I saw this article about wine barrel aged tequila and it sounds fantastic at first glance. I love tequila, I think it’s one of the most unique distilled spirits. It has esters and phenols that add so much texture to the finished product of a cocktail that it’s impossible to compare. I couldn’t help but shake my head. Outside of the few benefits, which I’ll get to later, it’s a pretty terrible idea. Not the process itself, which actually sounds exciting, but encouraging people to drink even more tequila is generally not a good idea.
Tequila is a maxed out product. It’s required to be made from a specific agave (blue weber) grown in a specific region in Mexico (Jalisco State) and they’re growing as much as they can, yet there’s still scarcity. There are even regular reports of agave piñas, the heart of the agave plant where all the fermentable sugar is, being smuggled into Jalisco to be turned into tequila. Part of that is the cyclical boom and bust nature of the agave market in Mexico, but it’s also that demand is at an all time high right now1. That demand is also the highest it’s ever been for other agave products like agave syrup and mezcal, another distilled spirit from Mexico with fewer geographical and agave varietal rules.
There are farms in the Southwest United States2 that are experimenting with growing agave as both a low water crop and wild fire prevention crop. The efforts have so far not caught on, mostly because US distillers and farmers are not accustomed to working with the ungainly large succulents. I applaud the efforts and hope that it works out because I think it’s really the only way forward for agave spirits to be a sustainable product in the US. Below is a distiller in Marfa TX getting ready to make a mash of sotol, a related spirit made from desert spoon, another desert succulent.
The way tequila and mezcal are produced in Mexico, either very large monoculture farms (tequila and to a lesser extent mezcal), or wild agave harvesting (mezcal and tequila piña poaching), are both detrimental to the environment. The large monoculture farms are tough on bats that are the only natural pollinators of the agave plants, because the plants are harvested before the agave goes into bloom, thus denying the bats of one of their primary food sources. The wild agave harvesting and poaching, mostly for mezcal which can be produced from any agave from a much larger part of the country, puts rarer species of agave at risk of extinction.
I really really love tequila and mezcal. There’s honestly nothing better than a margarita, ceviche, and a body of water to sit next to while the sun sets. I think it might be better to only enjoy blanco tequila in its terroir, in Mexico. It feels too much like extractive colonial capitalism otherwise.
I think the best way to decolonize the tequila industry is to drink tequila where it’s made and grown by companies who are based in the region. So, drink Mexican owned brands like Jose Cuervo, 1800, and smaller boutique brands. The fact that more tequila is drank outside of Mexico than inside Mexico, doesn’t help the tequileros because most large tequila brands are owned by international spirit companies like Beam Suntory (owners of Sauza and Hornitos), Bacardi (owners of Patròn and Cazadores), Diageo (owners of Don Julio and Casamigos), Brown-Forman (owners of El Jimador and Herradura). The vast majority of the profits from those brands are not going back to the workers or the communities.
Mezcal has largely avoided this, being more niche, but it’s happening now as well. Del Maguey mezcal was purchased by Pernod Ricard, the second largest wine and spirit company in the world (owners of Jameson, The Glenlivet, Absolut, and so many more). And the celebrity brand, Dos Hombres, has a sold a minority share to Constellation Brands.
So what are the benefits of aging tequila in wine barrels? It’s adding value to the product in a way that stabilizes the market for tequila (avoiding the boom and bust), and that added value gets transferred to communities in Mexico in the form of jobs for tequileros. More barrel aging means more cellar hand jobs, more cooper jobs, more warehouse jobs. All of that means more money stays in Mexico.
What I’m reading
Madonna anno domini by Joshua Clover. It feels very forward looking for a book from 1997, you can see younger voices like Johannes Gorranson, Lara Glenum, and Ben Lerner. I enjoy it, but Clover as a personality kind of rubs me a little weird and I have a hard time separating the art and artist. He is one of the few poets and academics on the front line of the various protest movements, but he can afford to, and maybe that’s good.
Jobs!
A to Z Wineworks is hiring a cellar associate. I worked at this winery for the 2020 harvest and it was wild because of covid, because of the fires and because it was my first time working in a large winery. But, they are a great company that took really good care of us. Highly recommend them.
Lead Bartender at a Michelin Starred/James Beard Award winning restaurant. I worked at an aspirational restaurant, for a former Noma chef, and I think it’s probably one of the places I miss the most. Having people around you that are striving toward excellent service, food, and drink is pretty fun and encouraging.
could this be blamed on the Ranch Water boom? Maybe.
this is a really fantastic article, really long but really helpful.