Tequila and mezcal: the agave spirits

An agave takes years to ripen in the field, and then a jimador takes a few minutes to strip it. The sharp spade on a pole is called a coa; the trimmed heart that remains is the pina. Everything that follows, oven, mill, vat and still, is a way of coaxing that slow-grown sugar into a glass.

Two appellations

Tequila may be made only from Agave tequilana Weber, blue variety, grown in 181 municipalities across Jalisco and parts of Michoacan, Guanajuato, Nayarit and Tamaulipas. The Consejo Regulador del Tequila certifies compliance with the Mexican standard NOM-006-SCFI-2012. Mezcal has its own denomination, declared in 1994, covering Oaxaca, Guerrero, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas and Durango in full, plus listed municipalities in Puebla, Michoacan, Tamaulipas and Guanajuato, with further additions under appeal. It is governed by NOM-070-SCFI-2016 and certified by COMERCAM. Mezcal may be made from many agave species; espadin dominates, but tobala, tepeztate, madrecuishe and others are prized.

Every tequila is a spirit from agave, but under current Mexican rules it is not called a mezcal, and the two regulatory systems are separate.

How tequila is made

The pinas are cooked to convert starchy inulin into fermentable sugar. Traditional producers use brick ovens (hornos) for a day or more; most modern plants use steam autoclaves; industrial plants use a diffuser that extracts sugar from shredded raw agave with hot water. The cooked agave is crushed, by a stone tahona wheel in a few houses, by roller mills almost everywhere else. The juice ferments in open wooden tanks or stainless steel, with or without agave fiber, and is distilled, twice by custom, in copper or stainless pot stills or in columns.

The standard then sorts the result. Tequila 100 percent de agave uses only blue agave sugar from the appellation and must be bottled by the producer inside the zone. Plain tequila, the category bartenders call mixto, may be enriched with other sugars up to 49 percent before fermentation; the agave minimum fell from 100 percent in 1949 to 70 in 1964 and to 51 in 1970. If a label does not say 100 percent agave, it is a mixto.

Five classes follow. Blanco or plata is bottled unaged or rested under two months. Joven or oro is blanco blended with aged tequila or softened with abocantes. Reposado spends at least two months in oak. Anejo spends at least a year in casks of 600 liters or less. Extra anejo, a class created in 2006, spends at least three years. All bottle between 35 and 55 percent alcohol. Abocantes, meaning caramel, oak extract, glycerin and sugar syrup, are permitted up to one percent by weight, which is why additive-free is now a marketing claim worth reading.

Highland agave from the red soils of Los Altos tends to run sweeter and more floral; lowland agave from the Tequila valley tends earthier and more peppery.

How mezcal is made

Mezcal is 100 percent agave by definition. NOM-070 sorts it by equipment rather than by age. Plain Mezcal may use autoclaves, diffusers, stainless tanks and column stills. Mezcal Artesanal must cook in pit or masonry ovens, crush by mallet, tahona or small mill, ferment in wood, clay, stone or hide, and distill over direct fire in copper or clay stills. Mezcal Ancestral goes further: pit ovens, tahona or mallet, and clay-pot stills with clay or wood heads. The pit roast over wood is where the smoke comes from; it is a byproduct of the oven, not an additive.

The classes are blanco or joven; madurado en vidrio, rested over a year in glass, often underground; reposado, two to twelve months in wood; anejo, over a year in vessels under 1,000 liters; abocado con, flavored with ingredients such as gusano de maguey, damiana or fruit; and destilado con, redistilled with meats, fruit or mole, the family that includes pechuga.

In cocktails

The Margarita is the agave spirit's home: blanco tequila, lime and orange liqueur, with 100 percent agave the only sensible choice because the drink has nowhere to hide sugar. Reposado makes a rounder, slightly vanilla version. The Paloma, tequila with grapefruit soda and salt, is the drink Mexico actually orders. The Tommy's Margarita swaps the liqueur for agave nectar and lets the plant speak. Mezcal in an Oaxaca Old Fashioned (split with reposado, agave syrup, bitters) or as a half-measure in a Negroni adds smoke without a campfire. A Michelada is beer-based, but a tequila back belongs beside it.

Buying by style

Start with 100 percent agave, always. For shaking, a blanco from a producer that cooks in ovens rather than diffusers will taste of cooked agave rather than of alcohol and vanilla. For stirring, a reposado with light oak. Treat anejo and extra anejo as sipping spirits that borrow from whisky; some are superb and many are mostly barrel. Cristalino, aged tequila filtered clear, is a style, not a grade. For mezcal, look for the category word artesanal or ancestral, the agave species, the village and the maestro's name on the label; those four facts matter more than price. Mezcal at 45 to 50 percent is normal and is not a flaw.

Folklore and fact

No tequila standard has ever permitted a worm. The gusano de maguey is a moth larva that lives on agave, and NOM-070 names it as a flavoring permitted in the mezcal class abocado con. The custom of dropping one into a bottle is usually credited to a mid twentieth century Mexico City bottler, Jacobo Lozano Paez, as a way to make export mezcal memorable. The sources disagree on the decade, and none of them offers a document; the claims that the worm proves strength, brings luck or improves the drinker are stories. Sal de gusano, the larva ground with chile and salt, is a better use of the creature and a fine rim for a Paloma.

Sources

• Consejo Regulador del Tequila, "Appellation of origin".
• NOM-006-SCFI-2012 (Tequila) and NOM-070-SCFI-2016 (Mezcal), Diario Oficial de la Federacion.
• COMERCAM, "Denominacion de Origen Mezcal".
• Difford's Guide, "Tequila classifications" and "What you should know about tequila".
• Tasting Table on the worm misconception; Alex Sanchez on the worm's history (brand-affiliated).