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The
Aztecs had their own pretequila tale. According to one
version of the legend, a once-mortal woman, Mayahuel,
became a beautiful Aztec goddess who eloped with the
god Quetzalcoatl. In an effort to hide from her evil
grandmother, they both turned into branches of a leafy
tree. When they were found out, Mayahuel was eaten up
by the stars. At the site of her burial, the first agave
plant was born, and the gods showered it with storms
that stripped the plant of its long and thorny leaves.
When the storm passed, only the heart of the plant remained.
From it spewed the blood of Mayahuel, a sweet nectar
with the taste of honey and a seductive smell.
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Harvest
time in agave country. The fruit of the agave looks
like a giant pine cone, weighing between 34 and
90 kg. |
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In
agave country, an hour outside of Guadalajara, fields
of corn give way to a steel-blue panorama stretching
up and around the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental.
Vendors with bottles of caramel-colored liquor begin
to freckle the roadside as we travel northwest. Never
have I seen a succulent so intensively cultivated. Blue
agave is planted over 90,000 acres in this nook of Mexico.
At Amatitan, an aged cowboy boards our rattletrap bus,
a cane in one hand, a violin in the other. Propped against
a seat, he stands in the aisle offering folk songs for
a peso as we traverse the last kilometers to the town
of Tequila. We pass trucks of an even older vintage
loaded with what look to the northerner like giant pinecones.
These are the source of Mayahuel’s sweet blood—the
hearts of agave.
Botanists
disagree as to the exact number of species of agave,
but most estimates run upward of 300. One hundred and
thirty of those species are found in Mexico. In 1905
a German botanist, Franz Weber, set out to classify
the species of agave in Mexico and dubbed the blue agave
Agave tequilana, recognizing its sacred service
in producing the quintessentially Mexican liquor.
The
blue or tequila agave is native to the Mexican state
of Jalisco, favoring altitudes of more than 1,500 meters
and sandy soil. The spiky succulent leaves can grow
up to one meter in length. In the wild, agaves spurt
forth a floral shoot in their fifth year that grows
to a length of two meters. At its tip blooms a flower
that flirts with a local bat species. Postpollination,
several thousand seeds are produced and the plant dies.
When cultivated, the shoots are removed from the plant
following pollination, allowing more energy reserves
to be invested in the production of the agave heart
or fruit. In its 10th to 12th year, the heart weighs
between 35 and 90 kg (80–200 lb) and is carefully
removed by harvesters called jimadores. The fruit
is sent back to the distillery to remove the sap, ferment
the sugars, and convert the crude wine into fine liquor.
During
their exploration of the New World in the late 1400s,
Spanish conquistadors encountered a native wine called
“pulque” produced by the Nahuatl people
and used in religious ceremonies by the Aztec elite.
When their brandy reserves were spent, Spanish explorers
adopted the Nahuatl pulque. They were quick to
add Spanish fermentation know-how and the Moorish art
of distillation to produce the first tequilas—a
fusion of three cultures. In 1600, the first tequila
factory was established. Following Mexican independence,
tequila production flourished and became a national
symbol. Subsequent railroad construction, as well as
prohibition in the United States, contributed to the
widespread popularity of tequila—the first American
distilled liquor.
Visitors
to any of the many tequila factories in the region can
witness the process—from fruit to distillation—firsthand.
On this day, we head to La Cofradía, where our
guide Rosa takes us through the process. We disembark
the trolley that carried us from the pueblo proper to
the distillery, where a group of jimadores are
sorting agaves to be trimmed and replanted to produce
a subsequent year’s harvest.
Rosa
rounds up the visitors and gives us a lesson on the
botany of agave. Silhouetted by the bright, arid landscape,
she describes the succulents as “nocturnal”
and finds her own ways of explaining crassulacean acid
metabolism without confounding the visitors. After our
Botany 101 lesson, she leads us into a fermentation
chamber overseen by the Virgin of Guadalupe. Although
no agave sap is cooking at the moment, the cavern reeks
of diesel, yeast, and C2H5O6.
Rosa explains that it takes a day and a long, thin red
line on the centigrade scale to extract the juices of
the agave and concentrate the sugars. The “must”
is then transferred to the fermenters, and the fibers
are recycled into ropes and cloth. According to Rosa,
in days of old, jimadores took the job of inoculating
the vats of must by swimming around in the buff after
a day’s work in the field. The Virgin of Guadalupe
apparently doesn’t bat an eye at the notion of
nudity, but today things are done differently.
After
fermentation and distillation, the product goes to the
onsite laboratory for tests. In the interest of the
human lifespan, the alcohol content is adjusted appropriately—as
high as 58% for the Russians and 38% to 40% for the
rest of us. Regardless of the alcohol content, in order
to be called tequila, 51% of the brew must come from
the blue agave. Premium tequilas may be made from 100%
blue agave. Just as champagne must be made with grapes
from the Champagne region of France, liquor labeled
tequila must be made from blue agave cultivated in government-approved
appellations.
The
tasting room at La Cofradía looks like a tropical
cava. Mango trees grown to heights that tickle the ceiling
are interspersed with wooden barrels to moderate the
temperature and humidity. Rosa pours us samples of the
various tequilas we’ve been learning about, beginning
with the clear silver tequila with a characteristic
agave flavor. According to Rosa, it is favored by Mexican
cowboys and is responsible for their “sexy, raspy
voice.” Next we try the resposado, or “rested”
version, which has spent two to 11 months in oak and
has hints of pepper. If the tequila is barreled for
a year or more, it’s called “añejo”
and brings more oak to the palette. Much like wine aged
in barrels, the liquor acquires its color and smooth
flavor from the vessels. But buyer beware! The mythic
worm originated as a 1940s marketing gimmick in bottles
of mescal, tequila’s cousin. Actually a pest of
the agave, a worm in a processing plant is akin to a
fly in your soup.
Our
group leaves the tasting room, and soon the trolley
departs the distillery for town. The crowd is much more
lively than on our ascent. The jolly Spanish-speaking
tourists sing their way down the hillside, fueled by
spirits. Their laughter is punctuated only by the burps
of the cobblestone streets. Not a bad way to slide in
a lesson on agave botany and fermentation chemistry!
Sarah
Nell Davidson
snd2@cornell.edu
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