Boozehound - Jason Wilson [65]
At tour’s end, however, we were ushered into a bar, and our tour guide said, “Now you will taste a real margarita.” I watched the bartender grab a bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold, meaning that, even though Cuervo makes premium 100 percent agave spirits, I was about to be served a mixto, a tequila made of only 51 percent agave, with 49 percent additives such as sugar or neutral spirits. To add to the insult, the bartender then grabbed a bottle of Jose Cuervo’s premade, Day-Glo-colored margarita mix. He poured both into a blender and pushed the button. Yes, my pilgrimage to the seminal town of Tequila was rewarded with a margarita that could easily have been made by the lunchtime bartender at a suburban Applebee’s back home. No wonder—as I later learned—no one in the state of Jalisco drinks margaritas.
Now, I might be accused of harping on the worst stop of my trip, but that margarita at Mundo Cuervo highlighted the main reason tequila has not yet won the hearts and minds of the average drinker in the United States. Sure, we keep hearing reports about tequila’s rise, and we see the sales of premium tequila grow every year; according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, tequila imports grew more than 50 percent between 2002 and 2010. But that growth is driven mainly by enthusiasts like me, people who see the value in spending forty dollars or more for a spirit made with 100 percent blue agave. When I offer most acquaintances a shot of tequila, a large majority of them say something like, “Ugh, tequila. I just can’t drink that. Not since this one bad night in college.” I have that story, too. It is the last night of my freshman year in Boston, and I will be transferring to Vermont in the fall. My girlfriend, J. (who is staying in Boston), and I are celebrating our very last night together, our last hurrah. We decide to split a bottle of Cuervo Gold. In the morning, we awaken with matching trash cans on either side of the bed. Good times! Frankly, I am tired of hearing about people’s bad night in college. I am also tired of people kidding themselves that it doesn’t matter whether you use a low- or high-quality spirit in a cocktail.
A plea to Mexico’s Tequila Regulatory Council: Can we just stop with the mixto tequila already? If the tequila industry truly wants to improve the image of its product, then it ought to ban mixto altogether. I’ve heard a lot of talk about the importance of changing consumer perceptions: that tequila is not just a frat-party shot; that good tequila doesn’t give you hangovers; that tequila truly exists on the level of a fine, aged whiskey or brandy. All of that is true, as is the fact that fine tequilas are not cheap and that you can even splurge, as with Scotch or cognac, on high-end choices such as Gran Patrón Platinum ($189), El Tesoro Paradiso extra-añejo ($121) and Siete Leguas five-year D’Antaño (about $200, if you can even find it domestically).
But the average consumer is still not getting the message. Worse, too many people maintain an irrational fear of the spirit. Why? Because all of the nice premium brands are sitting on shelves in liquor stores next to god-awful, headache-inducing mixtos that cost a fraction of what real tequila costs. “To me, mixtos are nonsense,” said El Tesoro’s Camarena. “Have you ever heard of cognac made with 51 percent cognac and 49 percent sugar?” And let’s not even get into Sauza’s ready-to-drink Margarita-in-a-Box that