59 Fun Facts About Tequila

Tequila's Denomination of Origin covers territory in how many Mexican states?

Five states share the Denomination of Origin: one western state in its entirety, plus designated municipalities in Guanajuato, Michoacán, Nayarit and Tamaulipas.

The town of Tequila sits in which Mexican state?

Tequila is in Jalisco, the western state at the heart of the spirit's Denomination of Origin; the agave landscape around the town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Under Mexican law, tequila must be bottled at an alcohol content between what two figures?

NOM-006 sets the bottling range at 35% and 55% alcohol by volume (70 to 110 US proof); the United States additionally requires at least 40% for any tequila sold there.

A tequila labelled 'mixto' must contain at least what percentage of agave sugars?

A mixto must take at least 51% of its sugars from blue agave; the remaining 49% may come from cane or corn sugar, which is why '100% agave' on a label matters.

The tequila class whose name means 'rested' must stay in oak for at least how long?

Reposado means 'rested'; it must stay under a year, or it moves into the añejo class.

An añejo tequila must be aged for a minimum of how long?

Añejo must spend at least one year in oak barrels of no more than 600 litres; beyond a fixed upper limit in wood it is classed as extra añejo instead.

The 'extra añejo' tequila class requires a minimum ageing period of how many years?

Extra añejo must spend at least three years in oak; the category was created by the NOM-006-SCFI-2005 tequila standard to cover whisky-style luxury bottlings.

What is a 'cristalino' tequila?

A cristalino is aged spirit filtered to remove its colour, usually through activated charcoal, so a barrel-aged tequila pours as clear as a blanco while keeping some oak character.

A 'joven' or 'oro' (gold) tequila is typically what?

A joven or oro is a blend of unaged and aged spirit, or coloured blanco; cheap mixto golds owe their hue to caramel colouring rather than any time in wood.

What are the workers who harvest agave plants called?

Jimadores are the field workers who harvest agave, a trade often passed down through families; an experienced jimador can trim and uproot a mature plant in a few minutes.

What is the harvested heart of the agave plant called, from the Spanish for a fruit it resembles?

The trimmed heart is called a piña because it looks like a giant pineapple; a mature one weighs tens of kilograms, with highland plants generally running larger than valley ones.

Why are agave hearts baked in ovens before fermentation?

Cooking exists to break down complex fructans into simple fructose: yeast cannot ferment the agave's raw inulin, so hours of steaming in brick ovens or autoclaves make its sugars available.

What is the traditional large stone wheel used to crush cooked agave hearts called?

The tahona is a volcanic-stone wheel of around two tonnes dragged in a circle through the cooked agave; roller mills replaced it at most distilleries, though a few producers keep the method.

By law, tequila must be distilled at least how many times?

The NOM standard requires at least two distillations, traditionally in copper pot stills; some brands add a third pass for smoothness, but a single distillation is not permitted.

Roughly what alcohol level does the fermented agave juice reach before it is distilled?

Fermented mosto reaches only about 4% to 9% alcohol, roughly beer strength; distillation then concentrates it into a spirit, which is later cut with water to bottling strength.

What is the traditional narrow shot glass for tequila called?

The caballito, 'little horse', is the tall narrow glass used for tequila shots; in Mexico the spirit is usually sipped slowly from it rather than thrown back.

Which glassmaker produced the 'official tequila glass' approved by the regulatory council in 2002?

Riedel's Ouverture Tequila glass, a small stemmed flute, was endorsed by the Consejo Regulador del Tequila to move sipping tequila away from the shot glass and toward wine-style tasting.

What is the most traditional way to drink tequila in Mexico?

The most traditional serve in Mexico is neat, without lime and salt: good tequila is sipped slowly from a tall narrow glass, and the salt-and-lime shot is largely a foreign habit.

The salt-lime-shot ritual nicknamed 'training wheels' has what Spanish name?

Tequila cruda is the salt, shot and lime sequence also nicknamed 'lick-sip-suck'; the salt dulls the burn of the spirit and the lime cuts the aftertaste.

What is sangrita, the traditional companion to a shot of tequila?

Sangrita, 'little blood', is a non-alcoholic sweet, sour and spicy chaser sipped alternately with the tequila; the original used orange and lime with pomegranate or chile, tomato juice being a later addition.

What does Mexico's 'bandera' serving of lime juice, tequila and sangrita shots represent?

The bandera ('flag') mirrors the national flag: green lime juice, clear tequila for the white band and red sangrita, lined up in that order and sipped in turn.

The 'worm' sometimes found in a bottle of Oaxacan mezcal is really the larva of what?

The gusano is the caterpillar of a moth, usually the red chinicuil (Comadia redtenbacheri) that bores into agave; bottlers began adding it around 1950 as a marketing gimmick.

What gives mezcal its characteristic smoky flavour?

Roasting the agave in underground pits lined with hot rocks and covered with earth for days infuses the hearts with smoke; tequila producers steam theirs in brick ovens or autoclaves instead.

Roughly what share of Mexican mezcal comes from the state of Oaxaca?

Oaxaca produces roughly 90% of certified mezcal; the Denomination of Origin also covers Guerrero, Durango, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and other states, but none comes close to Oaxaca's output.

The word 'mezcal' comes from a Nahuatl term meaning what?

Mezcal comes from the Nahuatl mexcalli, 'baked agave', from metl (agave) and ixcalli (cooked); in that broad sense tequila is itself a mezcal made only from blue agave.

Which agave species is most commonly used to make mezcal?

Espadín is Agave angustifolia, the 'smallsword' agave, and it accounts for the bulk of mezcal in Oaxaca.

Which pre-Hispanic agave drink is fermented but not distilled?

Pulque is the milky, lightly alcoholic drink made by fermenting aguamiel, the sap of maguey agaves; it predates the Spanish conquest, whereas distillation only arrived afterwards.

Which Spanish king granted the Cuervo family the first licence to make tequila commercially?

Carlos IV granted José María Guadalupe de Cuervo the royal licence in 1795, shortly after lifting the 1785 ban on agave spirits imposed by his father Carlos III.

Who is credited as the first person to export tequila to the United States?

Don Cenobio Sauza sent the first shipment of tequila north to the United States in 1873, the year he acquired the distillery he later renamed La Perseverancia.

The first tequila distillery in the United States opened in 1936 in which state?

Former state legislator Harry J. Karns opened his distillery in Nogales, Arizona, on the Mexican border in 1936; the name tequila has since been protected, so anything so labelled must be made in Mexico.

In which year did the Mexican government declare the word 'tequila' its intellectual property?

The 1974 Declaration of Denomination of Origin made the word tequila Mexican intellectual property and confined production to designated territory; the European Union later recognised the name under a spirits agreement.

The 'NOM' number printed on every tequila bottle identifies what?

The four-digit NOM identifies the distillery where it was made; many brands share one, which is how drinkers learn that two labels come off the same stills.

In what year was the agave landscape around Tequila declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

UNESCO inscribed the Agave Landscape and Ancient Industrial Facilities of Tequila in 2006; the site covers the blue-agave fields, historic distilleries and the Teuchitlán-culture archaeological remains nearby.

Which holiday did Mexico approve in 2018 for the third Saturday of March?

Mexico's Senate approved the Día Nacional del Tequila, National Tequila Day, in 2018 for the third Saturday of March; the unofficial US National Tequila Day on 24 July is a separate bar-calendar invention.

Blue agave hearts are usually harvested when the plant is roughly how old?

Blue agave is cut at roughly seven to fourteen years old, once the heart is rich in sugar; that long wait is why agave prices swing wildly, since growers cannot answer a boom quickly.

Which animal is a key pollinator of blue agave flowers?

The greater long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris nivalis) feeds on agave nectar at night and carries pollen between plants; cultivated agave rarely flowers, though, because the stalk is cut to keep sugar in the heart.

In what year was blue agave first scientifically described as a species, by the botanist F. A. C. Weber?

Weber published the name Agave tequilana in 1902, which is why labels say 'Blue Weber agave'; it honours the French botanist, not a brewer or distiller.

How are cultivated blue agave plants normally propagated?

Growers propagate by replanting shoots taken from the parent, the hijuelos that sprout around its base; this cloning keeps the crop uniform but has stripped away genetic diversity, leaving fields vulnerable to disease.

Blue agave prefers to grow at altitudes above roughly what height?

Blue agave grows best above about 1,500 metres; the Los Altos highlands east of the town sit at that height and are known for sweeter, fruitier agave than the lowland valley.

Besides tequila and lime juice, what is the third ingredient in the IBA's standard margarita?

The IBA recipe is 50 ml tequila, 20 ml triple sec and 15 ml fresh lime juice, shaken and served in a salt-rimmed glass; Cointreau is the triple sec most bartenders reach for.

The first known printed margarita recipe appeared in December 1953 in which magazine?

Esquire printed the recipe in December 1953, the earliest known appearance of the name in print; competing origin stories place the drink's invention in Tijuana, Ensenada, Galveston and Acapulco.

Mariano Martinez introduced the dedicated frozen margarita machine in 1971 in which city?

Martinez adapted a soft-serve ice-cream dispenser for his restaurant Mariano's Mexican Cuisine in Dallas in May 1971; the original machine was donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in 2005.

A Paloma is tequila, lime and which kind of soda?

The Paloma is tequila, lime and grapefruit soda over ice, often with a salted rim; in Mexico it is commonly mixed with Squirt, and it rivals the margarita as the country's favourite tequila drink.

The modern Tequila Sunrise was created in the early 1970s at a bar in which California town?

Bartenders Bobby Lozoff and Billy Rice devised it at the Trident in Sausalito; Mick Jagger tried one at a Rolling Stones tour party there in 1972, and the Eagles released 'Tequila Sunrise' in 1973.

The original 1930s-40s Tequila Sunrise, from a Phoenix hotel, used which liqueur instead of grenadine?

Gene Sulit's version at the Biltmore hotel in Phoenix mixed tequila, crème de cassis, lime juice and soda water, a fizzy drink that looked nothing like the layered orange cocktail of the disco era.

Which spirits giant bought Patrón in January 2018 for about $5.1 billion?

Bacardi bought Patrón in a deal valuing the brand at about $5.1 billion, its largest acquisition; Patrón had been founded in 1989 by hair-care entrepreneur John Paul DeJoria and Martin Crowley.

Casamigos, the tequila co-founded by George Clooney and Rande Gerber, was sold in 2017 to which company?

Diageo paid $700 million up front with up to $300 million more tied to performance; Casamigos, 'house of friends', had been launched in 2013 by Clooney, Gerber and Mike Meldman.

Which rock star sold an 80% stake in his Cabo Wabo tequila to Gruppo Campari for $80 million in 2007?

Sammy Hagar launched the tequila in 1996 out of the Cabo Wabo cantina he had opened in Cabo San Lucas in 1990 with his Van Halen bandmates.

Herradura, founded in 1870 in Amatitán, takes its name from the Spanish word for what object?

Legend says a horseshoe was found on the hacienda; the company later became part of Brown-Forman in a $776 million deal.

Which celebrity launched 818 Tequila, named for a Los Angeles-area telephone code?

Kendall Jenner launched 818 Tequila in 2021, naming it for the San Fernando Valley's area code; the brand is produced in the highlands of the tequila region.

Don Julio González began distilling tequila in 1942 at what age?

González was 17 when he began distilling in 1942 at La Primavera in Atotonilco el Alto; the Don Julio 1942 expression, released six decades later, takes its name from that first year.

The trapezoid-shaped bottle of 1800 Tequila is a nod to what?

The brand says the trapezoid bottle evokes Mayan pyramids; its name marks 1800, the year tequila was supposedly first aged in oak, and it belongs to the Beckmann family behind Jose Cuervo.

Jose Cuervo's Reserva de la Familia was introduced in 1995 to mark what?

Reserva de la Familia was released in 1995 for the distillery's 200th anniversary, counting from the 1795 royal licence that made Cuervo the oldest continuously operating tequila producer.

The Champs' 1958 instrumental 'Tequila' won a Grammy in which category?

'Tequila' took Best Rhythm & Blues Performance at the very first Grammy ceremony in 1959; its only lyric is the title, and Pee-wee Herman danced to it on a bar-top in 1985.

The Tequila Express tourist train first ran in which year?

The Tequila Express began in 1997, run by the local Chamber of Commerce with Ferromex, carrying tourists from the state capital to the Herradura distillery in Amatitán.

The town of Tequila lies about 65 km northwest of which major Mexican city?

Guadalajara, the state capital, lies roughly 65 km to the southeast; the Tequila valley between the two is the heartland of lowland agave, with the Los Altos highlands the other key growing zone.

What is the name of the long-poled, circular-bladed knife used to trim agave leaves?

The coa de jima is a round, razor-sharp blade mounted on a long pole; the harvester uses it to slice off the spiky leaves and free the heart from the ground.

Agave belongs to which plant family under modern botanical classification?

Agave sits in the Asparagaceae, the asparagus family, under the APG classification; despite its spiny leaves it is not a cactus, and older books filed it in a family of its own, Agavaceae.

What is the tall flowering stalk that a mature agave sends up called?

The quiote is the flower stalk, which can rise several metres; growers cut it off so the plant keeps its sugars in the heart, which is why cultivated agave rarely flowers.