By Jennifer Litz
Editor
November 6, 2007

High end Tequilas. (LIVE! Photo/John Basquez)     Tequila Picks Though you can get premium tequila at most local liquor stores, it helps to have some guidance from a professional. Here are some of Joe Mata’s favorite tequilas: Corzo. Mata frequently recommends this anejo sipping tequila, which has dominant vanilla notes. “It tastes like the oak they aged it in was glazed with vanilla,” Mata says. “It’s gotta be my favorite in-house pick.” It takes 22 pounds of agave to make one bottle of this stuff ($45-$60 per bottle). Don Diego Santa. Also an anejo. Mata describes this one to customers as silky, with vanilla notes ($70 per bottle). Gran Patron Burdeos. Uber premium offering from Patron is aged 12 months in Bordeaux barrels (see story, left). ($475 per bottle). Milagro Select Barrel. This one got a double gold medal in a 2007 San Francisco spirit selection. The bottle has an agave plant blown into the bottom of the glass ($80-$100 per bottle).

Ah, life’s capitalist treasures: sports cars, designer clothes, fine jewelry. It seems the American dream can be summed up with a rap video (and that We’d do well sending hip hop artists to unfriendly Communist countries). For today’s wealthy youth, these things are the benchmarks of luxury: Things that look good and feel good on. Things you can really get into, get good at, and make your next business connection discussing the finer points of.

It’s no wonder, then, that premium tequila has experienced recent impressive growth.

Tequila embodies the “It person” status its drinkers are trying to purvey: It’s been gaining momentum since the beginning of this millennium, but it was actually the fastest-growing spirit last year, according to Adams Beverage Group’s research director, Eric Schmidt. Schmidt says the spirit grew 11 percent last year and had the highest increase in volume of any spirit in 2006. The growth shows no signs of abatement.

But what’s leading tequila’s charge forward? The Margarita, one of America’s most popular mixed drinks, has helped it along for a while. But more than that, people are taking their tequila shots out of mixers and sipping them neatly. This recent trend toward fine tequila flights and tastings is driven by the premium tequila market—and the leader of this market is Patron, who sold 1 million cases last year (up from only 100,000 in 2001!). Schmidt explains premium tequila’s popularity with the 21-to-34 age group: “It’s an affordable luxury.”

And one which people can research, obsess, and trade notes over. Like the engines of a favorite luxury car maker, or the finish of a fine Bordeaux. Tequila has already entered this stratum, and there are many apt pupils in the queue.

The Background

A few words of background for the inspiring connoisseur, who must know his stuff.

Cynics might joke that if the Mexican government and police forces were as rigidly regulated as Mexican agencies that regulate tequila, the streets would be wiped clean of degenerates and drug dealings. The Norma Oficial Mexicana has established a protocol for the production of tequila, delineating everything from where the blue variety agave plant must be grown (in only certain areas of four Mexican states, and anywhere in Jalisco), to the percent of agave sugars a bottle must contain to be called tequila. Any tequila that’s less than 100 percent blue agave (but no less than 51 percent) is called a “mixto.” Those tequilas made of 100 percent blue agave are always marked as such on their bottles, as they are of the highest quality.

One thing is absolutely clear: “Tequila belongs to Mexico and only Mexico,” according to Compañía Tequilera de Arandas, the Jaliscan family company responsible for such tequilas as Antigua Cruz. In fact, the Mexican government owns the moniker “tequila,” and anyone wishing to get in on its production must obtain a permit from said government.

The highest quality, 100 percent blue agave tequilas do not deserve the bad rep they get as hangover producers. These highly distilled spirits contain some of the lowest amounts of methanol of any alcohol, according to Don Marsh, a liquor, beer and wine consultant. Methanol is one of the hangover-inducing compounds present in all alcohol. “If you have enough methanol you’ll go blind,” says Marsh.

On to the basic varietals. Silver tequila can come straight out of distillation and into the bottle, boasting all the vegetal overtones of the spirit, or be aged two months in stainless steel before bottling. Gold tequila is unaged silver tequila that has been mixed with an additive, usually caramel, molasses or another sweetener to soften the flavor and impart a golden hue. Reposado or “rested” tequila is aged in oaken wooden casks for at least two months, and anejo or “old” tequila is aged a minimum of a year in oaken wooden barrels. These barrels impart an oakey flavor to the vegetal spirit, and some say anejo tequilas aged more than, say, four years become mottled by excessive oak flavors.

The Forefront (And Where to Get It)

Joe Mata III of Milagro Wine & Spirits (1529 W Avenue N, San Angelo) might disagree that “extra anejo” tequilas—tequilas that are aged at least three years, sometimes in elaborate casks—are mottled. He thinks they are rich, thick libations—what some might see as the logical evolution of the trend toward a more premium product. “They’re usually mahogany color, dark, rich, extremely smooth, and extremely rich, with more of a velvety finish,” Mata says. “I really enjoy it when you get into extra anejo—that’s when it starts to get into [the league of] these 21-year-old scotches, very velvety and thick.”

Mata is something of a local tequila guru, though he’d probably shun the title (but where else would you find out that Paul Mitchell, of the famed hair products, is the man behind Patron, or that doctors in Mexico just found that regular tequila consumption lowers cholesterol?). He opened his shop a few years ago with the help of his best friend Josh McKay. Now McKay has a sister liquor shop in Austin, which allows Mata access to some “boutique” and rare tequilas that other shops in town can’t touch. That comes in handy when world-traveling military folks come and ask for an obscure tequila by name.

Mata can speak to tequila trends. He’d agree with Tad Wilkes, editor of Nightclub and Bar, that tequila makers are rebranding their premium products to reflect the quality of the product inside (Wilkes cites Cabo Wabo as one recent makeover). Mata’s own inventory includes an especially gussied-up anejo: The recently released Gran Patron Burdeos, which comes in a crystal bottle and black walnut case you can display. Mata says he just sold three bottles to local bars, including Fat Bosses. Mata says it goes for $42 a shot. “They got the bottle up there—you can see it for $5, and smell it for $7,” he says. The bottle is close to $500.

Speaking of Patron, tequila aficionados should know that it’s forging the leading edge of the premium market. Unlike Jose Cuervo, which recently released an orange-flavored tequila amid the spirit’s growing popularity, Patron’s most recent release is all about high-end luxury—aged in Bordeaux casks, cased in walnut, poured from crystal—not gimmicks. “[Patron] defines what the tequila market in the US has changed from and turned into,” Schmidt says. Patron is the third largest tequila in America. It grew almost 75 percent last year.

And there are no signs that tequila’s upward trajectory will be reversed anytime soon, despite downward spirals in other sectors. “Patron’s still having another great year; projections are close to over 1.5 million cases this year, up from the 1.1 last year,” Schmidt says. “A lot of these [spirits] don’t seem to have been affected in the downturn in the economy, or whatever’s going on with mortgages.”

I’ll drink to that.