WHAT YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT MEXICAN TEQUILA

Mexican tequila is a spirit produced in a small region of Mexico that bears the same name: Tequila, in Jalisco. It is produced from the distillation of the fermented must obtained from the heart of the blue agave plant and is an unquestionable witness to the clash of two worlds, as it is born from a technique brought from the Old Continent to transform an ancient natural resource of the earth. Mexican.

 The agave is an extremely diverse (there are more than 200 varieties) and abundant plant that grows throughout Mexico. In the mid-16th century (around 1550) the blue agave was a valuable raw material for everyday life: its sap was used to heal burns, insect bites and skin wounds, its leaves were used to build sheds. , make needles, pins and nails, strong ropes, make paper and once the leaves were dried they were used as fuel. And if the agave was burned, its ashes were used as soap, lye or detergent. But until that moment, no one had thought of drinking the fermented liquid of the plant, and once the first Spaniards began to produce it, they did not have it easy.

The colonial government, to encourage the importation of Spanish wines and spirits to America, prohibited the manufacture of American products from the beginning, condemning tequila to clandestine production. But said production (demand, actually) grew disproportionately in a short time and since the government needed money, it decided to authorize it to collect the corresponding taxes. Thanks to this move, works as important as the introduction of drinking water and the construction of the municipal palace of the city of Guadalajara were financed.

Tequila was consumed by Jesuits, Franciscans, indigenous people and anyone who wanted to cope with the loneliness and inclemency of those times. The new generations of tequila producers already enjoyed a certain political influence and 300 years later, with Independence (1821), the rejection of products imported from Spain would also come, so Mexican tequila prevailed over wine and other European drinks. .

Tequila enjoyed a good reputation for a time but then the North American railroad arrived loaded with European spirits, Porfirio Díaz and the preference of the Mexican upper class for everything that had a French character, repudiating the national drink and leaving it to the popular classes. The Mexican Revolution (1910) and the uprising of those popular classes had to come to recover the love for national expressions, returning tequila to its place as the undisputed king of Mexican culture and identity.

Tequila once again established itself as the leader of national consumption and from the most humble classes it was introduced into cinema, culture and the high spheres. The film industry had a lot to do with it, since it was in the Golden Age of Mexican cinema that this image was built - not always real or beneficial - of the stereotype of the Mexican with a poncho, hat and tequila in hand. But it did well for the tequila industry and in 1940 exports reached unsuspected levels (it also helped that during World War II North Americans did not have a supply of whiskey).

From then on, global consumption and export of Mexican tequila did not stop growing. In Mexico, tequila is drunk at baptisms, communions, weddings, graduations, birthdays for children and adults and of course, any Sunday at noon at family dinner. As if that were not enough, a few years ago UNESCO declared the old industrial facilities and agave plant landscapes in Tequila, the town of Jalisco, as world heritage, and July 24 was designated as Tequila Day.

As we say in Mexico: no one knows the recipe for happiness, but if it has tequila, it has tequila.