Summary

- From the heart of Mexico
- The blue treasure
- Rise and fall - and vice-versa
- Indispensable glossary
- Our choice
- Mezcal and Tequila
- Legends
- Purity and mixability


From the heart of Mexico
When you say Mexico you say beaches, sun, crystal clear sea, music, joy. And you say tequila. Margarita, Tequila Sunrise, Tequila Sal y Lemon. Mind goes directly to the distillate that, some years ago, helped by the success of the whole white spirits' sector, outclassed as a best-seller in worldwide bars. Prideful to adorn itself (since 1997), together with Champagne, Cognac, Sherry and Porto, with the "Limited geographical denomination".
Tequila, in fact, is produced in a very small and well defined area, 200 square meters large, situated in Western Mexico, in the State of Jalisco. Blue Agave, the staple to produce this distillate, grows only in this region. Its scientific name is "Azul Tequilana Weber". Agave, that means something like "majestic and admirable", belongs to the lily family, even if it has not the delicate aspect of these flowers.
They say that, before the conquistadors came to Mexico, the natives had already discovered Agave and how to use its juice. Particularly, the Tiquila tribe of Amatitlan (from which the name of the distillate) developed the process on which the preparation of Tequila is based: the cooking and fermentation of the Agave plant.
The regulations applied in Mexico at the moment provide that each bottle of Tequila fulfilled certain standards of production: the Agave used must come from the Jalisco Region; the fermented Agave juice must be distilled twice; the finished product must have at least 51% of residual sugars coming from the Blue Agave; every single bottle must be labelled with the writing "Nom" (Norma Oficial Mejicana), followed by a number that indicates the producing distillery.

The blue treasure
The cultivation of the Blue Agave begins with the sowing of the bulbs, performed according to the local tradition.
The plant reaches its full maturation in 8-10 years; at this point the "jimador" (the grower) cuts the leaves with an apposite blade, in order to leave only the central part, called "pina" - an enormous cone which reminds the shape of a pineapple and weighs between 50 and 70 kilos. Then the pina is moved from the plantation to the distillery, where it is subjected to a slow 48 hours long cooking, in order to turn the starches into sugars.
The following step is the extraction of the juice, a dense and dark liquid, by pressing it and letting water - rigorously local - flow over it. This process turns the juice into the so called "aguamiel" (honey-water) that is left to ferment for some days with the help of selected yeasts. The process goes on with the double distillation and then, after other treatments and some resting days, passes to the ageing.
At this point the distillate is ready to be bottled. It will be labelled in different ways depending from the refining period.



Rise and fall - and vice-versa
So, everything starts from Blue Agave. In the good as well as in the bad times.
The beginning of the Third Millennium, in fact, will be remembered as a very difficult period for Tequila: the distillate suffered for the lack of Blue Agave, mostly because of its long growth period (8-10 years). This slowness turned into a major problem when it coincided with a considerable increase of the demand of Tequila on the international markets, in addition to a series of natural catastrophes that hit Mexico at the end of the nineties (above all, the extraordinary snowfall of 1997, and the rise of the Picudo del Agave, an insect that destroyed whole plantations).
Producers of Blue Agave found themselves unprepared and they could do nothing but staring at a vertiginous drop of the production. Obviously, this drop led to two main negative consequences on the Tequila market: the contraction of the offer and the increase of the prices, in certain cases even of the 50%. Fortunately, many of the producers reacted to this crisis by a preservation of the product's quality, and avoided to put on the market a worse quality Tequila.
The storm seems to have passed, and Tequila is slowly coming back to its ordinary production of Blue Agave.





continue...