When its time for a drink, you are in the right spot to take part in one of Mexico’s historically famous past times- Tequila. Here in Playa, you can most likely find one of each current brand on 5th avenue. And of the many unique blends offered with this distilled Spirit, it carries an equally unique history too…
The two basic types of Tequila are blanco and mixtos. Blanco is 100% pure from the traditional agave plant, and the mixtos is blended with no less than 51% from the agave plant. Today, Tequila is known to come from the state of Jalisco, and specifically the city of Tequila. However, the whole story behind Tequila’s current status is colored with some twists and turns of its own.
The story goes that when the Spanish Conquistadores ran out of their own brandy, they copied the Aztecs distilled spirit, then called-olqi or pulque. Pulque came from the Agave plant. This was called North America’s first distilled spirit. So Tequila was born by a sort of patent infringement. And some of this same sort of thing continues until today with trade regulations surrounding the rights to manufacture and bottle tequila.
So that’s the straight story in a nut shell! Sales of this distilled spirit have been sky rocketing since 2002. Most brands are carried by large corporate interests as a result of the spike in demand, but you can still find several ‘mom and pop’ brands too. And the whole myth about the tequila worm is just that, a myth. In fact, a worm is a sign of infestation- it is not a welcome sign, it was said to be a marketing gimmick set off in the 1940’s.
