Inland trip to Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico

Monday, March 11, 2013

020-50.441 N
103-43.416 W

Ahoy from the crew of the BlueJacket,

This is the 3rd and last log covering our inland travels from La Cruz. We're now in Tequila, Jalisco which is the green dot to the upper right side map. It's only a couple of hours from Guadalajara, so we headed there after shopping in Tonala. The road to Tequila is a toll road and we were quite surprised when we paid $126 pesos ($10 USD) at the first toll. Luckily we weren't on that toll road for long.

Sue had done a lot of research and hands down we were told to visit the Herrurada distillery as it was the prettiest and was much more traditional than the other distilleries. We got there a little after 1 PM, bought tickets for the 2:00 tour and had lunch at a house within the distillery grounds. When I saw at a house, I mean, at a house. Grandma was eating lunch in the kitchen and mom was cooking on the stove. We got what they had!

At 2:00 our guide arrived to take just the 2 of us on the tour. The normal guide wasn't available, so Angle was taking over. He was a bit nervous at the start, but he spoke quite good English and had a tremendous understanding of the entire process. It all starts with the Agave plant, which you see to the left. They let these plants grow for 7-10 years and then cut off the leaves, leaving a heart with is 12-18" in diameter. They then take these hearts and stack them in steam ovens (right) where they bake them for 24 hours. At this point the heart tastes very sweet and has a dark brown color. After they've cooled, they crush the hearts and squeeze the juice out of them.

The juice then goes to fermentation vats (left), where it ferments for several days until the alcohol content reaches a specific level. The juice then goes an initial distillation process and then goes through 2+ more distillations using the equipment shown on the right.

From there it either gets bottled for white tequila or heads to oak barrels to become aged Reposado or Anejo tequila. One very interesting fact that we learned was that you really only want to drink 100% Agave tequila, as anything that doesn't say "100% Agave" has been made adding things like sugar cane and/or other substances. If you look at a bottle of Jose Quervo Gold, you won't find the phrase "100% Agave" and you'll notice that it has a yellow color despite the fact that it has never seen anytime in barrels. I won't be buying that again! According to our guide, you should use white tequila for making mixed drinks or Reposado if you want a really good drink. Anejo or better is to be sipped.

Angel also took us through the old distillery to show how it used to be made a long time ago. While it was quite pretty to look at now, I can't imagine how hot, smoky and full of fumes it used to have been!

We then got to sample a variety of tequilas. If you purchase the base tour for $100 pesos, you only get to taste their 2 lower quality tequilas. If you purchase the middle tour for $200 pesos, you get to taste the tequilas shown above, and if you spend $300 pesos, you get to sample their $150 USD a bottle tequila. Not being a tequila connoisseur, we opted for the middle package and were quite glad that we did as these ones were much better. It was quite surprising how much smother the aged tequilas were and how complex their nose was. We ended up getting a bottle of the Reposado and the Anejo.

After the tour we drove to our hotel in Tequila. Los Abolengos was supposed to have been one of the best hotels in Tequila and supposedly they only had their best rooms available. When we got to the room we found that the room was very small, had 2 queen beds and looked out over a roof full of air conditioners. We complained and they said we had one of their best rooms, but then showed us 2 beautiful rooms that weren't available. Hum...For almost $200 a night, this wasn't what we expected. Anyhow, we wandered around the town and saw lots of other distilleries including Jose Quervo. All in all the town wasn't very interesting and the restaurant at the hotel was mediocre.

The next day we headed towards San Sebastian, which was supposed to have been our last stop. However, when we got to the road to take us across the mountains, we noted that it was yellow and was dirt from the very beginning. Then according to the map, we had to take a road one class below the yellow road! We decided that perhaps this wasn't the smartest idea...gringos who don't speak the language very well driving across mountains in a 2-wheel drive car and running into who knows what activity...So we opted to head down to the coast and bypass San Sebastian and the mountains. That ended up being quite the ride with it's own long story, but I won't go into that one today.

We had a great trip and saw a lot of wonderful stuff. We drove over 800 km (500 miles) and are already planning our next inland tour as we move down the coast.

Photos for Tequila are located here.

-- Geoff & Sue

Log ID: 2199