Dengue fever, rattlesnakes and the world’s best tequila: Visiting the home of El Tesoro

By  Dale Sklar

Dale in Agave fields

It’s October 2nd 2009 and I’m booked on BA 243 to Mexico City, flying out five days later, when I get a telephone call from an old friend, a Mexican Ambassador…  “Dale, I strongly recommend you delay your visit, my sister tells me there’s an outbreak of Dengue fever…”. I cancelled my tickets and all my appointments, and moved them to the dry season.  Two days later the diplomat called me back to say, “…the fears are exaggerated – just spray plenty of anti mosquito repellant, you should be OK! ” With a healthy supply of repellent in my bag, I re-booked the tickets & flew out.

In Mexico City I have booked Hotel Tapatio, where I have stayed for the last 18 years. The hotel is perched on the top of a hill overlooking Guadalajara, and so at night, it looks like the view from an airplane over the city, with millions of twinkling lights.

I was in town to visit El Tesoro, the world’s best tequila. The Master Distiller and present owner Carlos was supposed to collect me from the hotel at 10am. At 11am, after allowing for ‘Mexican time’, I phoned the distillery just to check he is turning up. In past years I have made this journey to find Carlos was ‘not available’, but instead had left three bottles of his finest and rarest were in my hotel room as ‘compensation’! This year I got the lift not the tequila.

The La Altena, or Lady of the Highlands, distillery was opened in its current site in 1937 by Don Felipe Camarena,  Carlos’ grandfather. I was particularly keen to see how El Tesoro differed from Tapatio, another great tequila that Carlos produces. He explained that while all his tequila is handcrafted using agave from their own fields, El Tesoro is made in homage to his grandfather, with absolute attention to detail and using only ultra-traditional methods.

Hand selected Agave

The agave plants are individually hand selected only when they are completely ripe. Then, the pina (the hearts of the agave plants) are meticulously stripped of any waxy out layer, even removing the male ‘cebolla’. One of the most important differences between El Tesoro and Tapatio is that Carlos uses a traditional tahona stone to crush the agave after it has been steamed when he makes El Tesoro. With Tapatio he uses modern, cheaper shredders. His grandfather may have one complaint though – 30 years ago they stopped using a donkey to pull the tahona stone instead, replacing it with a tractor for hygiene reasons. At La Altena this passes for technology.

Another reason El Tesoro is unique is that the second distillation is carried out to exactly 40% abv. Carlos is able to achieve this low strength by carefully controlled distillation in the very small stills that his grandfather used. The quality controls are very strict. Carlos does not use pesticides or fertilizers on his agave plants, and relies on airborne wild yeasts to kick off the fermentation in his old open topped wooden vats. The production is not without its dangers though. As I wandered round the agave plants I was told they had captured 20 rattlesnakes in the same field the day before!

Given the meticulous attention to detail, it is hardly surprisingly that El Tesoro is the most highly rated tequila in America, earning seven Double Gold’s in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition over the last three years. All four styles were rated No. 1 in their class at the Chicago Beverage Testing Institute in 2009.

The 75th anniversary of La Altena will take place in the summer of 2012, and judging by the scale of the 70th anniversary a few years back is guaranteed to be a huge celebration.

Tags: El Tesoro, Mexico, spirits, Tequila, Travel

This entry was posted on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 8:45 am and is filed under Spirits, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.