Tequila!

Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico

 About this time in 1958, just days before Mark discovered America, the song Tequila! hit #1 on the Billboard charts, recorded by The Champs. Decades later, Peewee Herman made it popular again with his dance to escape angry bikers in his movie, and the University of Washington Marching Band has kept it alive as well. Well, it turns out the spirit hails from the state of Jalisco, and in particular from the town of Tequila. Only 2 hours away, we decided to make a long weekend of it and go learn about the renowned, and sometimes reviled, beverage.

Out standing in the field

We drove north to Guadalajara and then west to Tequila. Our first stop was in Amatitán, just east of Tequila, for a tour of the Herradura distillery. The tour isn’t cheap at 350 pesos, but it lasted almost 3 hours, and was one of the best such tours we’ve been on. The original production facility was part of a hacienda, built in the 1600s. Haciendas were large land grants after the Spanish conquest, and were expected to be economically productive – mining, farming, and/or ranching. Like a lot of colonial things, they are both beautiful, and also reminders of slavery and oppression of indigenous peoples. 

Jimador

The factory today is large and modern (for the most part), acquired in 2007 by Brown Forman of Jack Daniels fame. Highlights of this tour were watching a jimador prepare the piña – the heart of the agave, so named as it resembles a pineapple once it is trimmed for roasting –

Hornos with pinas ready for cooking

along with seeing the actual hornos – steaming ovens where the hydrolyzation of starch to sugars takes place
 

Roasted pina, yum!

.....and then tasting the cooked piña. It was sweet, kind of like a maple-roasted sweet potato, but tangier... and stringier.

 We also got to see the original “factory," (no pictures allowed,) circa 1600s, a medieval stone building where burros pulled the tahona (large round stone) to crush the roasted piñas for fermenting into alcohol.

When looking for good tequila, you should look for 100% blue agave on the label, anything else can be 49% something else -- cane sugar, etc. There are essentially 3 basic types of tequila: blanco / plata (no time in barrel, purists’ preference,) reposado (at least 2 months in barrel,) and anejo (at least 12 months in barrel).

One of the best

And of course the tour ended with tasting…and a gift shop! Turns out, too, that if you have $12k US to spend, you can buy your own barrel of reposado, complete with 240 custom-labeled bottles. That’s 20 9L cases to you booze consultants out there. And you get to customize a barrel head to display in their barrel room. Some of the ones we saw looked professionally done, like a Grateful Dead album cover, while others looked like they had handed a Sharpie to 20 of their best friends in a bar after a few shots of the contents.

Cantarita drinking

We went then to the town of Tequila, a place where you can take a tour bus in many different shapes – a tequila barrel, a tequila bottle, and even a jalapeño pepper! The main square adjacent to the church has many vendors, most of which hope to sell you a tequila beverage in a cantarita – a small clay vessel that looks like a vase of sorts - for 60 pesos. It was refreshing to see many Mexicans (versus many gringos) enjoying the weekend.

Joe

"Evermore...tequila!"

In Tequila we walked through the Mundo Cuervo (Cuervo World), the best part of which was the giant bronze crow in the courtyard.

We walked down the street a little a saw the main entrance to the production facility for Jose Cuervo (Joe Crow), and a large birdcage with a real crow in it. Presumably his name is Jose.

Even Kirkland brand was here

We also visited the National Museum of Tequila, which has a great collection of labels and bottles, and a very pretty courtyard.

We did end up discussing politics...

Yes, we did try all of those! 

And because we really wanted to learn MORE about tequila we went to a great independent tasting bar, La Cata. It has over 200 tequilas and is not beholden to any particular distiller, so it was a very helpful opportunity to compare highland vs. lowland tequilas, etc. etc.

Cofradia's underground restaurant

And we took a tour of a small, boutique tequilera, La Cofradia. They have an underground restaurant with the “Mariachi Network” playing on big screen when real mariachis are not playing, and most interestingly, you can stay overnight in giant barrel-shaped hotel rooms!! They also have lovely specialty bottles for sale. (Linda vetoed the kitschy cactus bottle, though.)

The barrel rooms with a view

truly ahogada'd torta

We had several good meals, including some very tasty birria (goat stew) and our first torta ahogada, (drowned sandwich) a renowned Jalisco standard. They say no trip to Guadalajara is complete without trying this tasty treat.

On our return, we stopped in Teuchitlan (“a place for the divine”) to see Los Guachimontones, the ancient circular “pyramids” of Mexico. These amazing structures were built about 300 BC to 900 AD, by the Guachichil civilization that inhabited central Mexico in pre-Columbian times. The ruins were only discovered in 1969, and it took 25 years to raise enough many to begin excavation in 1996. Since then, the money has run out, so unfortunately no more restoration is taking place right now.

They discovered in a burial chamber many clay vignettes which show what the place was like in its heyday. The buildings and ceremonies shown by these items are really quite fantastic – one of the coolest things we’ve see here so far. Each guichimonton had a particular purpose, and there were 3 different levels, essentially: the gold circle, the cheap seats and something in the middle. Seems like some things never change.

One of the party houses on the side

They also had ball courts there, where the game involved moving a heavy stone ball coated in rubber with hips only. We hired a guide for 200 pesos and he told us of the discovery, and the goings on 2000 years ago. He was also very knowledgeable about the local trees and their medicinal uses, and helped us practice our Spanish as well.

The actual artifacts are in the Museo de la Casa Cultura de Teuchitlan in town – best 5 pesos you can spend.

Continuing our way back to Lake Chapala, we took a quick detour in the small town of Santa Cruz de las Flores, having heard about a couple of old churches there worth seeing. It took some meandering, but we finally found the plaza and the churches. One was from circa 1551 and had many different carvings and symbols on it. The outside gate was locked so we could only see them from a distance. A couple hundred yards away was the “newer” church, also closed, alas.

Capilla de la Santa Cruz

While staring at the second church, a nice old man came by and told us, in Spanish, that the geographic center of Jalisco was right there in the plaza, and sure enough, there was a brass marker from the Mexican Geologic Survey (?) so stating. Kind of cool!

Boarding the train!

UPDATE: A mere 20 days later, we returned to Tequila with our California friend, Sarah, on the TRAIN, which was fun.... We THINK there were 12 tequila drinks, mas o menos, that were served throughout the day!

Our train with Tequila volcano

Regional dances

The pirate dance

A nice lunch with 350 of our closest friends, the tour, and a tasting in a cave, instead of a nice meeting room. A quality, longish mariachi and folk dance program, and of course a chance to buy more of the blend we had already finished since our last visit!  Whew!

Tequila!

(marzo 4, 2018; Updated 26 marzo, 2018)