Life in The Family International

We just had a couples’ day out, so went to a town called Tequila and we were surprised that there was so much tequila there! Well… actually we weren’t surprised. We went there with the intention of finding out how they make tequila and possibly even drinking some. We met the manager of the Jose Cuervo plant and he was such a nice guy and invited us to go on the tour they take tourists on through their tequila plant to see how they make it out of the plant… or should I say cactus. So I think I got this right:

They first cut off all the leaves of the cactus till the heart is left, then they take the heart and cook it in an oven (these big ovens you’ll see in the picture of us eating these cactus roots,) it tastes sweet and burnt, a little like piloncio– a Mexican sweetner. Then they squeeze the juice out of the cooked cactus and let it ferment, then boil it and the raw un-processed tequila comes from the vapor. I guess this is the distilling process which I am not so familiar with but I think I am getting this right (for those of you who know, correct me if I am wrong).

So we then tasted the raw tequila and it was quite strong. After that, I think they water it down and further refine it a bit to smooth it out then they put it in barrels. They have three kinds of barrels, each made out of a different wood: a french wood, american wood and a chocolate wood. I don’t know exactly what the chocolate wood means, but I think the wood gives off a slight chocolate flavor or maybe it has to do with the color, I don’t know, anyway the color of the tequila has to do with how long it stays in the barrels. The longer it stays in the barrel the darker it is and more expensive but not nessessarily better, it depends on your taste. I personally like the white tequilas, this means they are in the barrels for the least amount of time, but most everyone else prefered the darker. Usually you are meant to drink the darker ones straight so you can enjoy the taste. Also something else I learned was that the tequilas that say 100 % Agave are to be enjoyed straight and the ones that don’t are more for mixing. Well, here are some pics of us tasting and seeing the process.

After the tour they gave us some margaritas and I think the bartender liked us cause he was happy to spike them a little more And you’ll probably notice some crooked pics and the girls sitting on the laps of some statues (maybe due to the strong margaritas)

Click here for the photo gallery.

Vas and Joni are members of The Family International and are fulltime missionaries in Mexico. Vas helps to organize outreach, writes, records and produces music, plays in a band, performs and does shows, counsels young people and engages in evangelism. Joni teaches her four children, evangelises, performs and does shows, sings and records and assists The Family childcare board. More about Vas and Joni

This entry was posted on Monday, November 20th, 2006 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.