Category: tequila

  • Drinks With: Cuervo Tequila Bigshots

    Drinks With… is a regular Alcademics category where I share what I learned when meeting with industry notables.

    Last week I asked Alcademics readers what I should ask Francicso Hanal Alfaro, Cuervo's Maestro Tequilero and Araceli Ramos, Director at La Rojeña, the Cuervo Distillery. You answered here and on Facebook. I didn't get to ask all your questions but I learned some really interesting stuff.

    Alfaro lives in Mexico City and is also one of the people who helped decide on the Riedel tequila glass that I use nearly every day.

    Pre-Spanish Distillation?

    I first asked about the theory beginning to be espoused by Steve Olson and others that distillation predates the Spanish coming to Mexico. The theory is based on some findings of a very old still and some chemical analysis. It doesn't sound like anything conclusive has been proven by archeologists though. But one contributing theory that was brought up at the Agavepalooza session at Tales of the Cocktail is that as the natives were drinking pulque when the spanish arrived, and if you distill pulque you get rubber instead of delicious tequila. Thus it would take a longer time to develop the technology to distill tequila from the hearts of roasted agave plants than the actual time from the Spanish arriving in Mexico to tequila showing up. The technology couldn't have developed that fast, says the theory.

    Though Alfaro wasn't familiar with this pre-Spanish theory, he said that natives in the tequila region (as opposed to the areas where they were drinking pulque- uncooked, fermented juice of certain types of agave) were consuming vina de mescal- mescal wine. "Mescal" he said means something like "the thing that is cooking," and thus vina de mescal refers to baked/cooked agave that is then fermented into wine. So if cooking and fermenting mescal is pre-Spanish also, then the theory that it couldn't have been developed between the time the Spanish arrived and the time tequila was known to exist would not be valid. (This is not to say Alfaro was speaking directly to this theory, he just added his thoughts to my question. Hopefully this will advance the conversation.)

    Where Does your Agave Come From, and Are you Hurting Small Agave Farms and Families?

    Cuervo gets agave from three different types of source. Most is estate owned. The next most is leased land- other people own the land but they own the agave and tend to the land. (Much "estate-grown" tequila from other brands is on leased land.) Third, they buy agave on the open market.

    The important point that I hadn't heard before (my kingdom for a few hours with the CRT) is that they said they have to buy some agave from small farmers by law. A recent paper said that because more brands are buying land, they are putting small farmers out of business. (See the question Neyah proposed in the comment here for more information on why this is important.) Yet as I wrote a while back, the reason brands are buying up land is because of the gluts and shortages in the agave market when left to small players- Alfaro brought this up as well. I really would like to know more about this law to better understand the issue.

    Cuervo employs 3500 jimadors (the folks who harvest the agave). They also own most of their land in the Tequila Valley (lowlands), but also some in the highlands and some also in the neighboring state of Nayarit. Some of it is in the area close to Puerto Vallarta (thus very low in elevation) and Alfaro says the agaves grow to be huge there.

    Though all the talk in tequila these days is about terroir, Alfaro emphasized that no matter where they grow their agave, they use the same fertilizer and even irrigation to keep it consistent between areas. We didn't get into this as much as I wanted as we ran out of time to talk.

  • History of the El Diablo Cocktail in Trader Vic’s Books

    I was trying to find the first reference to the El Diablo cocktail recently.

    Mexican El Diablo



    1/2 lime


    1 ounce tequila


    1/2 crème de cassis


    Ginger Ale


    Squeeze lime juice into a 10-ounce glass; drop in spent shell. Add ice cubes, tequila, and crème de cassis. Fill glass with ginger ale.

    Searching the web, the earliest reference I read to it was from Trader Vic's books of 1946 and 1947.

    I asked tiki expert Martin Cate, who has these books, if he knew if the drink was a Trader Vic original. After his research it's still not entirely clear, but the research is interesting in itself.

    Martin says:

    IT IS in the 1946 TV Book of Food and Drink- It is
    called a "Mexican El Diablo" and it IS singled out as an original
    cocktail.
     
    IT IS in the 1947 TV Bartender's Guide again as a
    "Mexican El Diablo", but does not declare it an original- although that book
    does not specify.
     
    It's not in the TV Kitchen Kibitzer
    1952
     
    IT IS in the TV Pacific Island Cookbook of
    1968, but now called "El Diablo" only
     
    IT IS in the TV Bartender Guide Revised 1972 as an
    "El Diablo", but does not say it's his.  This edition DOES call out
    original drinks.

    Thanks Martin!

    If anyone finds an earlier reference to the El Diablo or Mexican El Diablo, please let me know.

  • A Camper Cocktail

    SeanMike over at Scofflaw's Den is making cocktails for mixologists, bloggers, and other folks, and naming them for those people.

    And now he's made one named The Camper, made with blanco tequila, grenadine, lemon juice, pineapple grapefruit soda, and Peychaud's bitters. Sounds tasty- I can't wait to try me.

  • The Trouble with Tequila

    There's a new study released by Sarah Bowen of North Carolina State University in Raleigh and Ana Valenzuela Zapata of Mexico that says the tequila industry is ruining small farms.

    I've seen several stories in the media reporting on this and I think many of them are missing a large piece of the puzzle.

    Basically, the study asserts that because more tequila brands are taking control of the agave fields, the small agave farmers are suffering. They can't sell their agave to brands as much on the open markets, because the brands now own their own fields. Additionally, the commercial agave farming by the large brands is more pesticide intensive and harmful with water run-off and other typical commercial farming problems.

    What is less discussed is that the reason these brands bought agave fields is because small agave farmer's crop quality and availability were too inconsistent. There was a great agave shortage in the 1990's the caused a huge impact on the industry. Some brands raised prices by a large amount to cover the increased cost of agave. Other brands traded down from being 100% agave tequila to mixto tequilas. I think that Herradura's El Jimador brand was in this category. It went from 100% to mixto back to 100%. How are they going to guarantee that it remains a 100% agave product? By buying fields.

    But because of the shortage in the 1990's, all the small farmers planted agave instead of other crops. As the crop takes 6-10 years on average to harvest, there is now resulting glut in the agave market, and another expected shortage to begin in the next couple years.

    You could understand why a tequila brand wouldn't want to buy agave on the open market when the market is like this. They can't guarantee consistency in their product unless they control the supply of the raw ingredient that can't be corrected in the short term.

    Additionally, controlling your own ingredient means that you not only control the amount of it, but also the quality. And there is a definite cachet in having estate-grown agave.

     Last week at the launch of the Gran Centenario Rosangel tequila in New York, spirits supertaster Paul Pacult said, "The best tequilas that I know of come from estate-grown agave."

    Another factor to keep in mind on this study is that co-author Ana Valenzuela Zapata is an advocate for increasing biodiversity in agave. In a book she co-authored with Gary Paul Nabhan called Tequila: A Natural and Cultural History, she discusses the fact that agave as it is currently grown is a genetically uniform monoculture that's propagated asexually, which makes it  especially susceptible to plagues of disease that could wipe out the entire industry (as only one strain of agave is allowed in tequila) like Phylloxera did to the European wine industry in the late 1800's.

    This doesn't in any way disqualify the study's argument that small farms are suffering due to large tequila producers buying their own fields, and that industrial farming is worse for the environment. I just think that people should realize it's the inconsistency and often low-quality of small farm agave that caused the major producers to buy their own fields in the first place.

  • Bay Area Distillers Messing with Agave

    Hey, it's double-bonus tequila Friday here at Alcademics!

    I just learned that my Chronicle story on Bay Area distillers and business owners making tequila here or in Mexico went live today. The print story should be out this Sunday, in the newly-merged Food & Wine sections.

    Tequilatime copy

    Read the story here.

    Highlights

    • Julio Bermejo of Tommy's Mexican Restaurant is building his own distillery in Mexico.
    • Miles and Marko Karakasevic of Charbay Distillery and Winery made tequila in Mexico at the famous La Altena distillery.
    • Lance Winters and Jorg Rupf shipped agave to Alameda and distilled it there. This lead to a series of unusual efforts.

    Each distiller is taking an entirely different approach to the process.

    Go read it, there are some juicy news items in there.

  • Drinking by Degree

    Check out my story in the February issue of San Francisco Magazine. It's about tasting clubs around the city where you earn prizes or a degree by working your way through the menu.

    TresAgavesfull

    I focus on the Tequila Passport program at Tres Agaves, but also mention programs at Tommy's Mexican Restaurant, Forbidden Island, and Barclay's in Oakland.

    Read the story here.