Interamericana

Warning: Tequila kills.

Maria made me repeat the words: ‘Oh Lord God, fountain of life, creator of all, blessed be this most Holy of Water. Renew the living spring of life within us, and protect us in spirit and body from sin. Amen.’

I raised my cupped hands and drank. A moment later, I was filled with the glorious and consuming spirit of Life – strong and coursing and pure. I was cast afresh with the most startling and wondrous sensations. Verily, that highly distilled tequila exhibited miraculous and otherworldly tendencies…

Tequila, central Mexico, is the hallowed birth place of the same-named severe and intoxicating liquor. It is an oppressively hot town where dense, sickly-sweet vapours cushion a blazing, swooning sky.

The surprisingly ordered and drunk-free interior provides tourists with a plethora of souvenir outlets. Themed paraphernalia includes distillery shot glasses, flasks with mock leopard-skin details and decanters with silver cowboy hats for stoppers.

Then there’s the booze. Stacked ceiling-high on shelves, variously shaped bottles conceal lethal and maddening liquors. Aside from all this, Tequila could be anywhere in Mexico – there is a baroque church, a town square and trumpeting Mariachi music spilling out from somewhere.

As I vacated the town and neared the distillery, the scenery was dominated by crops of blue agave plants. Extending in ordered rows, they reached from the dust with leaves like harsh, grey knives.

These vicious-looking flora, my guide Maria explained, form the base ingredient of tequila. They are not, as commonly thought, a type of cactus and are more closely related to the lily. Each plant takes between 8 and 12 years to mature. Each provides around 5 litres of liquor.

We parked near the gates and Maria let me examine them more closely. The leaves were tough and smokey blue, something like shark skin. She showed me how to read their age, then took me to the furnace where they cook the hearts.

“In the production of tequila, the leaves and roots of the plant are useless.” Explained Maria. “Only the hearts are used.”

These, piled high before the furnace gates, resembled something like giant, bloody pineapples. They were sticky with red juices and their odour was pungent.

“Each one weighs around 45 kilos,” continued Maria. “They’re cooked in the ovens for a few days until they are soft. After that, they are mashed and reduced to two basic parts: pulp and juice. The pulp is converted into paper or fertiliser, and the juice is extracted for the next phase of production – fermentation.”

Fermentation occurs in large churning vats which Maria bade I lower my face over. The interior was occupied by a dark and curiously bubbling liquid. A layer of thick, foaming scum swam merrily over the surface. I inhaled deeply.

The entire substance exuded an odour that was as sickening as it was exquisite. It was disgustingly and overwhelmingly alcoholic. This juice, once fermented to around 7% alcohol, is triple distilled for purity. The resultant tequila has a 70% alcoholic content.

“You must pray if you want to taste this,” laughed Maria.

Generally, such tequila is not permitted for sale and consumption. It is, lamentably, deemed too pure and too lethal for the public to imbibe. As such, it is diluted to an alcoholic content of around 40%.

The final stage of tequila production concerns storage. Upon the label of any bottle, one will find one of three words; ‘blanco’, ‘reposado’ or ‘anejo’. This indicates what has happened to the tequila immediately after distillation.

Tequila blanco, that is ‘white’ tequila, is clear coloured and bottled almost immediately. It is a lively liquor with a strong and fiery flavour.

Tequila reposado, that is ‘rested’ tequila, has been stored in oak barrels for a short period, normally a minimum of 2-12 months. This encourages a certain mellowing, a ‘woodiness’ of flavour, and has sometimes been the darkened with added colouring.

Tequila anejo, aged tequila, is stored for at least one year in oak barrels and as many as seven. This tequila has a deep golden colour and exhibits a complexity of flavours. Here, tequila becomes the connoisseur’s concern.

Finally we arrived at the most eagerly awaited part of the tour: The tasting. Several bottles had been assembled on a small table and Maria poured them out into little paper cups.

It was all surprisingly smooth and palatable and quite unlike my previous experiences of tequila. Maria explained it to me. There is, in the wonderful world of tequila, a crucial difference between tequila ‘mixto’ and tequila 100% agave. A difference often overlooked by the casual drinker. Tequila mixto employs foreign sugars in the fermentation process, usually corn, in an effort to speed alcohol production.

Conversely, tequila 100% agave is made purely from blue agave. A bottle will always indicate this on the label, if it does not, then it is invariably a mixto variety. As if to demonstrate the inferiority of this type, she poured me a shot. I downed it and immediately creased up with gags and shivers. I understood then, the place of salt and lemon in that vulgar and deadly ritual of the tequila slammer.

I returned back to town and immediately indulged my new-found enthusiasm for the liquor. I indulged for some hours. And then fate delivered a new poison. Mezcal is the poor man’s tequila. Mezcal, like tequila, is produced from the distilled juices of agave plants.

However, where tequila is produced from blue agave only, mezcal can be made from several different agaves. It is this drink (and not tequila) which employs the legendary worm in the bottle a publicity tactic on the part of the producers. Typically a butterfly grub, the ‘worm’ is edible, but contrary to myth it is not hallucinogenic.

Mezcal, popular in south Mexico, is often a professionally produced, highly sophisticated and robust beverage. Or, as in my experience, an evil and nameless moonshine devised to make men mad. Such substances, typically administered by a shop-keeper with a red plastic petrol tank, are drunk out of a polythene bags with a straw dunked in.

The ensuing reverie can only be described as an affair of intensely confusing dimensions. I recalled it in the torment afterward, amid the devastating waves of nausea and shame.

Had I really been dancing so maniacally in the town square? Had I really been so violently affected? Had I really tried to explain to the police with fever and ferocity that neither was I gringo, nor was I drunk? As I stumbled about under nightfall, wilted plastic bag in hand, I had looked up at the stars and mumbled vainly through my stupor;

‘Oh Lord God, blessed be this most Holy of waters…’

But God had not answered, and darkness quickly ensued.

This article was first published on bootsnall.com

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