Alcoholic Beverages

“The Mexican Drink, not just a normal routine ‘lick-shoot-suck’ which makes this drink fascinating in the world of liquers.”

This drink hits you really hard and hard. And it can knock the stuffing out of you, when consumed it neat. A Tequila cocktail, make even  make you feel warm on a January evening in the coldest region like Ladakh. It is made from the plant of cactus – like agave, which are harvested each year in Mexico from the last 300 million. Tequila is not just the Mexico’s national drink but today it also ranked in the most sipped liqueurs in the world. India is also joining the race as in 2007, 10,000 cases sold in the country and this figure is growing day by day rapidly around at the 25% rate per year.

From the wine-loving  high profile private dos in Mumbai to the whiskey-addicted Delhi pubs, or to the beer capital of Bangalore, tequila is gaining preference in India. Tequila Shots are downed from their throats straight sometimes mixed with spirits to create exotic cocktails. Some of the Tequila Cocktails are Margarita, Gold Berry-Rita, Tequila Sunrise best in their tastes. Sometimes Tequila even spiced with a dash of cinnamon. Tequila comes in different varieties depending on the vintage, and that’s not even counting the tweaked ‘flavoured tequila’.

Anejo VIDA Tequila--a blend for the true tequila aficionado.

The best way to research tequila would be to down a few shots. But let’s not begin this piece by telling you how to crawl on all fours. So, let’s just say that this agave-based spirit is made primarily in the area surrounding Tequila, northwest of Guadalajara in the highlands of Mexico. Funnily enough, despite its closeness to the cactus family, the blue agave plant looks a bit like a giant pineapple tree (so, here’s a warning—when in Mexico, don’t go chopping up anything that looks like a pineapple and putting a piece in your mouth! ‘Fibrous Tequila’ may not be the best way to start your breakfast). The leaves of the plant are chopped off, leaving only the egg-shaped ‘pina’ (the main plant)—which can weigh as much as a fully-grown male.

Once at the distillery, the juice is extracted from the plant and double distilled to make the base. And this is not a drink for the weak-hearted. More powerful than most other liqueurs, it usually has 38-40 per cent alcohol con¬tent (76-80 proof). There are some varieties with a higher alcohol content as well.

Ultra Premium Tequila Ley .925 “Pasion Azteca”: $225,000 --- This platinum-and-gold bottle fetched nearly a quarter-million dollars at auction in Mexico City last year. The spirit that fills it is a triple-distilled mix of 8-, 10- and 12-year-old agave plants and is produced by Hacienda La Capilla Distillery in Los Altos, Jalisco. Ley .925 CEO Fernando Altamirano says the liquor is aged in barrels whose provenance is “top secret.”

It’s no surprise that this is a powerful drink. The people who created it were power-hungry pirates. The story goes that when the Spanish conquerors ran out brandy, they began to distill the agave drink to produce North America’s first indigenous distilled spirit near the town of Tequila in Mexico. Around 1600, Don Pedro Sanchez de Tagle, the Marquis of Altamira, began mass-producing tequila at the first factory in the territory of modern-day Jalisco. By 1608, the colonial governor of Nueva Galicia had begun to tax his products, such was the popularity of the drink.

Its popularity has never dwindled ever since. In fact, global sales of ultra-premium and super-premium tequilas have grown at a rate of 8 per cent per year all through the 21st century. In of 2007, sales crossed the magical 10 million cases. And in 2006, a one-litre bottle of limited-edition premium tequila was sold for $225,000 (Rs 1.08 crore) in Mexico, by the company Tequila Ley .925. The manufacturer received a certificate from Guinness World Records for the most expensive bottle of liquor ever sold.

Such is the pride that Mexicans take in this drink that there is actually a ‘Tequila Regulatory Council of Mexico’. The council did not permit flavoured tequila, which they considered ‘not the real thing’ to carry the tequila name till 2004, when they finally relented. The Council has also approved an ‘Official Tequila Glass’ called the Ouverture Tequila glass, made by Riedel, an Austrian firm. Of course, you may choose to swig tequila straight out of the bottle if you wish, but don’t do it in Mexico. The Council may haul you up for insulting their national drink!