In Tequila: Panegyric and Emblem, the Mexican poet Alvaro Mutis wrote:

Tequila has no history; there are no anecdotes confirming its birth.

This is how it’s been since the beginning of time, for tequila is a gift from the gods

and they don’t tend to offer fables when bestowing favours.

That is the job of mortals, the children of panic and tradition.

Translated by Mark Schafer, from issue 27, Artes de México magazine.)

However for us mere mortals tequila has a fairly straightforward definition and its timeline can be traced back to the Industrial Age and perhaps a little further. To define tequila first requires me to define mescal as, much like brandy and cognac, they are one and the same.

Mescal is the distilled spirit of a succulent plant, related to the lily and certainly not a cactus, called the agave. Whilst tequila and mescal were originally the same product, the first tequila was actually named mescal de tequila, the two spirits have grown apart in production methods, sophistication and market appeal. Now only tequila may be made from the blue agave whilst mescal can be made from many of the other agave varieties.

Conquistadors are reputed to have discovered the ancient form of naturally fermented agave wine, or pulque and supposedly used their European technologies to distill the first agave brandy or mescal. With agave’s history of cultivation and use as a sweetener dating back over 9,000 years it is somewhat hard to believe that the native population had never managed to accidentally ferment this uniquely sugary succulent. Some archeologists even believe pulque was perhaps the first intentionally created alcohol pre-dating greek wine.

However to tie the history of mescal and tequila to pulque is to do a disservice to both as true distillation practices did not happen until the spanish settlers had established land holdings and begun cultivating local produce, perhaps three or four generations after conquest. The process certainly wasn’t refined until well into the industrialisation of mexico and its agricultural expansion in the 1860’s.

Today mescal is the smaller regional cousin of tequila, made by small-scale producers, in nearly every state of mexico, using methods that have not changed since the Victorian Era and as a product they hold little or no market share internationally. The one notable exception is the Don Juan Escobar mescal, infamous for creating the myth about tequila’s worm in the bottom of the bottle and even exacerbating the same myth by packaging a pickled worm in every bottle they produce.

Tequila however is a regionally protected product originating in the sub-tropical, rather than sub-arid, states of Jalisco, Nayarit, Guanajato, Michoacán and Tamaulipas. It can be made solely with the blue agave species, despite this species being particularly susceptible to bacterial infection. It only gained recognition as a separate spirit in the 20th Century under the Denomination of Origin published in the Diario Oficial.

The mountainous regions around the main producing towns of Tequila, Los Altos and Arandas are rich volcanic soils providing for, as some experts suggest, higher sugar content and greater flavour profile in the agave plant and resulting tequila. Los Altos has become the Napa Valley or perhaps Bordeaux region of the tequila regions and is highly sought after by tequila aficionados and collectors. Do not think you are getting a tour of a tequila distillery in any region outside of these states and towns.

In summary all tequilas are mescals but not all mescals are tequilas. All tequilas are blue agave, so any labelling on a bottle proclaiming this is redundant marketing. All tequilas are considered better than the majority of mescals (though only by those who follow hype over reality) and finally; the market for tequila is nearly fifty percent based in the United States with forty percent for Mexico and only ten percent or so for the rest of the world, so don’t assume mexicans prefer it over mescal.

In the next few posts I’ll take a look at the whole blanco, oro, reposado, añejo sha-bang and maybe even have some facts to back up the claim that mescal is a better drink than tequila!

Cheers, Up Ya Bum, Prost, etc…

(Big thanks to Nick Rose from www.theboozebaron.com for his soon to be published manuscript on tequila and mescals)