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A Visit to the Sauza Distillery in Tequila, Mexico

Today on the Tahona Society trip to the tequila regions of Mexico we visited the distillery of Sauza. Yesterday's visit to La Fortaleza was an example of the most primitive/traditional production methods for tequila. Today at Sauza we say the most high-tech.

I last visited Sauza about a year ago, and that post on Alcademics is here, and probably a bit more thorough than this one. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures in most of the distillery, so mostly text will have to do.

Sauza uses what they call "soft extraction" of the sugars from agave plants. While almost every tequila maker bakes agave plant hearts (pinas) then crushes the baked plants to extract the fermentable sugars from the plants, at Sauza first they crush the plants then they cook the liquid.

The agave is first run through a big roller mill, and then a diffuser, a huge machine that specializes in getting the most of the sugars out of agave. Then this liquid is cooked at 120 degrees Celsius for 4-5 hours.

This sugary liquid is then fermented super fast- 24 to 26 hours- then it is distilled.

Distillation for Sauza products takes place first in a column still, where they distill up to anywhere from 24 to 35 percent alcohol depending on the product, and then in a copper-lined stainless steel still up to 56-65%.

An interesting fact I learned on this trip is about their mixto tequila - tequila distilled from the fermented sugars of at least 51% agave and 49% other sugars, usually sugar cane. However at Sauza, where they do use the minimum 51/49 percent ratio, the sugar used is corn syrup, not sugar syrup.

 

La Fortaleza Distillery Visit

Yesterday I visited the La Fortaleza distillery. This tiny distillery makes 100% tahona tequila, in the heart of the city of Tequila in the Lowlands.

The distillery was rebuilt in a 100 year old distillery site by Guillermo Sauza, 5th-generation Sauza family. His grandfather sold Sauza to the company who sold it to Jim Beam. Guillermo decided to return to distilling the traditional way.

The tahona is a volcanic stone wheel that is rolled in a pit to crush baked agave. Most distilleries use a diffuser, rollermill, or a combination of rollermill and tahona.

The fibers are removed and the sugary water and pulp remain. These are fermented in wooden fermenters.

Then they are distilled in the tiniest little pot stills.

The aging room is about as big as a two-bedroom apartment.

The view from the hill behind the distillery is amazing- they own 80 acres right in the city of Tequila.

There are caves underneath this hill. In the caves they've put a bar. We were in there for a good two hours.

Short blog post, but an amazing distillery and a great night!

 

The Tahona Society Cocktail Competition in Arandas Mexico

Tuesday night I helped judge the Tahona Society Cocktail Competition here in Arandas, Mexico. The competition (and the Tahona Society in general) was sponsored by Olmeca Altos tequila. My co-judges were Henry Bessant, who helped develop the Olmeca Altos brand, Charles Joly, winner of last year's competition and bar manager at The Aviary in Chicago, and Tomas Estes, owner of the Cafe Pacifico restaurants and Ocho tequila.

Eighteen bartenders from eleven countries competed in the event. What I liked was that nearly every competitor brought an ingredient from their home country to make their cocktails, from a smoky Ukrainian dried fruit syrup to Greek honey to Wisconsin cherry syrup.

Third place went to Sergey Nadson from Russia. He made a simple delicious cocktail, a Tommy's Margarita variation with fresh muddled lemongrass and black pepper.

Second place in the contest was Jason Xue Bin from China. His drink, which was presented on an elaborate tasting matt, was made with hawthorn infused tequila, apricot brandy, lemon and cranberry juice, and simple syrup. He made a cocktail that was truly better than the sum of its parts.

The competition winner was Heinz Kaiser from Austria (I met him at Diageo's World Class competition in 2011 where he took second place). He made a drink Manhattan style with reposado tequila, Cointreau, Carpano Antica vermouth, Damiana liqueur, Bob's Abbott's bitters, Mozart chocolate bitters, and it was presented in silver cups under a cloud of cumin-scented smoke.

For his prize Heinz will get to come back to Mexico and work at the distillery with the master distiller for a week. Jason will get to come back to this contest next year as a competitor.

Well done, all!

 

Riding ATVs Through the Agave Fields in Mexico

A great first day in Mexico with the Tahona Society! Today we loaded into ATVs at the Olmeca Altos distillery and headed into the agave fields. We road on muddy paths, rock-laid roads, and small town streets.

Then we watched jimadores harvesting agave in the field, and a few of us took turns at harvesting plants ourselves.

 

 

At the end, I got really muddy and a bit sunburned. A great day! Tomorrow a distillery visit and cocktail contest.

 

Hello from Mexico!

Unless something has gone horribly awry, I am in Mexico right now with the Tahona Society.

This week we'll be visiting several tequila distilleries and I'm helping to judge a cocktail contest with Olmeca Altos tequila. 

I'll do my best to post here during the trip, but you know how it goes with that much tequila around...

I'll be doing more live posting on the 

Alcademics Twitter Feed @alcademics

and in the Alcademics Facebook Group.

Salud! 

Filtration in Spirits: A Primer

For CLASS Magazine online at DiffordsGuide.com, I wrote an article about filtration in spirits. This was based on the research I did for my talk on the subject at the Manhattan Cocktail Classic earlier this year. 

Don't Forget the Filtration Factor
By Camper English 

Nearly every spirit undergoes some sort of filtration, yet we rarely acknowledge it as part of production. But filtration makes vodka what it is today, practically defines Tennessee whiskey, is the standard in making white rum, and is changing the look of tequila. Filtration is important.

Generally speaking, filtration refers to the mechanical process of passing a liquid or gas through a medium that keeps out solids of a certain size. But in spirits, we include carbon filtration (sometimes called carbon treatment) as filtration too. Carbon filtration works differently: by absorption, the adhesion of particles to a surface, like flypaper. 

I researched filtration in spirits for a talk at this year's Manhattan Cocktail Classic. While I can't claim category-wide or hands-on expertise in this matter, I spoke with several industry sources who know their stuff. Consider this an introduction to the subject.

The article covers filtration in vodka, rum, tequila, whisk(e)y, and cognac. I hope you'll find it interesting. Get the full story here.

New Booze for June 2012

On ShakeStir.com, an online community for bartenders, I write the New Booze blog. It is a round-up of new spirits products being released and products that have reached distribution in new states.

Products released in June 2012 were:

• Controy Orange Liqueur
• Appleton 50 Year Old Rum
• Tequila Tapatio
• Grand Marnier Cherry

 

 

 

Read about them all over on ShakeStir.com.

Hemingway Goes to Mexico

For last week's FineCooking.com blog post, I wrote about a drink from Jessica Maria of the Hotsy Totsy Club in Albany, California. 

 

 

The drink is the Ernesto, which is a Hemingway Daiquiri made with tequila. For as much as there are Hemingway Daiquiri spin-offs and as much as tequila loves grapefruit, I don't think I'd seen this version of the drink before. 

So anyway, here it is. The recipe is over at FineCooking.com.