56 Fun Facts About Tequila

Tequila labelled '100% agave' must by law be what?

Bottled in Mexico: the 100% agave category has to be bottled at origin, while tequila without that label, needing only 51% agave sugars, may be shipped out in bulk and bottled abroad.

The town of Tequila sits in which Mexican state?

Jalisco is the only state allowed to make tequila across its whole territory; four other states may do so only in listed municipalities, and the spirit takes its name from this Jalisco town.

What is traditionally hung inside the still to make a 'pechuga' mezcal?

A chicken or turkey breast hangs in the still for a pechuga, Spanish for 'breast', during an extra distillation; makers often add fruit to the pot as well.

Tequila made with as little as 51% agave sugars goes by which trade nickname?

Mixto is the trade's word for it: only 51% of the sugars must come from blue agave and the rest can be cheaper sugars, which is why '100% agave' on a label matters.

Which class of tequila must spend at least two months, but less than a year, in oak?

Reposado means 'rested': two months in oak is the legal minimum, and once a tequila has passed a full year in the barrel it moves up into the añejo class.

What happens to an agave plant after it finally flowers?

It dies: an agave flowers just once, after years of storing up energy, then withers. One at Cambridge's botanic garden took 57 years to bloom and was about to outgrow the glasshouse roof.

Aguamiel, the sap tapped from the heart of a mature agave, has a name meaning what?

Honey water is the literal Spanish: the sap that wells up in a hollowed agave heart is sweet enough to drink fresh, and it has been collected in Mexico since long before the Spanish arrived.

What is a 'cristalino' tequila?

Aged spirit filtered to remove its colour: the style's detractors say the filtering, often done with charcoal, takes some of the barrel's flavour out along with the colour.

What are the workers who harvest agave plants called?

Jimadores still do the job by hand: they judge by eye which plants are ripe, then slice away the spiky leaves until only the heart is left.

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

Piña is Spanish for pineapple: once every spiky leaf has been sliced away, the rounded heart that is left looks like a giant one.

Why must agave hearts be cooked before tequila can be made from them?

To make their sugars fermentable: raw agave holds its energy as inulin, a complex carbohydrate, and hours of slow steaming break it into the simple sugars that yeast can turn into alcohol.

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

The tahona is a 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.

The traditional alembic pot stills used to distil tequila are made of which metal?

Copper is the tradition, though many newer stills are stainless steel. Either way the rules demand at least two distillations: the first makes a weak spirit and only the second turns it into tequila.

Which people worshipped an agave goddess whose 400 children were rabbit gods of drunkenness?

Aztecs: their agave goddess Mayahuel was mother to the Centzon Totochtin, the 'four hundred rabbits', and each rabbit is said to stand for a different way of being drunk.

What is the traditional narrow shot glass for tequila called?

Caballito means 'little horse', yet the regulator's own official tasting glass is a stemmed, wine-style one, because the tall, narrow caballito leaves a tequila's aromas little room.

In 2008, Mexican physicists announced they had turned tequila into thin films of which gemstone?

Diamond: the university team turned tequila into vapour and heated it until its carbon atoms settled as a thin film of diamond, in crystals far too small for jewellery.

The Batanga, a cocktail born in the town of Tequila, mixes tequila and lime with which soft drink?

Cola tops up the tequila and lime in a salt-rimmed glass. At La Capilla, the cantina whose owner Don Javier Delgado Corona created the drink, it is stirred with a big kitchen knife.

When tequila is taken as a shot with lime and salt, which comes first?

The salt goes first: it is licked from the back of the hand, then the tequila is drunk and a slice of lime bitten, in that order.

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

A non-alcoholic spicy juice, sangrita means 'little blood': the red blend of citrus juice and chilli, often with tomato, is sipped in turn with the tequila.

What do Mexico's side-by-side shots of lime juice, tequila and sangrita represent?

The national flag: bandera means 'flag', and the three shots line up as its stripes, green lime juice, clear tequila for the white band and red sangrita.

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

A moth: DNA tests on worms taken from shop-bought bottles found that every one was the caterpillar of the same agave-boring moth. Distillers only began dropping them in around the middle of the 20th century, as a selling point.

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.

Most of Mexico's mezcal is made in which state?

Oaxaca is the heartland, yet mezcal is not tied to one region the way tequila is: it can be made from many kinds of agave, in states as far apart as Durango and Guerrero.

'Mezcal' comes from Nahuatl roots that together mean what?

Baked agave, more or less: dictionaries trace mezcal to the Nahuatl mexcalli, built from metl, agave, and a root for cooking or stewing; in the word's broad sense, tequila is itself a mezcal.

Which type of agave is most commonly used to make mezcal?

Espadín is Agave angustifolia, the 'smallsword' agave: most mezcal is made from this one plant, even though the rules allow many other agaves, wild and farmed.

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; before the conquest it was sacred, and who could drink it, and when, was tightly controlled.

In 1795 the Cuervo family received the first official licence to make tequila commercially, granted by whom?

The King of Spain: Mexico was still a Spanish colony, so José María Guadalupe de Cuervo needed the Crown's permission. His family had been growing agave at Tequila on a royal land grant since 1758.

Sauza tequila has belonged since 2014 to the whisky maker Suntory, based in which country?

Japan: Suntory, known at home for whiskies such as Yamazaki, bought the American group behind Jim Beam bourbon in 2014, and Sauza tequila, founded in the town of Tequila in 1873, came with it.

Until 2013, which country banned imports of Mexico's premium 100% agave tequila?

China kept out Mexico's finest tequila until June 2013, when the ban was lifted after President Xi Jinping's state visit to Mexico; the first container of 100% agave bottles set off that August.

What kind of legal protection did Mexico declare for the name tequila in 1974?

A denomination of origin ties a name to a place: the 1974 declaration, the first of its kind in Mexico, means only spirit made from blue agave inside a defined territory may be called tequila.

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

The distillery where it was made: each producer is given its own NOM number by the government, and many brands share one, which is how drinkers learn that two labels come off the same stills.

In 2006 the agave fields and old distilleries around the town of Tequila were given which international status?

UNESCO World Heritage Site: it was listed because agave has shaped this land for at least 2,000 years, first for fermented drinks and cloth and only since the 16th century for the spirit.

Which country duo won a Grammy in 2019 for their hit single 'Tequila'?

Dan + Shay won Best Country Duo/Group Performance at the 61st Grammy Awards for 'Tequila'; six decades earlier an instrumental with the very same title had won at the first Grammy ceremony of all.

A blue agave is harvested for tequila just once, after growing for roughly how long?

8 years is about typical, and some plants need well over a decade before the heart is rich enough in sugar to cut; that long wait is why growers cannot respond quickly when demand for tequila jumps.

The tequila bat earned its nickname by doing what for the agave plant?

Pollinating its flowers: the lesser long-nosed bat laps agave nectar at night, and each spring many migrate north through Mexico along corridors of cactus and agave in bloom.

Which rope and twine fibre comes from the leaves of an agave, a cousin of tequila's plant?

Sisal takes its name from the Yucatán port that once exported it, and agaves have long been farmed for fibre as well as for drink.

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.

Tequila's agave grows mainly around the town of Tequila and in which other part of its home state?

Highlands: Los Altos lies to the east of the town of Tequila, and its fans say the agave grown there is sweeter and the tequila fruitier, while the valley's spirit is earthier and more herbal.

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

Triple sec: the IBA recipe is 50 ml tequila, 20 ml triple sec and 15 ml fresh lime juice, shaken with ice and strained into a chilled glass, with half a rim of salt as an optional garnish.

The margarita shares its name with the everyday Spanish word for which flower?

Daisy: margarita is the ordinary Spanish word for the flower, and one well-known theory holds that the drink began as a tequila version of the Daisy, a once-popular cocktail of spirit, citrus and liqueur.

The first frozen margarita machine, adapted from a soft-serve ice cream maker in 1971, was given in 2005 to which institution?

The Smithsonian: Dallas restaurateur Mariano Martinez wanted every margarita to come out the same, took his idea from a 7-Eleven Slurpee machine, and later gave his invention to the National Museum of American History.

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

Grapefruit soda goes over tequila, lime juice and a pinch of salt in a tall glass of ice, and in Mexico the Paloma is said to be at least as popular as the margarita.

The modern Tequila Sunrise spread after a 1972 party in Sausalito that kicked off which band's American tour?

The Rolling Stones were thrown a party at the Trident restaurant as the tour began, and bartender Bobby Lozoff poured his orange juice and grenadine drink for a band member who had asked for a margarita; they took it on the road.

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

Bacardi, best known for its rum, had held a minority stake in Patrón since 2008, and buying the rest made it, by industry figures at the time, the top super-premium spirits company in the United States.

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 created the tequila as the house pour 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?

Horseshoe: herradura is the ordinary Spanish word for one, and the company's story is that a horseshoe found on the hacienda was kept for luck and ended up naming the tequila.

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

Kendall Jenner unveiled 818 Tequila in 2021 and named it after the area code of Calabasas, the Californian city where she grew up, a choice that drew accusations of cultural appropriation.

The luxury tequila Don Julio 1942 is named after the year in which what happened?

Its founder began distilling in 1942, when a young Don Julio González opened his first distillery, La Primavera; he spent the next 40 years refining his tequila, and the bottling that carries the year is the brand's tribute to that start.

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.

Which singer turned his 1977 hit 'Margaritaville' into a chain of resorts and restaurants?

Jimmy Buffett opened a Key West shop selling T-shirts and souvenirs under the song's name in 1985, and by 2023 the brand had grown so far that Forbes put his fortune at $1 billion.

Which band's 1958 instrumental 'Tequila' won a Grammy at the very first awards ceremony?

The Champs won Best Rhythm & Blues Performance for it at the first Grammy Awards in May 1959, on a night when the country prize went to a folk group, the Kingston Trio.

The town of Tequila lies around 60 km from which major Mexican city?

Guadalajara, the state capital, is close enough that a tourist train, the Tequila Express, has carried visitors from the city through the agave fields to the distilleries.

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

Coa: a sharp, round-ended blade on a long pole; modern farm machinery has made little mark on the work, and agave is planted, tended and harvested by hand.

Agave looks like a cactus but is actually a much closer relative of which vegetable?

Asparagus: the standard classification puts agaves in the asparagus family, and the kinship shows when one finally blooms, sending up a spike that looks like a giant asparagus spear.

Why do agave growers cut off the plant's tall flower stalk before it can bloom?

To fatten the heart: growers cut the stalk, known as the quiote, so the sugars saved up for flowering stay in the heart, which is why cultivated blue agave rarely gets to bloom.