THE benefits of a good name only stretch so far.

A “geographical indication” (GI) that legally ties products like champagne and tequila to their place of origin and cultural heritage does not always help the region it sets out to protect.

Sarah Bowen of North Carolina State University in Raleigh and her colleagues found that tying the making of tequila to the Jalisco region of Mexico has made its production socially and ecologically unsustainable.

Tequila’s blue agave plant takes six years to mature, leading to an unstable local supply. This, plus a huge leap in demand for the drink since the 1990s, has driven many liquor …