Herradura Distillery Tour

Tequila Tasting, In Amatitan

DAY 1

The flight to Guadalajara felt surprisingly short from Seattle.  The feeling of finely landing was overwhelming.  I’ve been working so much that this time away has been badly needed.  I was hoping to get a little more weather out of Guadalajara, which is known for being nearly perfect, but it was rainy season.

Herradura was kind enough to bring our Director of Operations, Jason, and myself to the distillery for a full tour and tasting of a barrel we bought just for the restaurant.  It’s a barrel program that was started by Brown/Foreman and we are lucky enough to be the first account in Washington State to sign on.  The program involves Herradura taking their reposado and aging it in a second barrel for a short period of time on top of their average aging process.  This barrel is then bottled with custom labels and both the barrel and bottles are sold to the restaurant or bar.

Guadalajara is a beautiful city with a deep history which seems to be woven into the tequila world in one way or another.  It’s location in Jalisco, and size, makes it the hub before starting any tequila adventure.  Jalisco is not the only state that Tequila can come from but it is the most famous and well known.  Tomorrow will be spent out on agave fields and in the distillery seeing how the tequila making process was done in the past as well as the modern techniques they use today.

DAY 2

Today was a day that I will remember for the rest of my life.  My passion for Tequila has stuck with for many years now and I’m thankful to have this experience under my belt.  Waking up in Guadalajara we meet back up with Ruben Aceves Vidrio, global brand ambassador for Herradura Tequila.  We got in his car and headed to the Herradura distillery in Amatitan.  The complex is massive in size and keeps you silent, in awe, from the minute you enter the gate.  Rock and stone roads stretch around the property with very detailed stone designs and all of it showing it’s age.  Grass and trees are everywhere (more on the trees later).  Old buildings and houses with small decorative details and bright colors greet you at the gate and turn into larger building housing the fermentation tanks, pot still and ovens.  Beyond all the stone streets and brick buildings are sprawling fields with agaves growing in various stages of life.

Starting the tour was a walk through of some of the homes that are still in use today.  There are about 30 families that still live and work at the distillery in some fashion.  The family that used to own Herradura is no longer a part of the company but they hold a small property that is used as a weekend home.  The entire complex is self-sufficient including a large library and small church.  Moving down from the houses we walk past some of the large brick buildings into a lower open area.  In the middle is a huge stone and brick hanger that is the roof for all the ovens used to cook the agaves.  They still use ovens and slow cook for 26 hours or so to slowly convert (breakdown) all the starches into sugars and turn the agave a golden to dark brown.

These are unloaded from the other side of the ovens and put into shredders that rip apart and “juice” the agave.  The juice is pumped into large open tanks with holes between them to help with consistency.  This juice is in turn pumped to another warehouse that hold two story high open topped tanks used for open fermentation.  The warehouse has huge openings all around the building to allow it be exposed to all the airborne yeast.  I had said that there are trees everywhere, there are fruit trees mostly, lime and pomegranate but lots of other kinds of trees and bushes, all have been on the property since it’s beginnings.  There is such a high concentration of natural yeasts in the air that the agave juice is almost boiling with yeast activity in just a day or so.  Fermentation lasts about 4 days.  We went up top to the fermentation tanks and tasted the tequila (technically not tequila yet) in it’s various fermentation stages.  Agave wine is essentially what is pumped into the pot stills in the building next door.

There is not a column still on the property, all pot stills, and although very automated there is quiet a bit of hands on labor that goes into such a large operation.  We were able to taste the tequila in its first distillation and second.  The slightly warm blanco was a burst of flavor and agave notes on the palette.  We moved from the distillation warehouse into the storage warehouse.  Herradura gets their new American white oak from a cooperage in bourbon country.  They use each barrel 9 times then shred them or make planters.  They are never sold.

Leaving the aging warehouse we move past the bottling operation.  Very automated of course but very impressive.  Ruben walked us through the old distillery which is of course not in use and used as a sort of museum.  All stone with deep wells which were the old open fermentation tanks.  This followed through like a cave into the old pot stills which where of course heated by a wood fire underneath.  This room followed into another stone room which housed all the barrels for the program.  A nice display with signed barrels along one wall towards the back in the middle in a small opening in the stone were our three barrels waiting to be tasted.  Each one was sealed and labeled with details about the distillation batch.  We were given glasses and ripped the seal out of barrel one to start the tasting.  I will say that it was not easy to choose and there was lots of back and forth as to which one to buy.  We ended up deciding on barrel number one.

After the barrel was chosen and the tour coming to an end we had lunch in a field and drank through all kinds of tequila including a new favorite.  Herradura’s Blanco 92 proof.  It pains me that this tequila is not available in the United States.  So much so that I had to buy a couple bottles (case) to bring back.  After lunch we walked through some of the agave fields.  Walking through hundreds of agave taking in the smells and putting my hand in the dirt I couldn’t help but feel an attachment to my surroundings.

Amatitan is the birthplace of tequila but the marketing center is easily Tequila, just 15 minutes away.  Driving around and seeing the small four walled distilleries and closed in warehouse’s just solidified the difference of Herradura with its open, beautiful campus.  I drove by Partida, Jose Cuervo and Casa Noble to name a few which broke my heart to see dismal operations in tequila’s I typically like to drink.  It was a very bumpy drive back into Guadalajara were we finished the evening with Argentinian style steaks and watching Mexico beat Camarun in penalty shots.  Then we went to bed…. Yep… just went to bed… nothing else happened (that I remember)!

Come swing by Milagro Cantina in Kirkland and try a one of a kind reposado that when gone will never be replicated because the barrel it was finished in is sitting by the host desk.  Salud!

Article and Pictures by: Mark Sexauer

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