Tequila Trivia
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6correct to beat the crowd
56 free Tequila trivia questions with answers. Tequila is one of the few spirits in the world with a legally protected name, a UNESCO-listed landscape and a bat as its pollinator. This quiz walks through all of it: the blue Weber agave and the jimadores who harvest it, the ovens, tahonas and double distillation, the five classes from blanco to extra añejo, and what actually separates tequila from mezcal (and why there is never a worm in the former). The early questions suit anyone who has ordered a margarita. Later ones dig into Mexican law, the NOM number on the bottle, the origin of the Paloma and Tequila Sunrise, and the brand deals behind Patrón, Casamigos, Herradura and Cabo Wabo. It works as a warm-up for a tasting, a bar-quiz round or a National Tequila Day party. Every answer has been verified against Wikipedia and producer sources, and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 56 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Tequila labelled '100% agave' must by law be what?
Bottled in Mexico
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.
Q 02The town of Tequila sits in which Mexican state?
Jalisco
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.
Q 03What is traditionally hung inside the still to make a 'pechuga' mezcal?
A chicken or turkey breast
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.
Q 04Tequila made with as little as 51% agave sugars goes by which trade nickname?
Mixto
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.
Q 05Which class of tequila must spend at least two months, but less than a year, in oak?
Reposado
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.
Q 06What happens to an agave plant after it finally flowers?
It dies
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.
Q 07Aguamiel, the sap tapped from the heart of a mature agave, has a name meaning what?
Honey water
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.
Q 08What is a 'cristalino' tequila?
Aged spirit filtered to remove its colour
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.
Q 09What are the workers who harvest agave plants called?
Jimadores
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.
Q 10What is the harvested heart of the agave plant called, from the Spanish for a fruit it resembles?
Piña
Piña is Spanish for pineapple: once every spiky leaf has been sliced away, the rounded heart that is left looks like a giant one.
Q 11Why must agave hearts be cooked before tequila can be made from them?
To make their sugars fermentable
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.
Q 12What is the traditional large stone wheel used to crush cooked agave hearts called?
Tahona
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.
Q 13The traditional alembic pot stills used to distil tequila are made of which metal?
Copper
Q 21The 'worm' sometimes found in a bottle of mezcal is really the larva of what?
A moth
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.
Q 22What gives mezcal its characteristic smoky flavour?
Roasting the agave in underground pits
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.
Q 23Most of Mexico's mezcal is made in which state?
Oaxaca
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.
Q 14Which people worshipped an agave goddess whose 400 children were rabbit gods of drunkenness?
Aztecs
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.
Q 15What is the traditional narrow shot glass for tequila called?
Caballito
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.
Q 16In 2008, Mexican physicists announced they had turned tequila into thin films of which gemstone?
Diamond
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.
Q 17The Batanga, a cocktail born in the town of Tequila, mixes tequila and lime with which soft drink?
Cola
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.
Q 18When tequila is taken as a shot with lime and salt, which comes first?
The salt
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.
Q 19What is sangrita, the traditional companion to a shot of tequila?
A non-alcoholic spicy juice
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.
Q 20What do Mexico's side-by-side shots of lime juice, tequila and sangrita represent?
The national flag
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.
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.
Q 24'Mezcal' comes from Nahuatl roots that together mean what?
Baked agave
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.
Q 25Which type of agave is most commonly used to make mezcal?
Espadín
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.
Q 26Which pre-Hispanic agave drink is fermented but not distilled?
Pulque
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.
Q 27In 1795 the Cuervo family received the first official licence to make tequila commercially, granted by whom?
The King of Spain
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.
Q 28Sauza tequila has belonged since 2014 to the whisky maker Suntory, based in which country?
Japan
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.
Q 29Until 2013, which country banned imports of Mexico's premium 100% agave tequila?
China
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.
Q 30What kind of legal protection did Mexico declare for the name tequila in 1974?
A denomination of origin
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.