Why I’m STOPPING the Term “Lowlands” | Tequila Regions Explained

[00:00:00] Hey, guys, I want to talk about something real quick. I'm always asking, hey, what could I do better? And a good friend of mine, somebody that I really respect, that has lots of years and really a lot of knowledge in the tequila industry, he said, can you stop saying something? [00:00:16] And I said, sure, what is it? And he said, oh, lands, stop saying lowlands. The more we talk to it, the more I understand what he's talking about. So we talk about a couple of regions within Jalisco where tequila is made. One of them is Los Altos, which is the highlands. And it's the highlands because it's somewhere between 5,500 foot elevation to 7,000 foot elevation. And even some areas go up as much as 9,000ft elevation. And then we talk about the Tequila Valleys area and the valleys. I got in this habit of calling it the lowlands. But you got to think of how crazy that really is, because the lowlands is somewhere between 3,500ft above sea level to 4,000ft above sea level. So now we're talking about a city that's a mile high. It's like Denver, Colorado. So all of us in the country of the United States sit around and talk about how high Denver is. Yet I'm on here doing videos talking about tequilas that are made in the lowlands. So something that I'm really going to work on changing is, is instead of referring to Tequila valleys as the lowlands, I'm going to refer to it as the valleys because it is a valley next to the Tequila volcano. And then I'm going to focus more on the highlands areas as Los Atos. So I also want to mention a couple of things about regions where tequila can be made, because I have people ask me still today, can tequila be made in America? And the answer is no, it has to be made in Mexico. But within certain regions of Mexico, tequila can be made in the entire state of Jalisco. So that's really important. When you think about the amount of tequila that's coming out of Jalisco, it's a lot. But it also can be made in other states, in certain municipalities that have approval. Guanajuatro, Nayarit and Tamaulipas. So when you look at Jalisco, that's the entire state. So cities everywhere in Jalisco are making tequila. So you can go to Los Altos region, you can go to Aranda, Santa Nico, many, many towns around the Tequila area. The town of Tequila, Amaratan, Outernel, there's all of these cities. And everywhere you're driving, there's tequila made everywhere. There's blue agaves going everywhere. But when you visit, like, a state, like Nayarit, then it's only certain municipalities that have been approved to be able to make tequila in those regions. So, yeah, tequila only made in Mexico. And one of the things I'm going to work on changing is making sure that I refer to tequila from the valleys and tequila from the highlands or Los Altos and change that in my vocabulary. So, Jimmy Salza, thanks for pointing that out to me. I really appreciate it and I really want to make sure that I'm representing everything to the best of my ability. So if you have anything that you'd like to see me do different, that would be great. I definitely will try to make changes. And tonight I'm not drinking tequila. I'm drinking an agave spirit. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but you probably can guess, and it is absolutely amazing. And it is made in the valleys. Have a great night.