Tequila is hip. As a shot, but also as a cocktail

‘ Tequila ‘. Rarely will a song’s lyrics be as clear as the 1958 song of the same name by The Champs. The word is used three times in an otherwise exclusively instrumental song full of Latino swing. The song occasionally appears in an advertisement: if you look up the song on YouTube you will probably get an aha feeling. Just like the song tequila Sunrise from The Eagles – also from those pop stars from the distant past – whose songs still appear in commercials and the Top 2000.

The other person appearing in advertising with tequila is George Clooney. But then it is about his own tequila Casamigos, which he founded with friends in 2013. Initially to make the best tequila for himself, but that got so out of hand that the company was taken over by drinks giant Diageo five years later for more than 700 million dollars. That could buy George ‘what else’ Clooney quite a few cups of espresso.

Tequila is hip, and you see that again in our time. While we were outsiders with our love for tequila during our student days in Groningen – decades ago – it is now a drink on the entertainment circuit again, especially among students.

As shots, but also as a cocktail. Everyone knows the classic margarita – originated sometime in the 1940s, there are many stories about its possible inventors – which consists of tequila, triple sec and lime juice. The damp glass edge is often first dipped in salt. In the original version, now called tequila straight, you put some salt on the back of your hand, take a shot of tequila and then suck on a piece of lime.

The color of the sunrise

The other famous cocktail is the tequila sunrise, tequila with fruit juice and grenadine. So named after the color of the sunrise, which The Eagles have probably experienced in the past with a drink in hand.

So tequila. And its brother mescal or mezcal – also captured in songs, just search on YouTube for Camila Fernández or Niña Dioz feat. Hispana. Both drinks are made in Mexico from the agave plant, with some minor differences here and there. Both also originated from ‘pulque’, an alcoholic drink that was drunk by the local Aztecs during religious festivals about 2000 years ago.

The agave plant was worshiped by the Aztecs as a deity in the persona of Mayahuel, the fertility goddess with 400 breasts to feed her 400 sons. Pulque still exists, and the fermented drink is still served in numerous pulquerias in Mexico.

Experimenting with the agave plant

Mezcal was the first distilled version of pulque. The Spanish conquerors of Mexico did not like this fermented stuff and started experimenting to make a kind of ‘wine’ from the agave plant. They discovered that distilling fermented agave created a ‘vino de mescal’. The name was derived from the species of agave that had the local name mezcal or maguey and which we know as the centenary aloe. Mezcal means ‘cooked agave’ in Nahuatl, an indigenous language of Mexico.

The vino de mezcal that was made in 1795 by José Cuervo in the town of Tequila in the state of Jalisco is famous. The Cuervos were the first family of the Spanish king – Mexico would not become independent until 1821 – to be allowed to distill Vino de Mescal de Tequila on a commercial scale. Here the names tequila and mezcal are still fraternally combined in one name, but nowadays experts make a distinction between the two, both in terms of region of origin, raw material and taste. Both are distilled from the heart of the plant, the piña, but this is done in different ways.

All tequila is mezcal, not all mezcal is tequila

So what’s the difference between tequila and mezcal? Simply put, all tequila is mezcal, but not all mezcal is tequila. Mezcal is an extensive category of spirits made from agave, and tequila is an offshoot of that category, just as bourbon is a type of whiskey. Tequila is made from only one type of agave, the cultivated blue agave or Agave tequilana . Mezcal, on the other hand, can use any type of agave plant. There are almost forty of them, both wild and cultivated.

To make mezcal, mescaleros take the core of the agave plant – the piña – and roast the plant in cone-shaped pits in the ground, in the same way as barbacoa – now Mexican stew, but formerly the name for the ground-cooking technique (and yes, that’s where our word barbecue comes from). That method of cooking is why mezcal often tastes smokier than tequilas. But because the technique for making mezcal is less restrictive than that of tequila, and because mescaleros can use whatever type of agave they want, there is a lot of variety in mezcal.

Tequila is made by steaming the agave cores in large industrial ovens before fermenting and distilling them. This makes the taste more consistent and the technology also lends itself more easily to industrial production. That may explain why tequila has a wider distribution in our country than mezcal, which more often comes from small producers.

Mezcals are by nature individual and variable: the same brand or farmer can create a bottle that tastes very different from last month’s or last year’s production. At its best, a top mezcal is more layered and complex than the best tequila, and the real enthusiasts will love it. The production of those top mezcals is concentrated in the Mexican region of Oaxaca, where almost 70 percent of the mezcals are produced. If you are ever in Amsterdam or Barcelona and you come across a restaurant with that name, go and taste real mezcals.

A clear spirit from the boiler

After mezcal and tequila have been distilled, both can be drunk as they come from the still, as a clear spirit. With tequila this is called ‘blanco’, with mezcal usually ‘joven’ (‘young’). Aging tequila or mezcal in a wooden barrel for two months to a year produces ‘tequila reposado’ or ‘mezcal reposado’, spirits with a caramel color that pick up flavor notes from the barrel in which they mature. If you let the drink mature for more than a year, both will produce ‘añejo’. Añejo tequilas and mezcals have a darker color, closer to whiskey or rum, and an even stronger flavor profile, depending on the barrel in which they are aged.

As long as you throw the tequila and mezcal into the mix, you won’t really notice the difference. But nothing beats an artisanal mezcal. Often according to family recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation. It is made entirely by hand, no machines should ever be used. The families cook it with fire and wood, press it and let it ferment naturally.

Beautiful mezcal is a work of art. And no, the worm that comes with some bottles is not a standard ingredient, but nowadays mainly a marketing tool for often cheaper tequilas. And no, there is no hallucinogenic mescaline in mezcal or tequila (but there is in the peyote cactus). And yes, you can get pretty drunk on tequila – but that usually happens after you take a few shots at the end of a night.

In any case, avoid cheap supermarket tequila. It often contains no more than 51 percent agave (the legal minimum), supplemented with cane sugars or corn syrup. Think of George Clooney: he is also just sitting in his wicker chair, sipping a glass. So with style.