By Donald H. Harrison
PUERTO VALLARTA, Jalisco, Mexico — In 1958, the Latin rock instrumental “Tequila” by the Champs topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. It featured the saxophone playing of Danny Flores, whose stage name was Chuck Rio. His twice enunciating “tequila” and the whole band shouting “tequila!” as a climax made the catchy tune so intriguing. What was all the excitement about, I remember wondering as a young teenager. What is tequila anyway?
All these many years later, I had a chance to find out during a fun-filled visit to Hacienda Doña Engracia in this city that claims to have the most semi-permanent American residents of any city in Mexico. A tour bus chartered by the Holland America cruise ship M.S. Koningsdam brought us to the factory named for a woman who in 1927 supplied home-distilled tequila to rebels protesting anticlerical provisions in the Mexican constitution.
The name “tequila,” we learned can only be applied to the liquor fermented from the juice of blue agave whereas liquor fermented from the more common green agave is known as mezcal. We were told that only the tequila distilled in the state of Jalisco is entitled to the name “tequila”—just as only the sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France may be called “champagne.” However, blue agave also grows in the states of Aguascalientes, Colima, Guanajuato, Nayarit, and Zacatecas.
At some point after the blue agave’s 7th year, when its spikes have grown as tall as a man, the plant is harvested. The blue spikes are shorn from the plant’s underground heart or “pina,” which may average 120 pounds in weight. Roasting the pinas produces sugars that are released when the pina is crushed and shredded by a heavy press. The juice is fermented with water and yeast, and later distilled twice. It comes out cloudy in the first distillation, clear in the second. Thereafter it is stored in oak barrels for two to three weeks to produce tequila blanco. If it continues to be aged for two months to a year, it becomes tequila reposado (“rested”) and for one to three years, it becomes tequila añejo (“aged”).
Thus oriented, we were ushered to the sounds of the Champs’ “Tequila” instrumental into a tasting room, where we were poured in succession shot glasses filled with the blanco, reposado, and añejo varieties. These were followed by three more shots of tequila, so we could savor the drink mixed respectively with peach, almond, and coffee flavors.
At this point, not feeling any pain whatsoever, we went to a covered patio where we were treated to a Mexican buffet with beef, chicken, or pork, tortillas, cooked vegetables, salad, and cheese. While we were eating this repast, and thereby absorbing some of the alcohol we had just consumed, we were entertained by two men and two women who performed three folkloric dances. Between their costume changes, we also witnessed a nimble charro dancing in and out of his lariat, and a dancing horse and rider who kept time to a rousing Mexican melody.
The fun was not over because after the performances, there were contests for our group. One challenge in which three men competed was to drink a shot glass of tequila neat and then to shout out some happy expression or another. The fellow whose shout of joy was most convincing won a small prize.
Then two ladies and a fellow competed into a tortilla making contest in which they took a ball of dough, put it into a small press, pushed down on the cover, and showed how perfectly round and flat their tortillas came out – or didn’t, depending on how evenly they applied the force. The woman who won was herself from Mexico, practice apparently having made perfect.
Last was a piñata swatting contest, in which mercifully the tequila-happy contestants were not blindfolded. The winner got himself under the piñata, then swung his stick straight up, lacerating the treat-filled piñata from the bottom. Other, less successful, contestants manifested their inner Babe Ruths and tried to swat it baseball style, sometimes hitting it, sometimes missing.
We all could have happily stayed much longer, but our bus needed to leave to get us back to our cruise ship in time. It was an afternoon of education, inebriation, participation, relaxation, and satisfaction.
