper.

I researched filtration in spirits for a talk at this year's Manhattan Cocktail Classic. While I can't claim category-wide or hands-on expertise in this matter, I spoke with several industry sources who know their stuff. Consider this an introduction to the subject.

The article covers filtration in vodka, rum, tequila, whisk(e)y, and cognac. I hope you'll find it interesting. Get the full story here.

Update: The story came off the site, so here it is in its entirety:

Filtration in Spirits

Camper English

Nearly every spirit undergoes some sort of filtration, yet we rarely acknowledge it as part of production. But filtration makes vodka what it is today, practically defines Tennessee whiskey, is the standard in making white rum, and is changing the look of tequila. Filtration is important.

Generally speaking, filtration refers to the mechanical process of passing a liquid or gas through a medium that keeps out solids of a certain size. (Think of a screen door.) But in spirits, we include carbon filtration (sometimes called carbon treatment) as filtration too. Carbon filtration works differently: By adsorption, the adhesion of particles to a surface. (Think of flypaper.)

I researched filtration in spirits for a talk at the Manhattan Cocktail Classic in May 2012. While I can’t claim category-wide or hands-on expertise in this matter, I spoke with several industry sources who know their stuff. Consider this an introduction to the subject.

Vodka, Charcoal, Tequila, and Rum

Early vodka was surely very different from the perfectly clear, nearly-neutral spirit we know today. True, distillation was cruder, performed in pot stills rather than in today’s hyper-efficient columns, but filtration helped rid vodka of lots of nastiness. Much early vodka filtration seems to resemble “fining” in wine and beer – a fining agent speeds up precipitation of impurities in the liquid. Fining agents have included egg whites, milk, gelatin, fish bladders, something called “blood powder.” Vodka has also been filtered through sand and other soils (this process is still used in water treatment), felt, and other materials.

But activated carbon (charcoal) seems to have the largest impact on vodka and other spirits, or at least it is the most commonly used filtration method. In vintage vodka, charcoal derived from trees was used to clean up the liquid, but today charcoal for filtration may come from wood, nut shells (coconut especially), and even bones. (Fun fact: some white table sugar is clarified using bone charcoal, rendering it non-vegetarian.)

Vodkas today advertise a range of other material to complement the carbon. These include birch charcoal, quartz sand, and algae (Ladoga), Herkimer Diamonds (Crystal Head), freeze filtration, Z-carbon filter, and silver (Stoli Elit), Platinum (Platinka), Gold (Lithuanian), Lava Rock (Hawaiian, Reyka), and marble (Akvinta). Though many of these methods sound like pure marketing, in fact some of these precious materials like platinum and silver do improve filtration efficiency. (For very detailed information on some vodka filtration technologies, this site https://www.vodka-tf.com/ is quite a read.)

Charcoal filtering is also commonly used in tequila. According to one tequila producer, this is because the law for tequila production (the NOM) specifies amounts of impurities like esters and furfural that may be present in tequila, and these numbers are difficult to consistency hit with distillation alone. Thus, charcoal filtration cleans up the impurities in tequila a little bit – but also removes some flavor with it.

Charcoal filtration can remove color as well as flavor and impurities. Many ‘white’ rums are aged a year or more in ex-bourbon barrels, and then filtered for clarity. Charcoal filtration (and other new-at-the-time technologies such as aging and column distillation) helped make Bacardi the popular and later global brand of rum that it is today. This lighter, clear style of rum born, in Cuba, is often called the ‘international style’ that won out in popularity over regional production methods.

All charcoal isn’t created the same, however. Should you take a dark rum and run it through a water filter repeatedly, you may not lose any color. (I tried.) Some parameters that distillers investigate in choosing the right carbon filtration material include the base material (bone, nut charcoal, wood, etc), the “iodine number” and the “molasses number,” the latter a measurement of decolorization. Activated carbon meant for cleaning up water may not be of any use in stripping color from liquids.

Decolorization has allowed for a new trend in tequila: aged tequila filtered to clarity. Probably the first tequila to do so was Maestro Dobel, a blend of reposado, anejo, and extra-anejo tequila filtered to near-clarity. In recent months, new brands have followed suit, including Casa Dragones (blanco and anejo mixed together and clarified), Milagro Unico (blanco with ‘aged reserves’), and Don Julio 70^th Anniversary Anejo Claro (clarified anejo). In the opposite direction, the first tequila that I’ve seen labeled as ‘unfiltered,’ a special cask-strength bottling of Ocho, has also just hit the market.

Whisky and Cognac

In both scotch and in bourbon, there is an increasing trend toward unfiltered whiskey, while chill filtration is still very much the norm. Chill filtration prevents cloudiness in spirits (particularly at low temperatures) and precipitation of particulates in the bottle. It is purely an aesthetic choice, not meant to affect the flavor of the spirit. However, many experts argue that it does alter (flatten) the flavor to some extent. (For a very nerdy analysis of chill filtration, we refer you to this information from Bruichladdich https://www.bruichladdich.com/library/bruichladdichs-guide-to-chill-filtration.)

As far as I have been able to learn, in chill filtration activated carbon is not used. The spirit is chilled to a certain degree, and then a cellulose or other paper filter is used to remove the esters and fatty acids that are less soluble at low temperatures. Whiskies bottled at higher proofs tend not to cloud, so many cask-strength whiskies and many (if not most) whiskies bottled at 46 percent alcohol or higher are non-chill filtered. Outside the bottle, however, when ice or water is added and they dilute, they may get cloudy.

Tennessee whiskey has its own style of filtration. After the spirit is distilled but before it goes into the barrel for aging, the whiskey is dripped through or soaked in tubs with about ten feet of charcoal made from sugar maple trees. Contrary to popular opinion, this is in no way required by law, but both Jack Daniel’s and George Dickel employ this technique. Gentlemen Jack is unusual in that it undergoes charcoal filtration a second time before bottling.

One cognac distiller revealed that filtration in cognac is also standard: cognac is run through paper filters of a specific (depending on the product) pore size to filter out undesired molecules. While most cognac is not chill-filtered, one producer said that when bottles are destined for cold-weather countries (cognac is popular in Scandinavia), it is often chill-filtered to prevent cloudiness in the bottle. It might be interesting to taste chill and non-chill filtered versions of the same cognac. The opportunity is rarely, if ever, afforded in scotch.

So, some form of filtration is used in about every type of spirit, whether that’s to change the color, clean up undesired impurities or clean out off flavors, to prevent cloudiness, or just to keep out chunks of stuff from floating in your bottle. As with the water used in fermentation, the type of still, and the location/condition of aging barrels, filtration is an important part of the process of making spirits and shouldn’t be so often overlooked.

August 14, 2012
Tequila is the New Vodka; Tequila is the New Scotch in LA Times Magazine

I've brought up one side of this topic before here on Alcademics, but now both sides are in a magazine.

In today's Los Angeles Times Magazine I have a story on tequila, looking at how brands are being produced and marketed – some like vodka; others like scotch.

As our preference for 100 percent agave tequila grows, it’s no surprise that brands are now popping up to take advantage of that trend. But what is really interesting are the niches tequila is carving out: Some are being bottled in sleek vessels complete with the same marketing and mystique that seems to be inspired by premium vodkas, while other new tequilas are promoting the artisanal, historical and romantic notions of the agave spirit, akin to scotch whisky—even if the brands were created within the last week.

It's a whopping 1,000 word story. Please give it a read and let me know what you think.

(Photo: BRIAN LEATART for LA Times Magazine)

July 3, 2011
Casa Noble Distillery Visit

Way back in February I took a quick trip to Mexico to visit the distillery La Cofradia, where they make Casa Noble tequila. They make other brands there too, but I was there as the guest of their flagship brand Casa Noble.

A Beautiful Distillery

La Cofradia is located about a mile outside of the town of Tequila in the Lowlands of Mexico about 45 minutes outside Guadalajara. In Mexico a few distilleries cultivate a garden-like environment but here they take it to another level. There is a central courtyard with trees, a duck pond, a little cafe, and a set of four cottages where visitors like me can stay.

Casa Noble Tequila Production

Casa Noble is a certified organic 100% agave tequila. In order to be organicaly certified you need to prove that the land has been organically farmed and not had chemicals used on it for a certain number of years. Casa Noble avoided that problem by purchasing virgin land in Nayarit and planting fresh agave there. Nayarit is one of the five states where it is legal to grow agave, though nearly all of it comes from the state of Jalisco where the distillery is located.

Thus Casa Noble uses estate-grown agave. This is a growing trend in the tequila industry; producers owning or renting the agave fields so they can control the both the care and harvest of it, but also the price, avoiding the dramatic gluts and shortages of agave in the industry as a result of its long, 6-11 year growing cycle.

(Agave pina (pineapple))

The fields in Nayarit are at an elevation of about 4000 feet, higher than some of the Highlands. Yet the agaves I saw at the distillery were much smaller than Highland agave I've seen. Those are often 200 pounds compared with the 110 pound or so average at Casa Noble (and thus only had to be split in half before baking; some Highland producers split theirs into quarters). They purposefully chose an isolated location for their fields, because they are organic: they wouldn't want airborne agave diseases to spread to their fields.

After harvest, the agave pinas are brought to the distillery where they'll be baked, shredded, fermented, and distilled. Baking converts the complex sugars in the agave into simpler, fermentable sugars.

(Closeup of piece of agave. You can see the fibers. The sugars are stored between these fibers which is why agave is shredded after baking to release them.)

Baking and Shredding

La Cofradia has 5 hornos (ovens), 3 large 40-ton ones and 2 smaller 20-ton ones. The agave is steam baked for 36-38 hours. Then it cools before the next step. They hasten the cooling process by using large fans blowing through the two sides of the oven.

When agave is cooking with steam, the first water than runs off the bottom is called "bitter honey" and it is discarded. The next mass of water is called the "oven honey" and this is collected. We sampled this water- its sweet, watery, and has a vinegar note to it. (David Yan, Marketing Director there, says he's used a refined version of this as a vinegrette on salads.)

(Baked agave.)

After baking the agave is shredded to expose the fermentable sugars that can be washed out and fermented. At La Cofradia they have a unique system: First the baked agave pinas are put through a sort of wood chipper (not a roller mill) with water. This water is collected and they call it the "fat extraction."

Next the chipped agave goes into a two "extractors" that are shaped like horizontal metal tubes. The first part of the extractor is like a corkscrew that compresses the fibers in the agave. Then it passes through to a set of paddles on a central axis that spins the agave fibers outward and washes them with water. Apparently this helps separate the fibers without neccesarily shredding them.

(Diagram of extractor from my notes.)

Fermenting and Distilling

Now, onto fermentation. They ferment the combination of the oven honey, fat extraction, and agave juice from the extractors. Yeast is added that feeds on the fermentable sugars and converts it into alcohol plus CO2. While filling the fermentation vats, they bubble air into the tank, which they say makes the yeast reproduce more. This increases their alcohol conversion by an extra 1-2%.

(Ready for fermentation.)

After fermentation (3-5 days, depending on the time of year), the yeast has died and the juice is called "mosto muerto." Now it's time to concentrate the alcohol through distillation.

At La Cofradia they have large and small stills for the first and second/third distillations. The first, large stillas are called "destroyers" and their job is to get rid of most of the heads and tails.The resultant spirit is 22% alcohol.

(Destroyer stills closer, smaller stills further away.)

The smaller stills are used for both a second and third distillation that refine the spirit. Though the first distillation cuts most of the heads and tails, there are smaller cuts on the second and third distillations. Both bring the alcohol to 55% ABV. (For most of the other brands that are produced at La Cofradia, they distill only twice. As this is the flagship brand they refine it more.)

After distillation (or, in the case of the aged tequilas, after aging) the tequila is filtered through micro-cellulose fibers and diluted to proof. The blanco (only?) is oxygenated before bottling for 8-12 hours.

Aging and Tasting

The barrels for aging Casa Noble come from the Taransaud cooperage in France. They're new French oak with a light #1 char, and nobody else in Mexico uses these barrels.The tequila goes into the casks at 55% ABV from the still (not watered down before barreling).

(New French oak barrels.)

Interestingly, the tequila destined to be anejo (minimum 1 year aging) goes into new casks. The reposado (2 months to 1 year aging) goes into refilled caks. (More often, brands will use newer casks for reposado tequilas and older ones for anejo so that the wood affects the spirit more in a shorter time for the reposado.) They refill these casks for reposado 7-8 times.

Cristal/Blanco: This tastes of nickel and minerals, white and red pepper, and "agave sticks" according to my tasting notes.

Reposado: The reposado is aged for 364 days, the maximum amount before it would be in the anejo category. Reposado is aged in all 228-liter barrels. My tasting notes were: Boo-berry, strawberry cream popsicle, and white flowers.

(Tasting.)

Anejo: Here's where Casa Noble separates itself from the pack yet again. Though all barrels are new French oak from Taransaud, they actually use three different sizes of barrels: 114 liter, 228 liter (about the size of bourbon barrels), and 350 liter barrels. These are blended together to create the anejo.

The anejo is aged for 2 years. (Anejo is aged a minimum of one year. Extra-anejo starts at three years.) You can definitely taste all three of the below flavor profiles in the anejo.

We were given the opportunity to taste tequila aged in each of the three sizes of barrels, each of them for a little under two years.

114 liter: bitter wood, used peanut oil
228 liter: fruit, dusty Boo-Berry, most similar to the reposado
350 liter: floral, strawberry juice, light

Now, besides Casa Noble, I can only think of one other set of brands that ages their spirit in similar casks of different sizes: Jim Beam. Laphroaig and Ardmore both do "quarter cask" programs.

So, Wow.

This is a distillery that uses traditional methods in many ways (stone ovens, gentle agave processing) yet has built their system from the ground up (new agave fields, agave processing methods, distillation, aging). And it's all done in a lovely setting to which I'd love to return someday.

March 22, 2011
Sherry is to Tequila as Vermouth is to Whiskey

Sherry and tequila are showing up together on more and more cocktail menus. I wrote a story about that in the Sunday, February 20th San Francisco Chronicle.

(Del Rio cocktail by Josh Harris of the Bon Vivants. Photo: Craig Lee)

More drinks including Tequila and Sherry
Camper English, Special to The Chronicle

Sherry and Tequila are having a love affair. Bartenders are using more of each ingredient lately, but increasingly you'll see the two sneaking off in a drink together, canoodling in a corner of the cocktail menu.

One of the first outward signs of this attraction came in the form of La Perla, a drink created several years ago by beverage consultant Jacques Bezuidenhout, which is still on the menu at Bourbon & Branch. The cocktail contains reposado (lightly aged) Tequila, manzanilla Sherry and pear liqueur.

A not-too dissimilar flavor combination has popped up recently. At the Hideout at Dalva, a tiny backroom cocktail bar in the Mission District, Josh Harris serves the Del Rio. The drink is made with blanco, or unaged, Tequila, fino Sherry, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, plus a dash of orange bitters and a grapefruit zest.

At Gitane, the Sherry-centric Claude Lane restaurant, bar manager Alex Smith and two other bartenders collaborated on a drink called the Flor Delice, made with reposado, manzanilla, St. Germain and orange bitters, plus maraschino liqueur.

In New York, this combination shows up yet again on the menu at Mayahuel, a bar dedicated to Tequila and mezcal. The Suro-Mago uses blanco, manzanilla, elderflower and orange bitters, and adds a rinse of mezcal to give it a smoky touch.

Read the rest of the story and get the recipe for the Del Rio, a simple and delicious drink.

February 19, 2011
Tequila Distillery Visit: Patron
In November I visited seven tequila distilleries in Mexico. Here are some pictures and notes from my visit to the Patron distillery in the town of Atotonilco.

(The distillery is on a huge plot of land. It's a huge distillery. This is the front gate.)

(This is the hacienda, which is the center of the distillery. Nice place.)

(This is agave going in to the rollermill. Patron is 50% rollermill agave and 50% tahona agave.)

(Fermenting tahona agave. Tahona agave ferments and is distilled with the fibers.)

(Outside the distillery they prepare the spent agave to be fertilizer.)

(They use a mix of barrels for Patron.)
- The distillery is actually 12 distilleries operating independently.
- Most of the agave comes from the highlands
- They recycle the first agave juice out of the ovens, don't use it for fermentation
- Ferment in pine wood, not stainless
- Have unusual stills designed by master distiller
- Tahona agave takes 2 hours to crush
- Patron silver is 75% of sales, reposado accounts for 10 percent and anejo accounts for 15
January 14, 2011
Tequila Distillery Visit: Don Julio
In November I visited seven tequila distilleries in Mexico. Here are some pictures and notes from my visit to the Don Julio distillery in the town of Atotonilco.

(Cutting up the pinas before baking.)

(Now when I see pinas, I get thirsty.)

(Fermenting agave.)

(Stainless steel pot stills.)

(We had a cocktail contest after the distillery visit. My team of writers won, of course.)
- Don Julio uses all estate-grown agaves
- Has a widerspacing between agaves than average
- They have 18 furnaces, each of which holds 25 tons
- Fermentation takes 24-30 hours
- Their agave is larger than industry standards, with a higher sugar content
- Inside the stainless steel stills is a copper coil
January 7, 2011