Can You Taste the Music? | EL MUSICO Tequila Blanco Review

[00:00:00] Can you actually taste music in tequila? I know that sounds like a marketing line, but El Musico tequila, they literally making music part of the fermentation process. And being both a tequila guy and a musician, this is one thing that immediately got my attention. El Musico Tequila Blanco produced at NAM 1499, Casa the Killera di Arandas and Aranda Salisco, right in the Los Altos Highlands area. And before we get into the music part, there's a pretty serious tequila story behind this bottle. El Musico was founded by brothers Jamie and Jesse Cabria, along with Rachel Willby and Ernest Montoya. The idea started when Jamie and Jesse were drinking tequila. I think a lot of things happen when people are drinking tequila and they were looking up where the tequila they were drinking was actually made and realizing how many different brands came out of the same distillery. They wanted to create something that could stand out on its own in the tequila world, but also connect a huge part of their lives music and given independent musicians a platform at the same time. But I gotta say, the most important person behind this story is their master distiller, Miriam Lopez. Miriam is one of the relatively few female master steelers in Mexico. She oversees the operations at Casa Taquela de Arandas. She is a trained chemist. She brings decades of tequila experience to this project, including experiences with casadores. And she also trained under the legendary former Don Julio master distiller, Enrique Di Colsa. So this isn't someone who just showed up with a crazy idea to play music tequila. There's a real technical background behind what they're doing here. And that chemistry background becomes really interesting when you get into what a musical calls music crafted process according to the brand. They were inspired part by what sometimes is called the Mozart method and the idea of playing music during fermentation and exploring whether sound vibrations can actually influence the fermentation environment. But El Musico takes it a little step further. They just didn't put a speaker on somewhere in the distillery. They built a custom audio system designed to direct the music exactly towards the top of the open fermentation tank where the cooked agave sugars are fermenting with that champagne yeast, allowing the sound, the vibrations, to interact with that fermentation environment throughout the process. Now, I want to be really clear here. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I think there's a science that's been proven that rock music makes tequila taste different than country music or Mexican music, because that hasn't been established. But I actually respect the way El Musico talks about it, because they even say we don't have all the answers yet. They call this an experience. Each batch is built around music of a featured artist. So part of the concept is seeing whether the different music, different rhythms, and different vibrations might ultimately create noticeable differences batch to batch. The actual tequila starts with 100% blue Weber agave, approximately seven years deep well water and a champagne needs in fermentation. 40% ABV or 80 proof. And the agave all comes from the highlands. It is slow cooked in a low pressure autoclave. This is twice distilled in stainless steel pots with copper components. But I like the idea that fermentation is where all the flavor comes from. Now, this brand describes its profile as coked agave, citrus, vegetal, and herbal notes. So we'll get into that in a minute. I haven't tasted it yet, but I have poured the glass just to let it kind of rest and open up. Now, as a musician, I think this is pretty cool. I love their bottle. I love the back label. I love the pick that comes on it. So let's hope all of these things that I think is really cool in the presentation wind up in the glass. All right, hit the nose. I do get cooked agave. I get a little bit of a funk. There's a touch of citrus. There's a little bit of an earthy note there as well. Not quite like a petrichor or a wet concrete. Maybe more like just a little bit of earth. There's a touch of lime in there as well. So so far, the nose seems pretty good. Let's dive into the taste some nice sweet coca gave. [00:03:44] There's a little bit of pepper in there. That citrus kind of shines through. A little bit of lime in the taste as well. [00:03:50] A little bit of citrus as well. Maybe a touch of. A touch of like an orange peel and a little grapefruit. The finish is nice. It has a little bit of heat to it. A little bit of sweetness comes in. That citrus kind of shows up a little bit more in the finish. Not a super complex tequila, but a very easy sipper. One thing kind of cool is there is a. [00:04:08] A code here that you can log on to this QR code and actually listen to the music that was played while making this. So it's going to take me a minute to taste this tequila and kind of really judge it and see what I think so far. To me, not super complex, easy to drink, nice flavor. Doesn't feel like there's anything fake going on. There or anything manipulated in 1499 has a lot of great tequilas that are produced from there. And Miriam Lopez is not only a master to skiller trained as a chemist, but she's worked under some of the greatest, greatest master distillers out there. And it's just great to see another woman's touch on a tequila as a master distiller. And she's brought up those good agave flavors with a lot of character. And to learn about those good tequilas, you might jump over to the Tequila Report at the Tequila Report.com Subscribe 66 Some thousand people get it in your email. It comes every week. It's got great updates about information of tequila industry changes, news about new brands, news about old brands. It's always great stories. It's kind of the Rolling Stone of Tequila, so definitely check it out. If tequila kilreport.com subscribe, I think you will enjoy it. If you've had El Musico drop in the comments, let me know what your thoughts are. We'll probably revisit this one or dump it into a blind soon. I want to say thanks for sending me the bottle. T shirt's pretty awesome too. I'm going to drink the rest of this for the evening. Cheers. Have a great one.