Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Okay, today I probably have one of the most amazing videos that I got to be a part of. Today's video is going to come from a place of history of Tequila, Mezcal. I got a guy on here today that is one of the original families that started tequila in the 80s and today he's a master distiller of several brands. Two of them are in front of me in Terminus and Dos Angeles. Going to bring you Jimmy Salsa and he's going to talk about the history of tequila, his family history, and how he became a master distiller. So stick around.
Hey, Jimmy. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Hey, Brad. I am doing amazing. There is nothing better to begin the week than speaking about tequila. So let's have fun and let's just enjoy great tequila and great conversation with a great host like you.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Well, thank you. I'm so happy that we got to do this. The day that we spent with you in tequila and you told so much of your story and the history and then the in depth things of how tequila is made. I knew you'd be great for the show and you'll share some fantastic information. So I'm really excited about having you on.
Are you going to pour something to start drinking while we're doing it?
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. I have two glasses and I have two bottles of tequila. So that's just perfect.
I see that you have three. Three bottles.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: I have three because I have the lot five and the lot four of intramanas. And I'm gonna pour the lot four because I've never. I haven't had it yet. So I just opened it up today.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Excellent. I have lot number one for Andronos. This lot was made and sold exclusively in Spain. So full batch number one or lot number one was designed for Spain and that's where you can find still a few of those bottles in Spain if you are lucky. Because right now they are having the batch number number two in the market. But the batch one for Entramanos was designed for Spain. And also I have batch number one from Dos Angeles Cados. You should have patch number two. It is in the front. You can see the batch number right in the right corner.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Mike says 001 DAC.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: No, then you have the same than me. That's batch number one. So yeah, we're taking the same Dosnos batch. That's amazing.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Oh, that's so good. These are so good.
So if you could tell everybody kind of who you are and what a little bit of your tequila journey yours is different than anybody else I've had on the show, guaranteed. And just tell everybody a little bit your story.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Well, my name is Jaime Villalo Sausa. I am a fifth generation since Cenobio Sausa, the founder of Tequila Sousa. And maybe you have heard this before with somebody else, which is Guillermo Ericson Sousa because he has the same speech than me. He is a fifth generation member since the Novo Sausa. So my great great grandfather is the same guy than Guillermo Ericsson great great grandfather. So what happened in our history is that since the second generation there is a different branch family. That means that his great grandfather was the brother of my great grandfather. And then my grandfather and his grandfather were cousins. Then his mom and my mom were second cousins. And Guillermo and I are third cousins. That's how Guillermo and I are related. But the guy that unites his branch and my branch is family branch is Senorio Sausa, which is the same guy. Founder of Tequila Sousa. We know about the data foundation of Tequila Sousa in la Perseverancia in 1873. But he was in the business like 15 years before he bought the Stiri La Perseverancia. So yeah, we have a legacy for more than 160 years. My last name, it's completely related to the tequila industry, to one of the founders of the tequila industry. It's something that makes me feel completely proud. Because when I mention the tequila industry, it is important to distinguish the product and the profile of the product. If we go back in time to the origin of tequila, what was tequila at the very beginning? It's super interesting finding that all the agave spirits that we have in the country came from one single place. The knowledge of doing distillation in a Philippine still was when the Philippines were coming to Mexico, in the Spanish boats coming directly from Philippines. So they knew how to do distillations. And mainly they did it with palms and what they were making. People in Mexico used to call it bino de cocos, which means coconut wine. They call it wine even though it was not a wine, it was a spirit. But they call it pino de cocos. And then this knowledge about distillation, they found out that somebody was making a liquid, a beverage that was called mezcal, which means a cucagave. Metiliscali cucagave. And they were extracting the juice from the cucagaves and then fermenting this juice. And after the fermentation they say, hey, what happens if I take this liquid and I put it into your little machine that transform the tuba, into vinodecocos to see what happens. And the result was pretty obvious. If you put tuba, which is the savvia from the palm tree, and you transform it into vino de cocos, when you take the mezcal, which is cucave, or juice, fermented juice from the cucave, and you distill it, the answer was obvious. How are we going to call it? Well, vino mezcal, right? If one of them is vino cote cocos, this one is going to be vino mezcal. So basically, all the agave spirits that you know from Mexico are coming from the same origin, which is the vino mezcal. What happened is that the knowledge spread to the south and the knowledge of distillation spread to the to the north. And because all of the agaves that we are using in the different industries are native to these different regions and these different areas. That's why each spirit got their very own personality. When you are doing each product, it's also very important to mention that, that all of the agave spirits in Mexico that we call that we come from Pino Mezcal. It is important that we need to say that all of them are also mezcals. Because when you listen about mezcal, you may think in the category mezcal, but the truth is that we need to see mezcal as a whole. Mezcal is everything. It's all the spirits that we have made from agave. And what happened is that we have mezcal and then we have the subcategories of mezcal, which can be tequila, can be vacanora, can be raisilla, and also mezcal. So in the top of all of us, there is the mezcal, the original, the vino mezcal. And then we have mezcal, and then we have tequila, Bacanora, Braisilla, and all the other spirits coming from agave that are not very famous, but they are there. And they have been there for more than 350 years, 400 years. Like for example, Tuxca Cuesco. Have you heard about Tuzca Cuesco?
[00:07:57] Speaker A: I mean, no, that's.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Well, Tusca Cuesco. Tusca, the name right now it's Tuzca is the city is Tusca Cuesco. But the name they call the spirit is Tusca is one of the first places where you can find the origin of all of these agave spirits. So even before Mezcal, even before tequila, even before Raicilla, people was drinking tulka and maybe you haven't heard about it, but it's an older liquid than mezcal and tequila. So, yeah, when you listen about this true origin of the agave spirits, which is amazing and it is just beautiful, you can identify that the personality of the spirits is related to the behavior of each product in the region that it was produced. What happened with mezcal when you talk about Mezcal? Well, right now it's pretty famous, but if you go 50 years ago, nobody was talking about mezcal for one single reason. And that is because the mines, the people that got the knowledge to produce mezcal, they were producing mezcal just for themselves and maybe to sell to the neighbor and maybe driving, well, not driving, riding a horse to the next town, to the closest town to them to sell a few liters of mezcal and finding it as a way to make some money. So the behavior of the mezcal was just producing a little bit of the liquid and selling around. And that was pretty much what happened with mezcal, with Draicilla, with Bacanora, it was pretty much the same. A very local production only for personal consumption or selling to the people surrounding the areas where it was produced. But the difference and all of that I mentioned is going to refer to the first topic that I was talking about, the industry. What happened is that the industry of tequila was born with somebody, a group of people that I can mention my great, great grandfather Cenobio, and also I can mention the Cuervo family, the Orentine family, Rosales family. All of these families that are the founders of the industry. They say, you know, this is an amazing product. When I am making tequila or vino mezcal de tequila, you know, the original place was bino mezcal de tequila, referring of the product and the place, then they removed the vino and they call it mezcal de tequila. And they removed the word mezcal to just call it tequila. They say, you know, this is an amazing product. This should be known by a lot of people, not only by the locals or the regionals. This should be known by many, many other people. And maybe one thing that was very important is that the Guadalajara city was really to tequila. And maybe that made things easier for the tequila to become an industry. So they say, hey, let's produce a tequila and let's take it to Guadalajara. So they took the product to Guadalajara. Then they said, let's go to big leagues. They went to Mexico City, and in one moment, the same year that Cenovio Sousa My great, great grandfather bought the distillery Lantigua Cruz and transformed in la Perseverancia in 1873. That's the first year that he also exported tequila to us for the very first time and also was 1873. So what happened is that he said, okay, let's make this thing big. I think it's a great product, it's super enjoyable, and it will be a success in the market because the quality speaks by itself. So these mines, these industrial mines, transform the product to be a very small production, very artisanal production, ancestral production. They transform it into an artisanal production. And when they did this, they also create a new profile of the tequila which is pretty similar to the one that we are tasting right now. When you taste mezcal, when you taste racillas, you can taste and smell this roughness now, let's call it roughness of the places where they are making it the way they are making those. I was in our racilla distillery five days ago. Let me show you this picture, which is just beautiful. Look at this, look at this.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: Yes. Imagine doing a distillation there, where you can see this is. This is wood. This is wood and this is. This is the leaves from the agave make the. Oh, sorry. Which make the condensation of the. Of the steam producing inside. You have fire, a direct fire under here, and you're receiving it here in Ajicara. So this is what you are expecting from a raicilla. That's a raicilla. It's something that you can also expect from mezcal or from a bacanora, but it's something that you don't expect in a tequila. Why? Because we became an industrial product. And what is the main difference that I can mention about industrial and artisanal products like this one is that, for me, raecillas, mezcales, sotoles, vakanoras, those kind of spirits are spiritual spirits, meditation spirits. It's something that you need to sip, you need to enjoy, you need to analyze, you need to breathe inside of the glass five, six times before drinking it. And I really enjoy it because it's a supreme experience. And then you can have one glass, or maybe you can have two glasses, but that's pretty much it, because it is like, let's say, like bacon when you're having a breakfast and you have scrambled eggs with the orange juice and you have some beans on the side and you have the bacon. Maybe the best part of all of the breakfast is the bacon, right? It's like oh, my God. It was just amazing. But imagine when you have the full breakfast is the bacon. Wow. If you only have bacon, it's not that great. So for me, that's how I treat these spirits, where maybe it can be the most expressive, the most deep drink that you can have in the night, but it's not the one that is going to be with you the full night. For that, you need the Tequila. Because you know when you are drinking tequila, you can be with a bunch of friends and you are drinking and drinking and drinking, and when you realize you already finished the bottle and it's not something that creates saturation, because that is part of the personality of the tequila, that it's. As a consequence of what happened when we became an industry, we sacrifice some of the most dense or some of the most complex aromas and flavors to get a super. Let's define it like that, a super easy to enjoy spirit. That's why you can give tequila to 10 people and maybe nine will say, this is amazing. And you give mezcal to 10 people and maybe three or four is gonna say that it is amazing because it requires more experience to understand the complexity of those spirits. But tequila, no. Tequila is easy to drink, easy to enjoy, easy to sip. It's a super versatile product. You can prepare absolutely anything. If you make a margarita with a tequila, nobody's going to say anything. If you make a margarita, imagine using this Brazilla made in this Filipino still. And making a margarita with that is going to be like a crime, right?
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: So, yeah, basically, Tequila is this versatility. That's when I say that Cenobius AUSA was one of the pilots or the founders of the industry of Tequila. That's what I mean. And I feel completely proud to be part of this, of this family and this legacy.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: That that explanation is going to have people cheering at this break. They're going to be like, yay. That was great explanation. And opening up into some of these other spirits that people haven't had before is where us tequila people start digging into, learning about those. And the raisia that I had with you was absolutely amazing. And I can't wait to find a bottle when we're down there, because that was just. I mean, that's something to talk about and share. It was really good. So question for you. How did you get started actually distilling? And how long have you been a distiller?
[00:16:22] Speaker B: Well, I am a sausa. What we got in my family as a legacy, My mother, what she got was land. She got 13 hectares. 13 hectares of land. That was at the beginning that was pretty much like, have you ever heard that I want the. I want a tiger? No, it's like when you say, oh, I want a tiger. It's like, what should I congratulate you? Should I say sorry to you? What do you want to do with a tiger? Like, I want a tiger. Sorry. Congratulations. You never know what to say. It was pretty much for my family the same because my, my mother got this land. And if you don't work the land, it means. It means nothing. So one day my father went to his father in law, which is my mom's father. Because many people, when they listen that I am speaking about my dad and the tequila and my grandfather, they think that is my dad and my. And my grandfather. But no, you need to realize that it is my father and my grandfather is the mother. Is the father of my mother, the one that I am talking when I am speaking about tequila. So yeah, my father went to his father in law, my grandfather, and he said, hey, Don Alfonso Alfonso's house. And my name, by the way, I am Jaime for my father and Alfonso for my grandfather. So that's my name, Jaime Alfonso. So he went with Alfonso Alfonso Sousa. And I say, hey, teach me how to grow harvest in my moments land. So my grandfather taught my father how to grow agaves in these 13 hectares. And the first batch of agave that my dad produced, it was in the year 1998, 1999. And back then, the situation of the agave industry was pretty much like right now, with a lot of agaves in the fields. So the price was pretty much nothing. And what my dad decided to do 25 years ago, it's pretty much what most of the people is doing right now. Hey, I have agave. Nobody's going to buy it. Let's make it a tequila brand. A bad idea. Transforming into a second bad idea about 25 years ago. The difference was huge because there were not so many brands in the market. So my dad said, okay, let's get into the tequila business. Not in Takabi, but in the tequila business. That was year 2000. And what my father decided to do was invite me to begin to work in the full process of harvesting the agaves, producing a tequila for our family, which is Relesa Mexicana, is a brand that is still existing. He's a super small brand. But that's how I got involved into the knowledge of tequila. I helped my dad to produce Ralesana Mexicana. I learned with him many things on everything related to tequila. And let's say like 10 years later I was doing a tasting and in that tasting there was a guy that really enjoyed the tasting that I gave. And he told me, hey Jimmy, do you only make tastings or do you also know how to make tequila? And I said, no, no, I also can make tequila. And he told me, I want to develop a new brand of tequila and I want you to be my master distiller. Would you? And I said, yeah, of course. I mean it's going to be the first time. But I feel pretty confident on the knowledge that I have gained in these last 10 or 12 years working as spreading the knowledge on tequila and working with the family brand. Even though it was a really small one and that brand was suave, maybe you have heard about that one is the bottle that is a little bit twist you along that it is with a little twist. And that brand so far was my best school in making tequila because the co owner of the brand, Cesar, one day he told me, jimmy, let's make tequila. And you can do whatever you want, but you just need to be sure that it makes you feel proud. So do whatever you want, you just feel proud about it. So what I did is as I wanted. We made a blanco with made a lunar rested, which is a 28 days tequila blanco in a barrel from full moon to full moon, which is a full lunar cycle. That's why it is called lunar rested. We made reposados anejos, we made tequila hoven also, we made single barrel editions, we made collaborations with tequila matchmaker to make a hoven. So I did pretty much everything with that brand and that allowed me to perfectly know the distillery. Maybe we haven't mentioned that, but I work with Partida family. The Partida family, the six brothers. I mean there are five brothers. It's Ileana and his and her four brothers. And I call myself the sixth Partida. No, because there are five Partidas brothers and sister and I am the sixth partida. So basically I considered myself that as a six partita. They welcomed me and they say, jimmy, this is your distillery, you can do whatever you want. So basically it's like my kitchen, they own the kitchen. But I can, I can put the chef, the chef had to prepare anything that I want in that distillery. My collaboration with they is just amazing. I really feel part of that family and I really feel part of that distillery because that's how, how they have made me feel in that distillery. So yeah, it's 1522 with Ilana Partira. I developed Suave and that gave me enough confidence to know all the strengths that we have in that distillery. Since then, I have developed other brands. Some of them are in Mexico, some of them are in us, some of them are really small and some of them are growing in the market. The best two examples that I can give you is Centromanos at Dos Angeles, which are brands that are constantly growing and gaining space in the market and gaining more conversation. Because that's the idea that the people, every single time that they see a Dos Angeles or Entremanos or Cachasol, which is another project that also will be growing really nicely, those three brands are expected to grow in the market and gain a space in the shelf and a space in the respect of the people that when everybody see those bottles, they say, this is a great tequila, a super enjoyable tequila, and feel confident to buy them for themselves or to give them away so to somebody else. So, yeah, that's how I got involved into the tequila production. I've been doing this for 12 years, developing brands for other people and completely involved into the industry. It has been 25, 25 years now.
[00:22:49] Speaker A: That's awesome. And the brands that I've had that you are involved in have all been amazing. I've actually done an interview like this with Alan Taylor, the owner of Intermanas, and he told the story of how the. The logo and the name and the story about all the string being put on there and the bottle being developed. And he's. He's a really amazing guy. So I'm going to assume that it's pretty fun working with him. And then this year I actually got to have the. In a tequila matchmaker blind. And it was one of the top ones out of all of them, you know, and of course, I didn't know what it was. It was a blind, so I had no idea. And then when we got the results of what tequilas were in the blind, I was like, wow, I've always wanted to try that one. And I. That was the first time it was absolutely delicious. So.
And then I had this blanco with you. That's the first time I had the blanco was right after I did that blind. So very, very good tequilas. So question that I think a lot of people want to know a little more understanding than what some of us content people talk about. So you've got three bottles of tequila here, all three of them. You're the master distiller. All three of them are valets, agaves. All three of them have the same water source, the same.
The same roller mill, the same. These are probably all autoclave, because that new stone oven's not quite done yet. Right. So how can you take these three tequilas and have such distinct flavor differences in them and explain how that process kind of changes the flavor or develops a profile of tequila?
[00:24:31] Speaker B: Yeah, well, when you are, I call it master distilling. No, mastering. Mastering distilling, you need to completely know all the tools that you have in your distillery to create a profile. You just mentioned something that is very interesting. You just say these are autoclave tequilas because you don't have the brick oven working yet. Yeah, that's. That's true. And it's something that I have realized that a lot of people doesn't know, that you can manipulate the autoclave to make many, many different profiles in the tequila, something that you cannot do with a brick oven. You know, brick oven, you have a pressure that you can put inside of the brick oven, but you cannot increase that pressure other way. It will explode. No. Or sometimes you cannot produce it because there are leaks of the steam of the pressure. So the steam is going out of a brick oven. So basically, what I can tell you, one of the main differences that you can find in these two tequilas, Los Angeles, and it's how I use the autoclave to create different personalities and different profiles between each other. Also, it's something important to mention is that as a master distiller, you can control as low as you want to control in the process, or as much as you want to control in the process. Let's say in a 100%, if you are a very industrial distillery, producing batch after batch, after batch, producing batch every single day in three different shapes. For selling a lot of millions of liters of tequila, obviously what you're expecting is to have the most standardized process of production and the most standardized product. So the manipulation in those cases can go as high, in my opinion, to 90, 92, 93% is the most that you can really manipulate in a product. And the remaining 6, 7%. It's depending on things that you cannot control or you can control, but not that much. And that is what going to give you some difference between your own batches, even though you are a super standardized distillery. Take any example of a single distillery, tequila, let's say Teremana, no Teremana, which they are producing all in one distillery. If you taste one batch to the other batch, you're going to find differences, even though they are producing a lot of tequila because you cannot control. My opinion is not more than 92, 93% is what you can control.
When you are a master distiller, taking decisions on the product, you can live to the chances, let's call it like that, to the chances of anything happening as much as you want. I can say that with Entromanos, maybe I am taking 70, 75% of the decisions on the product and that 25, 30% remaining. It's just left to chances. What are those chances? And it's something that you can find even in the web, which is the seasonality of when you are producing your tequila. If you go check the web, you will see that batch number one maybe was. I don't remember. Alan perfectly remembers dates and everything, not me. But let's say that Batch 1 was made in November, Batch 2 was made in February, Batch 3 was made in August, Batch 4 was made in June, and Batch 5 was made in March. Let's say something like that. What happens when you are leaving a high percentage of chances to happen in your product is that you will have an influence on influence of different things in your tequila that you are not controlling. Let's focus on what we have in the distillery in Hacienda de Oro in 1522 in Amatitan, we have natural fermentation for both brands. But when we're talking about Entrumanos, if we are producing a batch in January, that is the coldest month, it is dry season, there is no rain at all, and it is really cold. So the temperatures are low. And the temperature range is also low. It goes from maybe, let's say in the tank, it goes from 1215 to 21, 22 centigrade. If you go and do this in May is the hottest season of the year, and the ranch temperature can go from 18 to 40. So the ranch is going to be way more when you are doing the fermentation. And if you do this in, let's say, August, September, which is rainy season, and the temperature is not that hot or not that cold, also the range of temperature will be different and you will have a lot of things happening around the distillery that will influence the product that we have inside of the tanks. So basically, what we're doing with Entre Manos is giving a high percentage of chances to. To set the profile in our tequila. And that is amazing because even me, it gets surprised every time that I taste the liquid. And I say, well, this is a very interesting batch. I have these families of aromas, and it's different from the last one. And maybe different from the last one. And maybe different from the last one. So it's very interesting to have this kind of surprises from batch to batch. And, well, that's pretty much the personality of entromanos in terms of chances. And what is important, I mentioned before, is the cooking process. What we do with entromanos is that one of the main aromas and especially that you can find in the aftertaste of entromanos is that you will have a little bit of smoke, A little bit. It's not like mescal. No, let's not think in mescal. But you will find a little bit of smoke. And that is because we are doing a cooking process in the autoclave where we do the full process of cooking. And instead of opening the autoclave to cool down the agaves really fast, we keep it closed. And when you are keeping it closed, you have residual heat. And that residual heat will keep affecting the agaves, and you will keep creating some other components, aromatic components that will be inside of your glass. That's pretty much what happened in Entromanos. And I am talking about mequinoles, about guayacoles, and of course, about furfurales, the metil, Furfurales, mechanoles, guayacoles, all of these are the result of the cooking process. So the concentration of these elements is higher in Entremanos compared to, for example, Dos Angeles Caidos. Because that is part of the intention. We wanted to give that as a part of a personality of entromanos. So I can mention that the main difference in entremanos is that one, the cooking process and the 30% of chances to anything happening to enrich our fermentation process. That's entromanos. And with Dos Angeles Caidos, the intention is to have a very regular process of cooking to extract more of the natural aromas and the natural flavors produced in a very standardized process of production. The intention of those Angeles caitos is having, let's call it a cleaner profile. It is not that the other one is dirty profile and this one is clean. No, it is not the definition, but it is a cleaner profile. And what we are expecting is less differences between one batch and another, because we don't have yeast added to these tequila either. It's also an open, natural fermentation happening. But we manipulate the process a little bit more to give maybe 15, 20% of chances to something happen to the tequila. So we try to manipulate more the process to have a product a little bit more standardized and Representing more the natural aromas of the traditional process, of this industrial process. Again, I use the word industrial because tequilas are industrials. So that's what I wanted with Dos Angeles Caitos. A very enjoyable, easy to sip tequila where you can find a little bit more agave, more citrus, more herbal, a little bit of flower, which is a very nice profile to find in a tequila. In Entremanos, we're looking for more depth, a little bit more aftertaste, a little bit more complexity. In this case, no, we want a cleaner profile of tequila. So, yeah, that's how we make this boat tequilas. And that's why you can find many differences in Entremanos batch. Batch number one is different from two, from three, from four, because we're leaving high chances. And Dos Angeles, you can also find some differences, but the difference will be narrower than the ones that you find in Intermanos because that was the intention that we have in Dos Angeles Caidos. Also, it is important to mention that Entremanos is only blanco. So basically we want to give a full experience on only a blanco. So that's why we are doing this. And with those Angeles Caidos, I have so much fun working with this brand because I am producing everything. We already have the Rosa in the market, we have the reposado. We just finished the Anejo very recently. I think it's just crossing the border or it just crossed the border two days ago. So Danjo is going to be find out in the US in the next. The couple of weeks. So we have the chance to express many more things about the brandos and Jeles Kaidos with all the expressions, which is h. Expressions. Something that we don't have here in Tremanos. So that's why we need to have so much fun with our own expression, which is the blanco.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: The, the difference between 4 and 5. On my side, 5 is a little more malolactic than what 4 is.
And I pick up a dark chocolate note in the nose in number five that is not there in number four. You just, you can't find that dark chocolate bit here every time. It's like malactic right into dark chocolate and it gives me goosebumps. It's so good. But, and, and this one is, it's very easy to drink. It has a lot of great agave flavor and I get a nice like minty spearmint in the finish.
That is, it's. It's very good. I really like it. So it's. That's really cool. Now you talked about the. The different temperatures and time frames of fermentation. And I didn't know that. About changing the. The temperatures and the pressure of the autoclave. That was a great explanation. Is there anything that you do with changing the temperatures in distillation to make changes within that profile as well?
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Well, you know, there are so many things that you can do with the distillery that I can go crazy. No, I can go crazy. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Alan. Alan called me like three months ago. Jimmy, we need to do this. We need to make a. I don't know if I am doing something that I should not do right now, but we're doing something that will be called a spring release. Okay.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: Okay. We just call it that.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: Maybe if you know that I wasn't allowed to say it, you just remember that this was the first place that listened to the spring release term. And it was with you, Brad.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: Love it. I love it.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And Alan told me, hey, Jimmy, we need to do something super special. Let's do a spring release. What do you have in mind? And I was driving from the distillery to here and just driving, it was like an hour driving. And in an hour in the road, I was, let's do this one. Let's do this one. Okay. When I got here, I called Jan and Alan and I said, I have what we are going to do.
And I explained to them what we were going to do with the spring release. They absolutely love the idea. And that's how we came out with this product that is going to be in the market pretty soon. And we will have the chance to talk about this one later. But what I want to say is that there are so many things that you can manipulate in the process and to have fun with what you have in the distillery, that I don't want to have 100 different expressions of tequila. With these very few quantities of high quality brands that I have in the market. I can make a special edition. 10 special editions for Dos Angeles, 10 special editions for Entremanos, 10 special editions for Catch Us All. But I think the market is oversaturated. Let's focus on having a very clean, defined profile for the brand and having something excited, exciting, each some, some, sometime, not all the time, but sometimes you release something special that the people will feel excited. So answering your question so far, I've manipulated the cooking of the Radis. I have manipulated the fermentation process, I have manipulated the fermentation containers and also I have manipulated distillation processes, but not with temperature, which is something that you can Do. If you do slower fermentation distillations or faster fermentations, you will get very different results in the product. But no, so far in terms of temperature, I have only worked with the standard procedure for those stills, but manipulating many other things. That time will come when I manipulate distillation. But so far is the standard, a standard process of distillation.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: So I know you guys have a tohona there and roller mill. But these products are all roller mill, correct?
[00:38:18] Speaker B: Yes, yes, all of them.
The Taona was used only once for a very small batch. You know, when you, when you put a new element in the process of production in the distillery, you need to prove in front of the CRT that it works and what it produces. So Ileana, run a little batch in the Taona just to prove to the CRT that it was working, but so far has been used only only once. So basically all the tequilas that you have coming from 1522 so far are coming from the mill.
[00:38:48] Speaker A: And with roller mill, you don't usually do any fermentation with fibers in the fermentation tanks. Correct.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: We have two kinds of fermentation containers. One of them, the largest are 22,000 liters and there are stainless steel. All of them are not using fibers, but having fun, as I told you, having fun and creating some different profiles. I have used fibers in wood containers, but it's just for like, for these special releases, not for the average personality, for the brands.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: I believe I seen those wood containers when we were there.
Off to the side.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Next time you go visit, I will explain you. Those are mine. I have them in my warehouse, in my family warehouse in the ranch. And they were abandoned. And one day I had the idea, hey, let's take these containers and do some fermentation in the distillery. So, yeah, it was fun. It was an idea that I had like six months ago and it related to the spring release that we will have with Entremanos and for some other personal project that I will, I will launch also on, in the next, in the next few months. But yeah, it's just all about having fun and being creative and giving to what the market is looking new traditional or artisanal or eccentric ideas that produce well made tequilas? No, because I can get crazy producing really bad tequilas. But my idea is to create different things that are bulletproof, that when you taste it you say, okay, this was crazy. This was eccentric. This is ancestral, this is traditional. But the result is great. So that's the Only rule that I have for, for making tequila, make bulletproof tequilas, that it doesn't matter what you do, they're great.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: That's. And they are. And that's one thing that I appreciate from the distillery that you're at, is if I see a tequila and it's a 1522, I know it's either you or Eliana. And the tequila coming out of there is going to be what everybody wants. Traditional, added, free, great flavor profiles. And each one may be a little different. And the fact that it's such a family, it's a family affair. You know, there's. There's many, many partitas. There's a great depth of salsa family. To see that come together there is really awesome. And, and you, you are amazing. I have so much, so much fun talking with you and, and you're such a genuine, really nice person. And I appreciate you taking your time to do this. I really, truly do.
[00:41:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. You know, Brad, I am working. I am working on reconnecting my branch family to the industry. I had the chance to tell you this in person, but it's something that, for example, in Guillermo, Guillermo's branch, you know, the founder of the tequila Sousa was his great, great grandfather. Then his great grandfather was the second generation ahead of the distillery. Then Francisco Javier Zaoza, his grandfather, was the third generation in the family, and his grandfather was the one selling the company.
So that's when the legacy in the distillery was broken in his branch family. And then his mother, Sylvia, well, he was in charge of the museum and she was in charge of La Villa in tequila. And Guillermo was doing pretty much any other kind of stuff. And one day, Guillermo visiting his family villa, he saw the abandoned distillery that is right in the corner of La Villa. And he said to his mom, hey, mom, you have this abandoned place. Let's make tequila here. So what Guillermo did was rescuing something that was part of his family, only with the gap of one generation, which was his mother, because the three first generations were in charge of Sousa. Then his mother was not doing anything related to tequila. So he came to the rescue of the last name and the distillery that he found in the corner of his mother's house. I am trying to do the same, but with a bigger space in production because my great grandfather Cenovio was a tequila salza owner. But in second generation, my great grandfather didn't got the distillery. She got a small distillery, she got haciendas, and she got. I mean, he got a lot of land. So basically what he got the Most was land. I'm talking about thousands of hectares of land. But what happened is with the president, Lazaro Cardenas, he took the land from the landowners and give it to the people. So basically migrated. Grandfather lost 95% of the properties that he used to have. So he kept a really small part of the land that he owned. He kept a small distillery and he kept a small hacienda. So when he passed away, which was pretty young, my grandfather was just beginning to go to university to study in university. So basically that's how my branch family finished with the production of tequila. And what my grandfather did was pretty much commercializing with tequila. So he was going to tequila, buying tequila and selling it in one of his stores in Guadalajara, because he used to have stores in Guadalajara. So he was selling tequila, buying tequila and tequila and selling tequila in Guadalajara. But he didn't produce any Tequila with my mom was pretty much the same. He got involved into the business with my dad, making this small brand, Releza Mexicana. But the truth is that they are doing it just, I can say maybe pretty much like a hobby. So there is a gap of three generations in my case, that now I am trying to rescue this gap between my family to bring back the industry of tequila for me and for my kids. You know, I have my twins, they are seven years old, and I take them to the distillery. I already taught them how to take samples out from the barrels. They helped me to move barrels all around the distillery. And I go with them pretty often because I want them to fall in love with the industry. So basically I am rescuing this history of mine to have something to give to them, something that I didn't receive directly. Indirectly I got it, but directly I didn't. I wish I could do something like Guillermo, that going to the corner of my house and finding an amazing abandoned distillery, I wasn't. I wasn't that lucky. But I am working hard. I begin doing all of this with these different brands. And, well, I am working now on rescuing some of the history family to give it to my kids. And if they want to keep the legacy, they are a sixth generation. What happened is that they don't have the last name anymore. You know, in Mexico we have the father and the mother last name. That's why I am Villalobos Sousa Villalobos from my father, Sousa from my mother. But my kids are not sausa anymore. They are Villalobos Lunavia. They learned coming from my wife. So they don't have the last name, but they have the blood Inside of the veins running as sixth generation members from Tequila. So yeah, let's see what the time is preparing to us so far. I am just working really hard to bring back to what our last name deserves, which is tradition, respect, hard work and everything that was taught by, by my grandfather, my mother, and what they learned from, from the grandfather and father also.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: You're definitely keeping the tradition, that's for sure. So I have a question I like to ask everybody when we're wrapping these up. And I have a feeling I might know the answer to this, even though I haven't asked you before. The question I like to ask brand owners is, you know, now that they've created this brand and in your case, now that you've created these brands and you've made such a great name for yourself as a master distiller and you're bringing on this tradition of your family, if you could sit down and have the tequila that you make with anybody in the world, alive, not alive, famous, not famous family, whoever, who would be the person that you'd want to pick to sit down and say, here, taste what I've created. Taste these tequilas. Who would that person be?
[00:47:28] Speaker B: Well, this is a nice story. Well, first of all, I need to tell you that I am super lucky that I gather with my family, which is my parents, my mom, my dad, my sisters.
We gather once per week, every single Sunday we eat together. So it is amazing to have my dad, my mom, my sisters, my wife, my kids, everything together.
And every time that I do something new, it's amazing to take it with my mom and with my dad. So they will be my first option. But it is so common to do that that I will skip this pretty obvious answer and I will say that that person will be Don Alfonso Zauza, my grandfather. I remember so many great stories about him that I would love to sit with him and pour some of the tequilas that I have made. Because he gave me one advice once and I will never forget that advice. And that advice was never get. He told me, jimmy, never get into the business industry.
It is real. It is a real story. He told me that because he, you know, what I think is that he was kind of jealous to the family legacy because something really bad happened in his branch family where he received not the same thing that his brothers and sisters received. I don't know why I never asked him, but he was pretty jealous of what he received because he was pretty much the most passionate about the land and growing agaves and having ciruelas. And mangoes and going to his ranch and spending maybe half of his life in the ranch and buying and selling tequila. So he was a super enthusiastic ranch guy, pretty fanatic and passionate about the industry, but he never got anything that maybe he deserved it. And he didn't got any of what other people in the family really, really got, because what other members of the family received, they didn't appreciate it and they just let it disappear when he was working really hard. So basically, I think that my grandfather was, let's say, I don't know the word in English, but, well, he was, like, keeping things inside of him, like, oh, this is not fair to me, watching somebody else dropping opportunities and him asking for opportunities like the ones that they had. So maybe, yeah, he had hard and bad, like, resentment.
[00:49:57] Speaker A: Like he.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that should be the word. Yes. I knew it, but I didn't remember the word. Yeah, resentment. Yes.
Yeah. I think that that resentment at the end of his life was like, this industry is not worth it. So that's why his advice to me was don't do anything related to tequila because he had bad experience dedicating his entire life to something that didn't pay back to him, all his effort. So that was his advice. And the first time that I begin to get involved, got involved into the tequila industry, I say, oh, my God, I am doing the opposite of what my grandfather, a guy that I really respect so much, I am doing the opposite. Let's see what happens. So after 25 years involved in the industry, after 12 years of developing tequilas with amazing brands, what I have to say is that I would love to have the chance of having in front of me and saying, hey, try this one. The bottle has my name, but it's your last name. Pretty much everything that it is surrounding my present and my reality is because of the last name that you gave to my mother and the last name that you have. So, yeah, it will be amazing to have Donald Fonso. If you go to my Instagram, there is a picture of him, which is an amazing picture of him sitting on a horse looking alike a real ranchero. And I put, this is the patron of patroness. No, this is the chief of chiefs. Yeah, that's how I consider Don Alfonso Salza.
[00:51:26] Speaker A: Well, I think he would be incredibly proud of you. And he would taste this juice and go, well, you didn't do what I told you, but you've done a great job.
[00:51:36] Speaker B: Actually, you know, he would say it.
[00:51:38] Speaker A: Very eloquently in Spanish, which I Did not.
[00:51:42] Speaker B: You know, I have a funny story about him that I already. Oh, I think I told this story to cj and you remember because you. CJ and I were seated and cj, hey, Jimmy, I have some. I have something to tell you. Somebody told me this. Let me know if you think it is true or it is false. And when he. CJ told the story. And I say, hey, cj, I am the one that told you that story. I remember that you are asking me if I think that it is real or not. I am the one that told you the story. Why are you questioning it?
[00:52:12] Speaker A: In CJ's defense, we had a lot of tequila that day.
[00:52:16] Speaker B: Yeah. By that time. By that time was like ten tequilas and. And two or three ricillas, right?
[00:52:22] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. And. And we had a lot before we got there.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So, yeah. But this amazing story about my granddad was that he. We call it Cremeria. No, Cremeria was like for a food store downtown Guadalajara. And that's where he used to sell his tequila in these 20 liter containers. So everybody, that somebody was going to La Cremeria and say, hey, alfonso, I want 5 liters of tequila. He was taking tequila from this 20 liter container and putting some 2, 3, 5 liters of tequila to sell to his customers. But one day somebody got there and I say, hey, alfonso, I need 20 liters of tequila blanco and 20 liters of tequila reposado. So my granddad went to the back of the store and he find out that he only had 20, 20, 20 liters of Blanco and 20 liters of Blanco. And he said, oh my God, he's asking for reposado. What should I do? It's more expensive than a blanco, no? So what should I do? And he knew a trick. That is he went to the front of the store, he took a Coca Cola and then he went back to the back of the store, he opened the Coca Cola and put it inside of the 20 liters of tequila blanco. And when you do that, one Coca Cola in one 20 liters of tequila blanco, it looks like a reposado.
So he just put the top in it. And I said, okay, you have blanco and you have reposado is 1000 pesos for the blanco and 1500 for the. For the reposado. So blanco, 1500 for the reposado.
So what he did was he took blanco with a Coca Cola inside and that he transformed it into a reposado for 500 more pesos.
Wow.
[00:54:11] Speaker A: If he just put a Little bit of lime in there. It would just been a really, really strong Batanga.
[00:54:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we're missing the salt also. The salt.
[00:54:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I gotta get some salt in there.
[00:54:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But the thing is that. Yeah, the thing is that it doesn't change the. The flavor. It only changed the color and.
[00:54:28] Speaker A: Changed the color.
[00:54:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it changed the color. Yeah, it's. It's a half liter with 20 liters of tequila. It only changed the color. Yeah, it was an amazing story. He told me. He told me that story. So it is amazing for me to tell in this story and. And now he. He passed away, so the CRT cannot go after him.
[00:54:47] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. He may have been the first one to ever put additives in a tequila.
[00:54:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I can tell. I can tell this story with no regrets.
[00:54:57] Speaker A: That's fantastic. Well, I want to say cheers and thank you for coming on tonight and hanging out with me and telling your stories and you're amazing, my friend.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Brad. Anytime. You know, if you ever come back to Mexico, I will be glad to receive you. I didn't mention maybe, but some. Some people don't know that the lands that we receive from the family, it is still the lands that we have. And we have some of the most amazing views in the region. So I am inviting you anytime you want to come back to the ranch and anyone that is watching this video, feel free to contact me and I will invite you to have a tequila in my ranch. Having this amazing view of the south island, all of that was Southerland and it's just watching the mountains and the river going really deep in the. In the mountains. So yeah, feel free to come and anyone watching this video, remember me this video and you can get a tequila in the ranch with me. That's the offer for the today's offer.
[00:55:54] Speaker A: And I'm going to tell you it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. The beauty of outside of Tequila in the mountains when the sun sets with all the blue agave plants were is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. I thank you so much for taking us there. It was really awesome.
[00:56:10] Speaker B: Well, I hope to see you see soon there and drink another 11 tequilas or 12 tequilas there like last time.
[00:56:19] Speaker A: Well, cheers my friend. Thanks for doing this and coming on with me.
Appreciate you very much. Salute.
