Astral Tequila Blanco Review | Original NOM 1137 vs New NOM 1607 | Is It Still Worth Buying?

[00:00:00] What happens when a small, artisanal tequila brand gets bought by one of the biggest liquor companies in the world? Does it get better? Does it stay the same? Or does it lose what made it special in the first place? Today I have something that is getting a little bit harder and harder to find. It is this right here, Astrio Blanco. This one is made at nom 1137, and the other one that I have is made at nom 1607. They moved it there after the brand was acquired by Diego. Today we're going to taste them side by side and see if the tequila evolved into something better or see if it's lost its way. So a little backstory. I bought this tequila a long time ago. I thought it'd be a tequila to talk about as a non traditional tequila. And I was recently at a liquor store in Greenfield, Indiana, and lo and behold, this thing was on the shelf. This was originally made at La Col Fadilla. So I threw up a message on all things tequila and said, hey, is this worth picking up? So many people told me yes. I went back to get it, and I thought this would be a cool video to do them side by side. This is a fresh pop. I have not opened it yet, so I'm really interested in diving into it. I. I have read that a lot of the old school tequila people, the enthusiasts, you know, us nerds, said this was a good spirit back in the day. I'd love to know what year this bottle stopped being produced and what year that it moved. The brand does have an interesting story. When it first launched, it was trying to compete with the biggest brands on the shelf. It was positioning itself more as a traditional tequila with an emphasis on authentic production. The original Bottle here is 92 proof, or 46%. So it offered a little more intensity, and back in the day, that wasn't really as popular as it is now. Diego, one of the largest spirits in the world, acquired the brand, redesigned the bottle, lowered it down to 80 proof, and now produces it at 1607. I haven't been in that distillery, so I can't give you an eye for eye of how that tequila was made. Can't this one either, because it's long before my visits to tequila. All right, let's pour them side by side and see the difference in nose and in flavor. [00:01:48] Okay. Let's dive into the new one first. Get a little bit of cooked agave. So a little faint herbal note. I'm gonna say a faint amount of lime zest as well. Okay. So let's dive into the old school bottle. Way more cooked agave. I get this little funkiness, a lot of funk, almost like a little chocolate or cacao. Seems more vegetal and has more minerality type notes as well. That's kind of. It's got a kind of a nice funk on it actually. Okay, let's. Let's dive into the taste of this one first. [00:02:17] It's got a weird sweetness. It's got a stingy, bitter taste. Don't really taste a lot of coch agave. I get this weird mouth feel, this weird aftertaste. It's also very light. [00:02:30] Not a tequila type that I've tasted in a while that tastes like that. So this is a very neutral, very weird mouth feel. And the sweetness, that's not great for me either. So let's, let's taste this one. I've never had this one before. [00:02:42] Nice cooked agave, nice minerality. It has a nice vegetal type heat when it starts, goes in and then you can feel it heating up. There is a sweetness there, but it's definitely not that. The sweetness that's over here. I'm. I'm going to claim that that's like a fake type sweetness with a weird mouthfeel. This is definitely a cooked agave type sweetness. The funky note there is in the nose and in the taste. But you do get cooked agave and it does have a nice mix of minerality and veggulous. There's some mint in there. There's a little bit of dark chocolate in there. It does have a nice mouth feel and the finish lasts a long time too. I'm going to say I'm glad I picked this up. I'm not going to run out and say this is the best tequila I've ever had. It's. It's not. Is it something I would sip on? Yeah. I'd like to see what it's going to. How it's going to sit in a. In a few days after it's been opened up. Since that was fresh pop, this one, probably not going to sip on it a whole lot. [00:03:33] But it is nice to have an example of how a brand can change. [00:03:37] You know, the packaging changed and what's funny to me is a lot of packaging changed to taller bottles and a flashier bottle and they changed to this little squatty bottle with. With a nice logo. This, this one is something that stands out to me that it would be different especially in that taller bottle as a higher proof. [00:03:55] So packaging wise, I definitely like the packaging over here better. So let me know if you've had these two tequilas and tell me what your thoughts are on them. And do you like older bottles versus some of the newer things that you find on the market? Do you like running in and finding an old dusty bottle on a shelf? I think it's kind of cool to find them. I'm not a collector, I'm a drinker. But if I do see something that's older than what I have at home, I like to buy it and try it and see how those flavors, see how that tequila has changed over the years. You know, the agaves are different and fermentation is different. Today, a lot of things are different. So it's, it's pretty neat for me to grab an old bottle and give it a try. And learning about tequila, I think is fun. And if you like learning about tequila, I think you, you should go over to the Tequila Report. You get stories and interviews and reviews and just some really awesome information. A lot of industry news and educational content that drops into your email once a week. So go over to the Tequila report dot com, subscribe and check it out. Drop the comments. Let me know what you think of this tequila and do you think it got better or worse? [00:04:50] I'm going to go ahead and say I don't think it's as good as it used to be. Cheers. Have a fantastic night drink. Good to keep.