From TequilaGringo:  This tequila has guns on the bottle.  We like that, and firmly believe in everyone's right to bear tequila bottles with arms on them.  And darn if it doesn't have the best cap in the business, we just love giving it a simple spin between the thumb and middle finger and watching it unwind silky smooth style.  But that's just packaging at the end of the day.  What's inside is what counts, and Revolucion delivers.  The color is an exceptionally pale yellow, particularly for a repo that spent 10 months in the barrel.  The nose is a vegetal, somewhat earthy agave. The mouthfeel is on the thin side and soft.  The taste follows suit, with an earthy agave with maybe a touch of spice. Read more »

From TequilaGringo: The nose on this blanco was earthy/clove-y, slightly smokey.  Usually it's the lowland tequilas that have more earthy tones, so this surprised us a bit.  On taste, we found it to posses a true agave flavor, with perhaps a hint of cucumber (but oh so slight).  We found it to have a really full bodied, flavorful taste - particularly for a blanco.  Yet it's also a mild tequila, with low heat, and it's exceptionally smooth.  The mouthfeel was velvety.  8 stars.  

Tasted 10/27/2009.  NOM 1526 Read more »

From TequilaGringo: The nose and taste both featured a vegetal agave.  Not our favorite, but we can appreciate it.  The taste followed with an herbal flavor as well. Oily mouthfeel. 6 stars.

From Adan y Eva: Adan y Eva Reposado, 100% Blue Agave is gently rested for over six months. Our special resting process delivers a richer, cleaner and deeper tequila flavor than other Reposados.

Here's their promo video - it's sort of a glorified slide show, but you can get some insight into their facilities from it. Read more »

From TequilaGringo: This one comes in with an easy nose, very little burn and a hint of spice. Plenty going on in the taste, the 4 months in oak barrels did it well.  We tasted black pepper, agave and a lot of honey. The amount of honey we tasted was unusual for a tequila, and we liked that.  Mouthfeel was best described as light.  It has a rather medium heat. Overall we liked it so much we gave it 8 stars.  Nice.  We don't do that too often.

From Real de Mexico: Great video tour of their facilities in Arandas.  Place looks super nice!

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From TequilaGringo: When Fernando Hernandez of Real de Mexico sent us his blanco and his repo, we were happy.  (It's fair to say we get happy with each and every bottle that comes in the mail, wouldn't you?) But maybe this was a little different because Fernando had been very nice and a pleasure to work with, and we hoped his tequila would be a good one.  So, we poured it into our Reidel tequila glasses and gave it a whiff.  Light sweet agave and a bit of pepper on nose. Good start on a blanco.  Medium heat. OK.  The flavor?  You know, it was pretty simple, but in a good way.  Sometimes when there's little complexity but you get a good simple agave, that's what you want. The length of the finish was standard. Read more »

From TequilaGringo: We were pretty excited to try this one after enjoying the blanco so much.  Like the repo which is light by repo standards, it's a very light pale yellow for an anejo.  The anejo smells a bit of berry's and a light sherry (no rhyme intended) that mixes well with agave and a light alcohol.  When you sip this one, you'll find a very nice sherry flavor on top of the agave and a long sweet finish.  To go with a killer velvet mouthfeel.  Our tasters really enjoyed this anejo, and found it very unique and easy to sip.  8.6 stars.

tasted 01/07/2010

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From TequilaGringo: This repo is a very pale yellow.  The nose is tough to pick out because it's not a strong smelling tequila. But what comes through the most is the agave - after-all, it is tequila so why shouldn't that be what you smell?  But that's not all, there's a bit of cinammon in there too though.  Tasting this tequila and you'll find it's a very straightforward tequila.  Agave taste, medium heat in an oily mouthfeel.  The finish is brief though, a bit here and gone. 7 stars.

 From TequilaGringo: One of the great things about tequila is that it's perfectly acceptable to get way out there with bottle designs.  There are modern ones. Read more »

From TequilaGringo:  We were a little fired up about this one because we simply love their blanco.  A great blanco doesn't necessarily come out of the barrel great (and vice versa) though.  The time with the wood alters things a lot and sometimes that's for the better, sometimes it's not.  So we knew not to get too nutso about it.  Arette's anejo arrives with a yellow/gold color and has a slight chocolate/caramel to the nose, maybe a little earth.  Smooth, soft, cool mouthfeel. Taste was pretty unique, with a bit of spice, some orange peel and med-high heat. Long, flavorful finish. Oh well, once again a great blanco does not a great anejo make. Read more »

Here's a very well put together Tequila 101. Brief, concise, good pace. Enjoy.

Here's a British video showing how tequila is made. They do a nice job keeping it high level and simple. It's a great 5:45 walkthrough that includes fun-to-see visuals of TG.com favorite El Mayor's manufacturing processes. Check it out.

From TequilaGringo: We'd heard some good things about this anejo so, much like Pavlov's dogs, our mouths were watering simply on sight.  I'm happy to report that this tequila doesn't disappoint.  And it's one of the most unique tequila's we've tried.  The first sniff brought us a wide range of different smells, while cinnamon is the most prominent, there are also a buttery smell, and what I can only describe as a pastry-like note in there.  Then came the taste.  At first you get some agave, and some heat, but very very quickly the flavors start coming.  One of our tasters actually said "cinnamon bun", another, "candy apple".  There are some notes of wood and vanilla in there as well, but the cinnamon leads the Read more »

From TequilaGringo: These distinct bottles arrived and we were immediately intrigued.  The first we tried was the silver (habit I guess).  Riazul starts with 6 year old agave's, where most use 8-10 yr old plants.  Riazul reports that sugar levels in the younger plants is higher and helps create their great taste. The nose came off as a vegetal, earthy agave.  Not necessarily typical for a highland tequila.  The taste is where this tequila impresses, it's really fantastic. Read more »

From TequilaGringo: Luna Sueno's blanco offering arrived and it was apparent immediately that these guys know how to make a tequila look really tantalizing.  It comes in a sleek (dare I say, beautiful?) black box.  The bottle is hand blown, which gives it a very authentic feel, and hearkens back to old Mexico, we like that.  We're suckers for that.  Perhaps the most unique quality of Luna Sueno is the quality (we can be witty with our plays on words yes?).  Most tequilas are distilled twice.  We've seen a few triple distilled.  This is the first cuadruple destilado we've come across.  Each distillation removes impurities - two is usually enough but to strive for a fourth is to strive for absolute purity. Read more »

From Tequila Gringo: We were thrilled when Juan Carlos Contreras reached out to us about his fantastic anejo.  Not only is Juan Don Pilar's Brand Ambassador, he's also the son of Don Pilar.  I have to say, he sent the nicest note you can imagine.  During our back and forth, it became clear immediately that Juan was a great person, and since we had heard great things about his anejo we were starting to think something pretty special was going on down on their ranches in San Jose de Gracia. We hadn't had it yet, but our chance was about to arrive.  Read more »