Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I recently had a buddy of mine, a close friend, who asked me, why do you and your wife go to Mexico so much? What are you doing and why?
[00:00:09] And I really had to take a minute to explain to him that we're going to Mexico as often as we are. Not for business, but for pleasure. And that pleasure is around hanging out with the friends that we've met in the tequila community and getting to do the things that we do at the distilleries in the agave fields and learning more about tequila and agave spirits. And it really excites us, and it's why we do what we do. Just recently, we got to come down to Tequila and head out to the fields with Rene Carranza and Cristiano Mortanz and the velour team to harvest one of the hemas for batch three of valar, which is coming soon. We got to not only go out there and watch them, but we got to be a part of the team, watching them cut down the agaves, watching them harvest them, load them into a truck, then go up and have an actual authentic, handmade breakfast with Renee's mom, who cooked for us. We had these amazing breakfast and back to the fields to finish harvesting. They loaded the truck until it was full, and then we went back up and we had a lunch, and she had cooked chicken and these gorditas. And the food was absolutely amazing. And the views were incredible too. We left really early in the morning, around 5 o' clock in the morning, it was dark. And we took the drive, and it was about an hour drive around the back of the Tequila volcano. And then we headed towards the volcano and then climbed up the back side of it to the Carranza ranch. And it was absolutely beautiful. Some spectacular views. The property was amazing. You went from, you know, really thick grown overground to all of a sudden, this freshly manicured agave. There was also a lot of sugar cane that's being grown in the area down in the valley that as you climb up, it switches to agave. And the stories Renee was telling of how that agave was planted was amazing. And then from there, we did the harvest and headed back to the town of Tequila. And the next morning was really exciting for us. We got to go to Esquete, which is a bar that is downtown in the town of Tequila. They have amazing drinks, amazing tequila. And there we sat down and they brought out a bunch of little bottles like this. And what we were there to do was actually choose the final barrel of what will be my velour single Barrel Anejo. And right now, it's at a higher proof. It's hanging out in the barrel. And this is the one that we chose. We actually chose barrel number two. Of course, this won't be the logo. This is just something they kind of stuck on there for me and let me know it's barrel, too. And they put reposado, because right now, it's just a little over nine months. So it definitely is a reposado. But I kind of wanted to talk about that process of actually picking a single barrel and also talk about one of the things that I learned in the tasting that was pretty cool for me. Now you see me drink a lot of a glass like this or my big brandy glass there. We drank out of more of a standard, you know, regular glass for tasting. And one of the things that Alfonso, who was doing our tasting, taught me as when he would take a bottle like this, he would shake it up. And I asked him, hey, why are you shaking it? And he said, when you think about how alcohol evaporates in the glass, it's changing and coming out of the fluid. So if you shake it now, you're going to balance that a little more and mix it back in. So I found that interesting. That was new for me. And then we did two pours for every single tasting. We were tasting through five different barrels. One of the things he did that was new for me was he would pour a glass, and he would then have us nose that glass. So we would spin it, we would nose it. You spend a lot of time getting all of the different smells out of this tequila. And we did this for quite a while. And then he said, okay, taste that.
[00:03:45] So now we had all the notes and all the flavors. And then he re poured the same barrel into the glass, and he told us not to move it, not to shake it, not to smell it, but to go ahead and drink it the second time.
[00:03:58] And I gotta tell you, there's something that happens there that's incredible. So when you're moving the tequila, swirling it, you're aerating it, you're moving out some of the alcohols, you're getting a lot of the oral factors. For you to be able to smell this tequila, 70 to 80% of what we taste is from the smell. So when you're taking this tequila, you're nosing it, and you're getting all that in there, and then you drink it, you are now priming your system for everything that you just nosed and smelled and aerated. And that second pour, then Lets you taste without aerating it or moving it. And what it did was the second pour intensified all of the flavors in that tequila that I picked up in the nose that I didn't get as much of. I thought I did, but I didn't get as much of it as what I did in the second taste. So I challenge you. Aerate it, move it around, nose it, taste it, pour another glass. Don't aerate it, don't shake it, don't stir it. Just taste it and tell me if you get more flavor. So I hope this was helpful information.
[00:04:57] This will be the anejo. It was barrel number two. It'll be coming out this fall, probably going to bottle sometime around July.
[00:05:05] And I'm really excited about bringing out a single barrel product. I know there's some people out there that really don't like single barrels or don't like the fact that people do this. One of the things I want to point out is not doing it for profit. I'm doing this whole project as a charity event. All of the money will go back to the Gente Buena foundation, which has done so much for the town, San Pedro Los Landeros. And I hope you look into that. Go to Gente Buena and look at what they do. Next step is after we've brought them all fresh water, the next step is to bring them a medical clinic which is going to be so powerful for their community. So I'm really proud to be able to help that out. Hope the tasting help. Single barrel coming soon. And I'll tell you, the reason we head to Mexico as often as we do is for the people, the tradition, the food, the fun, and of course, the amazing agave spirits. If you haven't been, I implore you to go. Don't be afraid of the things you hear on the news. Just know that it's safe and you're gonna have a great time. And if you have questions about going to Mexico or where to go in the region, definitely put it in the comments. If you're on Instagram, just send me a dm. I'll help you out as much as I can. If you like videos about tequila and agave spirits, hit that like share button. Tell your friends. Appreciate you watching the videos and cheers. Salute.
