Tequila! And you thought vodka was a ripoff?

Great tasters note that one way to better your understanding of a spirit is to try others. We've already tried calvados, cognac, armangnac, tequila, whisky and gin. Here's some of the more unusual spirits and drinks. Mead me halfway on this, woncha?
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Capn Jimbo
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Tequila! And you thought vodka was a ripoff?

Post by Capn Jimbo »

Hola amigos!

Now that I live in Mexico, it goes without saying that tequila and mezcal are next on my hit list.

Both are made largely from the agave plant. Both are regulated by Mexico, whose definitions and methods are accepted by the United States. I'll get into more detail later but for now, it's fair to say that of the two, tequila is the most abused by far, with mezcal slowly catching up. Leave it to the marketing boyz and girlz.

Think about it. Those of you who are old enough will remember the father of vodka, the famous Sydney Frank. In those days vodka was mostly a bottom shelf product, selling for bargain basement prices. However Frank was a true marketing maven, who decided he would sell his product for double and triple the prices of the competition, who rightfully thought he was a madman. But history talks and bullshit walks and Frank's Grey Goose - made in France for the cachet, his high art bottles, and inventive marketing campaigns ended up lifting the whole class into the stratosphere. As Sydney put it, paraphrased "It's only alcohol and water, if I can sell it for three times the price, it's all profit".

And it was! Was the product worth what the clever marketing implied, with any number of flavors, and ludicrous claims? No, nope, nada, never! Any number of taste tests - performed using folks who swore they always ask for their favorite XXXX brans - wouldn't drink anything else - and who failed almost every time to identify their must have brand. Sydney Frank set the stage.

And consider this: vodka is distilled by massive industrial stills for the most part, and is un-aged. Modern methods are used for tequila as well, but in general, Tequila is often produced with classic stills. Still what tequila calls aging is not impressive, a few months for a "rested" (Reposado) version, and up to a year or so for aged (Anejo). Ridiculo. Compare to rum, where the sweet spot is 7 to 10 years, which is only the beginning point of aging for whisky and where the magic takes closer to 15 to 20 years. Add to that loose regulation, the lack of government supervision, the dominance of clearly flavored products, and marketing that smacks of vodka bullshit means that to consider that most of the offerings will be highly modified and adulterated may be a fair assumption.

Tequila's parallels to vodka cannot be denied and should be obvious to all of us. On top of that Mexican regulation is loose to say the least. And the only large tequila tasting site is well, reminiscent of the Frozen One. Here we go again. Any of the regulars here get it. But due to the condescending confidence of the swilling Tequila shills, I thought it best to bite my lip and give Tequila the (massive) benefit of the doubt and to run some honest tests. To begin I chose three tequilas:

Two of the tequilas were deemed additive free by a very large tequila site, based on their non-scientific, self-created protocol that largely depended on (gulp) distillery honesty and on their own still unproven tasting skills. Let's begin:

The first tequila tested was a 35% Mixto (at least 51% agave, but could be more): a Cabrito Reposado - a brand marketed widely and successfully to everyday Mexicanos, and one of the most popular brands for Mexicans who we can assume know what they like. Actually I think they do. Although Cabrito proved modified to a preliminary hydro-test of around 10%, enough to reject it on purity grounds; still I found the mod pretty well done. Cabrito gets broadly good reviews from even the Gringo crowd. I liked it.

Next up was a another Mixto, whose distiller El Tequilano) was deemed "additive-free" by the large site. This was confirmed as the El Tequileno's 38% Blanco (white, unaged) tested out at under 2%, or relatively pure - nice. I loved the taste of this unadulterated product that nicely displayed its agave origins. So far so good, but then the fly in the sugar syrup...

The last tequila - this one made from 100% agave (which the promotors want you to believe is superior and "more complex"). This would be the acid test of a full blown, 100% agave product, delivered at 40%, Tapatia Blanco (white, un-aged). This time I started with a taste test and was not impressed - I detected the usual smothering effect of added sugar, and surely some flavoring for a weird sweet/sour, unnatural effect. This was confirmed by the test showing about 10% sugars and other solid adulterants.

Mind you this 100% agave product had also been designate as "additive-free" by the large tequila site. Amigos, this is a problem for me. I'd reviewed the large site's self-promoting protocol and found it lacking (details later). The sad story is that if you can find just one product that not only fails, but at a substantial 10%, then what are we to think about their whole project? This is not a minor error. The site claims to have had access to private distillery records, examined the facility and claimed to have been trained and certified as trained tequila experts. Really? More on this later.

For the tequila to then be tested at 10% is far, far above the allowable 1% of sugar allowed in Mexico. Further the site trumpets their alleged experience and knowledge as tasters. Here at the Project, we know that 10% is a substantial amount that has substantial smothering effects on any spirit - roughly 12 teaspoons of sugar in a 750ml bottle of tequila! If the tasters couldn't detect that, shouldn't we have serious doubts about any of their findings?

Let's be honest - we all know that there are all manner of "reviewers" who are more than willing to trade usage of their scores, et all, for a conveyor belt delivering expensive product to test. The companies need softball reviews and marketing points and the independent reviewers need expensive product. Of course the claim of "additive-free" serves both interests. Some of these reviewers also sell their program, in this case an "additive-free" designation (details to follow).

To be fair, I'd really like to believe the Tapatia Blanco, 100% agave, was an aberation; ergo I ordered another 100% agave Reposado distilled by El Tequilena, and - sorry Tapatia - this one too tested as pure. Sadly the Tequilena tests only confirms that at least one other "additive-free" tequila was indeed adulterated, undetected and unreported via the large Tequila site's non-scientific method.

CJ

Stay tuned...
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