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Tequila BasicsJan 18 '01 (Updated Jan 22 '01) Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line One of the amazing things of tequila production is that the blue agave will take up to 12 years to be ready to be cooked and produce a great tequila. Tequila is a wonderful spirit that has an array of notes that make it very special, although it has only started to be recognized worldwide as a high quality liquor in the past few years. Tequila comes from a plant that is known as blue agave, there are two basic categories which are 100% blue agave and mixto or 51/49. Tequila that is 100% blue agave is made with sugars that come only from the blue agave plant, mixto has to have at least 51% of its sugars from the blue agave but the other 49% can come from another source. In both these categories there are four types of tequila: Silver or blanco which is not aged tequila; Gold, that is aged up to two months; Reposado, that is aged up to one year; and, Anejo, which is aged more that one year, all of the tequilas that are aged for 2, 5 or more years fall in this type of tequila. Tequila is made by extracting the juices from the agave plant after it is cooked, the traditional way of doing this is to steam cook for about 36 hours in large stone ovens and then crush these plants to get as much juice out of them. The juices are then fermented in stainless steel tanks, natural fermentation will take from 3 to 5 day but many distilleries use yeast to speed up the process. The distilling process is next, with tequila you normaly distill twice using alembic stills, although a few companies will do a third distillation. After this silver tequila is finally obtained and depending on what is desired the tequila is bottled or set in wood barrels, normally white oak that have been previously used for bourbon or whiskey, to end up with gold, reposado or anejo. One of the amazing things of tequila production is that the blue agave will take up to 12 years to be ready to be cooked and produce a great tequila. This spirit can only be produced in Mexico in a limited area and more than 90% of tequila production is done in one state, Jalisco in the town of Tequila and area of Los Altos.  |
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