Agaves, like wine grapes, are affected by soil, altitude, and climate, and are planted in rows of 1,000 to 2,000 plants per acre. The jimador (harvester) cuts the root with his sharp coa (similar to a hoe) and then trims away all the leaves until only the heart remains, which resembles a large pineapple, hence the name pina (Spanish for pineapple). At harvest, pinas can weigh anything from 80 to over 300 pounds. A liter of tequila requires approximately 15 pounds of agave heart.
Tequila, like all of the world’s best distilled spirits, is regulated by a complicated web of custom and legislation. Tequila can only be made from Agave Tequilana Weber Azul, or blue agave, according to the Tequila Regulatory Council. It can only be made in the states of Jalisco (where Tequila is located), Nayarit, Michoacan, Guanajuato, and Tamaulipas. There are 200 distilleries in Mexico that produce 700 different tequila labels, all of which are regulated by Mexican law.
Producers are divided: some utilize traditional processes, while others use more efficient modern procedures.
“Some manufacturers make a great thing about their traditional ways, while others take a scientific approach,” Chadwick explains. Chadwick has tried both types in his ten years of investigation. “What matters most is a genuine desire to create exceptional tequila.”
The pinas are boiled at the distillery to convert starches into fermentable sugars. They can be baked in traditional ovens (called hornos) or autoclaves, which are a type of pressure cooker that greatly reduces the cooking time. The cooked hearts are next crushed, either in sophisticated milling machines or with tahonas, to extract their juices (huge grindstones driven by donkeys, which crush the pinas in cobblestoned pits).
Fermentation might take anywhere from six to twelve days. A minimum of 51 percent agave must be present in tequila. Premium products claim to be made entirely of blue agave. However, sugar can be added to so-called mixto tequilas. Yeast is another key option. Some distillers have been using the same yeast strain for 50 years or more, and have carefully maintained it between batches. Others are more interested in commercial cultures.
Tequila oozes from the still-as-clear-as-water bottle. This can be bottled as plata (silver) or blanco (white) tequila after being diluted to final proof. For tequila connoisseurs, platas represent the purest form of the spirit.
Tequilas made from 100 percent blue agave must be distilled and bottled in Mexico by law. Tanker trucks or ships are frequently used to transport Mixto tequilas in bulk. Tequila is sold to approximately 150 countries, with the United States being the most important market.
Many mixtos are referred to as “young abocado” or “young abocado.” “Caramel coloring is used in “gold” tequilas to give them that golden tint. The term “reposado” refers to a wine that has been aged “Tequilas are aged when they are “rested.” They stay in wood for at least two months and up to a year, generally in enormous redwood tanks. Anejo (Spanish for “anejo”) is a “Tequilas that have been “aged” receive the entire treatment. They are matured for at least a year and up to four years in tiny barrels. Fine anejos are in the same category as Cognac, Scotch, and Bourbon because to their extensive oak age.
Experts disagree on which type is the best. “Silver tequilas have a cleaner, purer flavor, according to Sean Herrick, manager of Atlanta’s Agave restaurant. “However, I find that anejos have greater personality.”
Agave offers 87 different agave-based beverages, which should satisfy even the most discerning palate. “We advocate serving excellent tequilas straight up in a snifter,” Herrick explains. Will his consumers pay $20 for a shot of anejo? “They undoubtedly will. It all comes down to education.”
Mezcal, another agave-based beverage, is gaining popularity among connoisseurs. In the United States, only cheap mezcals were accessible until recentlyoften with the telltale worm in the bottle. A few artisan-crafted mezcals have made their way to the United States in recent years. These high-quality spirits are made using traditional methods, and fans compare them to the best tequilas. The problem is that even people who are familiar with great tequilas are unfamiliar with mezcal. Mezcal is not related to the psychedelic mescaline or the peyote cactus (agave isn’t even a cactus), contrary to popular belief. Not all mezcals are tequilas, and not all tequilas are mezcals.
Mezcal is manufactured in the same way as tequila, but with a few key changes. Tequila can only be made in specific places, much like Cognac can only be made in the Cognac region of France. The states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, San Luis Potosi, and Zacatecas produce some of the best mezcals.
Mezcal is made from about ten different agave species. Mezcal is available in three different ages: blanco, reposado, and anejo. It’s always made entirely with agave nectar, with no additional sugar.
The way the pinas are cooked makes a big difference in mezcal manufacture. Instead of steaming, the agave hearts are baked for three days or more in a stone-lined pit with hot coals. This imparts a smokey flavor to mezcal. In contrast to tequila, which is distilled twice, the spirit is traditionally distilled only once.
Some experts predict a spike in interest in mezcal, while others argue that it is a high-end niche product that will never catch up to tequila’s appeal. When tequila became fashionable in the mid-1990s, several distillers bet on 100 percent blue agave tequila. Overproduction quickly resulted in a scarcity of prime blue agave plants. It will take time for supply to catch up with demand because agave plants take years to grow. Meanwhile, a few producers secretly migrated to mixtos for some of their labels.
How much is an acre of agave worth?
The three most productive agave varieties have a market value of $100 US per ton (up to $4,000 US per acre or $10,000 per hectare gross profit, with 50% of this amount being net profit after production and labor costs are deducted). With rotational grazing, this method may feed up to 60 sheep, lambs, or goats per acre per year, or 150 per hectare, doubling net income to S4,000 US per acre or $10,000 per hectare. Lamb farming can quickly improve net profits to $5,000 US per acre or $12,000 per hectare once certified as organic.
How many agave plants does it take to make one bottle of tequila?
Both Mezcales de Leyenda and Mezcal Real Minero utilize semi-wild culture, which involves collecting wild agave seeds and planting them in nurseries rather than relying on Mother Nature to do the job. The plantlets are released into the wild after six to a year, greatly boosting the number of agaves that reach adulthood. These steps are intended to ensure the spirit’s and industry’s long-term viability, as well as to assist mezcal producers, the majority of whom are poor rural farmers, in navigating the increasingly turbulent agave market.
Can agave get too much sun?
Yes, depending on the kind, as well as the strength and duration of sunshine it receives, agave can be burned. Please let us know if this is an issue for you, and we’ll be pleased to provide you with specific recommendations.
Is growing agave illegal?
Craig Reynolds has been planting blue weber agave plants, also known as agave tequilana, in three acres of dirt in Yolo County, California, for the past four years. When they reach maturity, he hopes they will be the source of a California-grown agave alcohol that can compete with those from Mexico. He’s dubbed the project “Mezcalifornia.”
Reynolds isn’t the only one who feels this way. Several entrepreneurs in California are working to establish an agave spirits business, from as far south as Carpinteria to as far north as Reynolds’ farm near Woodland, which is likely the northern limit of where blue weber agave can thrive. In many ways, the venture appears self-evident; tequila and mezcal are currently among the hottest spirits categories in the United States, with volumes rising steadily for at least 15 years and increasing by more than 8% in 2017, according to the Distilled Spirits Council.
While mezcal and tequila are only produced in Mexico, the agave plant thrives in the southwestern United States, where it grows both wild and as an ornamental. However, an agave spirits sector based in the United States has been sluggish to emerge. It now lags behind South African and Indian producers, as well as a few US-based craft distillers who have been manufacturing spirit from Mexican agave syrup for about a decade. The stumbling block is twofold: not only is it unlawful for potential distillers to gather wild agaves from public lands, but few farmers are interested in cultivating them without a market. Distillers have also been hesitant to invest in the machinery needed to process the bulky, fibrous pias.
“There’s a chicken and egg situation,” Reynolds explains, “so I’ve just opted to be the chicken… or lay an egg.” Later, he switched to a more sensual metaphor, referring to himself as “Johnny Agaveseed.”
While working for an education foundation in Mexico, Reynolds grew interested in agave spirits. He assisted in the production of Dos Volcanes, an agave liquor created from plants growing just outside of Tequila’s formal boundaries. That experience eventually led to the start of the “Mezcalifornia” project in 2015, when Reynolds used agaves from Riverside County (grown by Mark Carlston, the owner of tequila brand Crotalo) and cooked them in a stone pit he created on his property. The agaves were transported 80 miles south to St. George Spirits in Alameda, California, where they were fermented and distilled by master distiller Lance Winters after a few days of roasting over eucalyptus and oak. The one-off distillate, which is smoky and greasy with an acidic brightness, was never commercially produced, but Reynolds considers it a “proof of concept” spirit.
“If we can get an agave economy going, even if it’s a little one,” Winters says, “I’d probably buy all of the agaves he produced for the next several years, because it’s just fun.” He also hopes to collect some agaves that are growing wild on private Texas ranch land eventually. (A prior attempt by a Temecula, California, guy named JB Wagoner to manufacture American-grown agave spirit failed, apparently for reasons unrelated to spirits manufacturing.)
While there has been little research on how agaves should be cultivated in California, horticulturist Doug Richardson, who has a passion for exotic crops, believes the state may host a wide variety of agave species. Richardson developed several dozen banana cultivars in Ventura County during the 1980s and 1990s, when it was the continental United States’ only commercial banana plantation. He is currently growing agaves for spirits production at his Drylands Farming Company nursery west of Santa Barbara.
“I believe it might be a very profitable business in California,” Richardson says.
He’s cultivated a lot of agave tequilana so far, but he’s also started growing a few additional species that are suitable not just for distilled spirits but also for pulque manufacture. Around 40 or 50 of the approximately 200 species of agaves may be appropriate for beverage production. According to Reynolds, one of these is agave americana, which has been used to make mezcal in Mexico and grows abundantly on, of all places, Alcatraz Island.
The largest planting of Richardson’s agaves is on a historic Santa Barbara county avocado farm named La Paloma Ranch, which is one of the few ranches that has started growing substantial numbers of them. The agaves were first planted there four years ago after several farm workers indicated interest in producing something that could be used to make alcohol.
“They didn’t realize it takes seven to ten years for the agave to grow,” says John Kleinwachter, the farm’s manager. Nonetheless, the farm found the concept intriguing enough to pursue it further. Agaves produce “pups” as they mature, which farmers remove and replant, resulting in a continuous maturation cycle. Nearly 4,500 agave tequilana and agave mapisaga (another cultivated species) plants are currently developing in various stages of maturity. Kleinwachter hopes to form a group of people who will cultivate, roast, distill, and commercialize the spirit in the future.
While Winters agrees that a California agave spirits business is “nothing more than a curiosity for people” for the time being, Reynolds is attempting to pique interest in it. To that end, he’s begun selling merchandise bearing the project’s design, which is a California state flag with an agave-shaped insignia in place of the lone red star and a Hecho en Estados Unidos stamp beneath the name. His plants, in the meantime, have around two years to live. “I call to my agaves as ‘Dreamers,'” he says, referring to their Mexican ancestors, California roots, and possibly future aspirations.
Will blue agave grow in Hawaii?
Tequila connoisseurs are also aware that blue agave is grown and top producers are located in the western Mexican state of Jalisco. Tequila sales continue to rise in Hawaii, particularly in the ultra-premium category.
How long does it take an agave plant to mature?
Tequila is produced from the agave plant. It takes about 7 years for an agave plant to mature enough to be harvested for tequila.
Why is there an agave shortage?
Codigo 1530 discovered that it was not only growing in line with the category, but also surpassing the industry norm, with a year-over-year growth rate of 94 percent.
Camarena reported a 30 percent increase, while Casa Don Ramon reported a 12 percent increase year over year, with November having the greatest sales. Tequila-based cocktail sales have increased at Cask and Kettle, a developer of Keurig pod drinks.
To a considerable extent, e-commerce is to blame. “While tequila’s portion of the e-commerce booze behemoth Drizly remained at 6.52 percent from January to July 2020, when looking at the summer particularly, the share of the tequila category climbed to 7.13 percent on Drizly,” says Liz Paquette, head of consumer insights at Drizly. “This movement indicates that people are continuing to gravitate toward tequilas when they make drinks at home, especially in the warmer months.”
However, each brand’s success was unique. “Right at the start,” recalls Coira of multi-brand producer Casa Maestri, “everything came to a halt for approximately a week.” Then it took off like a rocket. The super-small brands are holding their ground; they’re ordering the same amount as before, if not a bit more. The medium and larger size brands have seen a massive increase in volume.”
“We anticipated the closures at bars and restaurants would damage us in 2020,” says Sylvester Palacios Jr., managing partner of Dos Cuernos Tequila. “It was actually beneficial to us because it allowed us to concentrate on mom and pop liquor stores.” As a result of the shutdown, we’ve seen other well-known firms cut back on events, marketing, and branding. We kept pushing forward with our marketing at the same time. Other businesses’ ease on the airwaves allowed us to garner more attention.”
The pandemic positioned 21Seeds perfectly. Kat Hantas, the brand’s co-founder, focused her efforts on the internet space when it first started in 2019. “We were already online” when Covid-19 arrived. We were already online when other firms were racing to engage with their customers. That dramatically boosted our saleswe’ve seen a tenfold increase year over year.”
With bars and restaurants closing and customers shopping online, the digital space was vital this year. “However, direct-to-consumer is difficult to manage,” explains Micah McFarlane, creator of Revel Avila. “It’s for this reason that we formed a partnership with ReserveBar.” Revel’s sales increased by 13% as a result of this strategic adjustment, a figure that seemed impossible just months before.”
“We shifted our focus to our e-commerce choices like Reserve Bar, Sip Tequila, and Drizly,” explains Taylor Steele, Solento Tequila’s founder. Despite the fact that it was the brand’s first year on the market, all launch activations and pivot tactics had to be scrapped. “With guests like Kelly Slater, Tony Hawk, Taryn Toomey, Rob Machado, and Sheree Commerford, we started hosting Instagram Live happy hours.”
Lauth of Partida remarked that Instagram had reigned supreme. Drinkers are turning to internet influencers for guidance in the absence of bartenders. ” “What tequila do you recommend for my margarita?” we asked our friendly local bartender last year. Mixologists are now using social media to communicate with customers, recommend brands, and share recipes that they can order online and prepare at home.”
New consumer behavior
Why has tequila become so popular? Consumer preferences have shifted, according to experts. “Mike Dolan, co-founder and CEO of Mijenta Tequila, adds, “The tequila category is going through what the whiskey sector went through a decade ago.” “Consumers seeking more refined versions with a smoother flavor that are based on true stories.”
New purchasing channels are to blame for a lot of this. Lauth says, “When it comes to internet purchases, customers have demonstrated a distinct buying habit. Blanco, for example, is typically the most popular tequila in the category, owing to the fact that the margarita is the most popular cocktail in the United States. Blanco is the most popular choice for a margarita since it has the lowest cost-per-pour. Consumers are buying more reposado, anejo, and extra anejo through e-commerce and off-premise transactions, though.”
“This is due to the fact that the liquor is served neat or over ice rather than in a margarita. Because of this tendency, we’ve seen some of the biggest companies run out of aged tequila inventory this year.”
Agave shortages
As businesses scramble to acquire more liquid resting, this change has resulted in agave shortages across the country.
“We’re battling with agave shortages,” says Codigo 1530 co-founder Federico “Fede” Vaughan. “It’s only a short-term problem that should be resolved in the next several years.” However, there is a severe shortage: agave prices are at an all-time high due to a lack of inventory and poorly planned agave cultivation.”
“We have three- to four-year contracts with agave producers, and we establish a fair price for them,” he explains. I had my guy locked up for four years, but you can imagine how much a 5% or 10% price change matters to them.”
“We have agave fields, so we get about half of our consumption from them and the remainder from the open market,” Coira explains. “However, we have contracts and scenarios in place to deal with this type of rise.” We had a terrible time with anejos because we had to leave them in our barrels for a year. Many customers began to purchase more aged spirits (premium/ultra premium), and we needed to buy a lot more barrels to meet demand by late 2021. But, happily, we’ve always had a sufficient stock to ride the wave.”
Tanteo is a collectively held company, but CEO and master blender Neil Grosscup says, “Even as an agave grower cooperative, we are not immune to the effects of the agave crisis.” High agave prices attract our members to sell their crops on the open market, and while our members want to sell their agave to the distillery, we need to ensure that the price the distillery pays is competitive. Looking at total plantings from the CRT, their expansion has exceeded even tequila’s remarkable growth in recent years. This summer, we began to see a little price reduction on market rate agave, but there is still a veil of uncertainty about Covid-19.”
The mega-brand is being swept off shelves “at record speed,” according to Patron’s Parker.
However, Patron’s time-consuming procedure makes it difficult to keep up with demand. “We now have an adequate supply of tequila at our Hacienda, but because each bottle requires more than 60 hands to craft, we are experiencing a slower bottling cadence.” Because the 2,000 people who create Patron had to socially remove themselves when Covid-19 hit, our output decreased by more than 50%. When this was combined with significant volume increase (up 52 percent across our tequilas), Patron’s dedication to handcraft became a barrier to getting bottles to shelves versus automated rivals. It’s producing an inventory deficit across the United States, which is starting to show up on store shelves.”
Vaughan also observes that social distance slows production. “We take health precautions seriously: no one is closer than six feet apart.”
Overall, these are minor issues for a market poised for massive growth in 2020. “It’s encouraging to see, especially as the agave spirits market grows, that there’s a blossoming connoisseurship among customers trying to extend their palates,” says McFarlane of Revel. “As we’ve seen in other categories, customers are paying more attention to not only labels and design, but also the quality of the components in the spirit, as well as where it’s created and the procedures involved.” Tequila, avila, mezcal, sotol, racilla, and bacanora are all gaining popularity as a result of this.”
Does agave grow back after harvest?
We went ATVs into the agave fields and “helped” harvest some agave during my recent trip with the Tahona Society.
There, Master Distiller Jesus Hernandez of Olmeca Altos tequila educated me on some agave facts I didn’t know, so I thought I’d share them:
- Only the female agave plant produces the quiote, a huge asparagus-shaped sprout that sprouts from a mature agave plant to disperse its seed. To avoid draining energy from the agave heart, this is almost typically clipped soon after sprouting.
- You have a year and a few months after the quiote grows to harvest the plant; it can go through one rainy season after sprouting but not two.
- A cogollo, a dense circle of leaves where the quiote would have been, is only found on male plants that do not develop quiotes. When harvesting or baking the agave, most premium producers make sure to remove the cogollo, which has a negative impact on the flavor of the tequila.
- Agave may be picked all year, however during the wet season, they collect less or none at all. This isn’t because the agave is wet and so has a reduced sugar-to-weight ratio, as Hernandez claims that mature plants aren’t as affected, but because it’s difficult to move vehicles into and out of the muddy fields to collect the heavy agave after harvest.
- Occasionally, you’ll come across an agave field with all of the spiky leaves’ tips cut off. According to Hernandez, some producers feel that this helps the agave’s heart grow stronger, but he disagrees. He claims, however, that it is normal practice to chop off the tips of the leaves when they come through each year to apply pesticides and herbicides, just so they can get through the dense rows of agave without cutting the leaves.
- Agave leaves grow and die each year, with new ones growing above them, similar to how a palm tree grows with rows of dead leaves left lower down. I used to think these were the same leaves that just got bigger every year!
- They use insecticides and herbicides every year until the year before harvest because they don’t want any residue on the crop.
- Rhyzomes, or baby agaves, sprout at the base of agave plants and are known as hijuelos. After the mother agave plant has reached the age of 3-4 years, these are clipped and transplanted.
Guillermo Sauza, the distiller and owner of Fortaleza Tequila, also taught me something.
- In the Lowlands, you can get gigantic agave hearts by fertilizing the fields. People don’t normally do that in the area anymore, according to Sauza, because agave prices are so low right now.
How many kilos of agave make tequila?
When the pia swells and ripens, suitable for harvesting, agave normally reaches maturity after five to eight years. Plants planted in the highlands take longer to mature (up to 12 years) than those grown in the plains or valleys, therefore fertilizing agave to expedite maturity and improve yields is customary practice. Even valley-grown agaves might take 12-15 years to maturity if not properly managed.
Agaves have no legal minimum age for harvesting, and plants are hand-picked for harvesting based on their maturity, though entire fields are frequently harvested at once. The adult agave grows to a height of about 1.8 meters (6 feet), but mature plants are shorter because their leaves spread outwards and droop rather than growing vertically. The loss of the plant’s lowest leaves is another symptom of maturity (pencas).
Blue Agave biomass is around 50 percent leaves and 50 percent pia, with 70 percent water, 5 percent fiber, and 25 percent carbs (inulin). Ripe pia from mature agave plants contains more sugars, resulting in a bigger output and better tequila. The ART (total reductive sugars) of agave that is ready to be harvested is determined by using an optic refractometer to measure BRIX and then subtracting 20% to get the ARTs. Tequila manufacturing has an average sugar content of roughly 21%, however some agave can have as high as 45 BRIX.
The typical weight of ripe pias is 32 kilograms, but they can weigh anything from 10 to 100 kilograms (22 to 220 pounds), with examples weighing up to 180 kilograms (400 pounds). Sugar content ranges from 22 to 28 percent (mainly Inulin), with a juice content of 0.572 ml/g and a pH of 5.2. A litre bottle of 100% agave tequila requires approximately seven kilograms (15.5lb) of pia.
The harvesters, known as jimadors, use a long-handled knife known as a coa to cut away the long, spiky blue/green thorn-ended, barb-edged leaves to reveal the pia, which resembles a large pineapple. The gadget gets its name from the ‘hee’ sound the coa makes as it glides through the air.
After the pencas have been clipped off, reddy-brown areas of bleeding sap appear on the surface of the pia when the agave has reached full maturity. Four to six such spots on a single agave signify peak maturity, whereas seven or more signal the pia is beginning to degrade. Brown spots on a banana skin indicate ripeness, similar to how brown spots on a banana skin indicate ripeness. Tequileros only have six months to a year to collect the agave rich when it reaches full ripeness for harvesting, or the plant will begin to rot.
Overripe agave is preferred by some distillers, while underripe agave is preferred by others; the degree of maturity determines the character of the tequila created from it. Tequilas made from underripe agave generate less complex tequilas with vegetal overtones, and tequilas made from overripe agave make smoother, sweeter, full-flavored tequilas. Agave that has reached peak ripeness, known as sobre maduro (overripe), begins to create acids that add flavor and depth to tequila while also imparting a vinegar-like taste.
Jimadors work from daybreak to shortly after midday to escape the hottest part of the day, and a skillful worker can collect over 100 pias of agave every day. This is a highly specialized occupation, and the skills are typically passed down from father to son. Even jimadors with a lot of expertise have been known to lose toes to the coa’s blade. Tarantulas and snakes that are drawn to the shady areas beneath the plants might be dangerous.
The agave used in the manufacturing of premium tequilas is frequently labeled as “estate grown.” This implies they’re cultivated on distillery-owned or leased land, giving the distiller complete control over how the plants are cared for. Harvesting with their own jimadors guarantees that the leaves are chopped back to the pia. When third-party producers sell pias to distilleries, they are paid by weight, so unless the distillery has tight criteria, they will not clip the leaves back as closely, allowing them to make more money for their crop. The drawback is that the waxy surface of the leaves is bitter, which affects the flavor of the finished tequila. Better producers who employ third-party growers have contracts that cover the pia’s 6 to 12-year life cycle, ensuring quality and consistency.
When harvesting a field, a good jimador will leave plants that he believes have not matured sufficiently or are overripe. These abandoned plants can be found strewn across the freshly harvested fields’ leaf-strewn ground.