By Larry McCrary, President, Agazul USA
Mexico manages to make a massive amount of tequila due to the popularity of the drink. It currently produces more than 500 million liters per year, or more than 650 million bottles’ worth. While not all of that would be 100% agave tequila, that is still around 100 million agave plants’ worth. Considering that most agave for tequila is harvested by hand, it puts into context the massive amount of work it takes to get a bottle to your local liquor store. And all that comes from one very special Blue Weber agave plant.
Unless you’ve had the opportunity to stand in a field of agave plants in Mexico, you aren’t prepared for just how big they are. By law in Mexico, tequila can be made only from Blue Weber agave. That’s because, like Champagne in France, Prosciutto di Parma in Italy and other historically significant products, tequila is governed by strict laws to protect the purity of its origins and flavors. Blue Weber was the agave first used to distill the spirit in the town of Tequila hundreds of years ago and gives a unique taste due to a level of sweetness well above most other agave plants.
The wide range of tequila yields from a single Blue Weber agave plant comes from the range of sizes they can grow to. Blue Weber can grow leaves that reach heights of up to 6 feet, but what really matters to tequila yield is the piña. This is the center ball of the agave plant that the spiky leaves grow from, and it gets that name because, once it’s trimmed for tequila, it resembles a massive pineapple.
On average, it takes five to seven years for one to mature to the point of making good tequila. And there are also limits on where tequila can be made. Not only can tequila be legally produced only in Mexico, but the country limits production to five states. Jalisco, Guanajuato, Tamaulipas, Michoacán and Nayarit are the five tequila-producing states, although Jalisco is by far the dominant one. The area of production is limited because, just like wine grapes, the taste of tequila is highly tied to the type of geographic region it’s produced in, such as highland and lowland tequila, so only proper growing conditions produce proper tequila.
The piña, or the heart, represents about 50% of the mass of the whole agave plant, and at harvest time, it can weigh anywhere from 20 to more than 200 pounds. The piña must be cooked to concentrate the sap into sugars, which can then be extracted for fermentation and distillation. The way piñas are roasted can also determine the final flavors of the tequila. While agave syrup is obviously sweet, it isn’t that concentrated in the piña, so even those massive yields produce only a moderate amount of juice. By law, tequila is only required to be made with a minimum of 51% agave, and many more affordable tequila brands are filled out with things like corn syrup or cane sugar. That means the amount of tequila they can squeeze out of a plant is theoretically higher, but if you are sticking with the 100% version, and ideally the additive-free options that many people consider true tequila, a half-dozen bottles is standard.
In the end, it takes around 7 kilograms, or 15 pounds, of piña to produce a liter of tequila. A typical 750-milliliter bottle takes only around 5 kilograms, or 11 pounds, to produce.
Visit Agazultequila.com
