Say Arriba! To Tequila, The Trendiest Toasting Spirit On The Tipple Scene

THE ETERNAL STREAM of viral videos that have bubbled forth from the never-ending wedding of they-who-shall-not-be-named are dotted with a few gems. In one of them, the Mumbai Indians’ skipper Hardik Pandya is seen more than enthusiastically miming out a shot glass while mouthing the word “tequila” several times. As with everything else at this event that has its foot on our necks, the spirit was right, but the consumption very wrong. Also: Hi Hardik, btw, everyone’s only sipping tequila now, okay. Thanks. Toodles. 

“Tequila is cool, trending everywhere, especially on Instagram,” says Manu Chandra, founder and partner of Manu Chandra Ventures, the man behind Lupa and Single Thread. He points to social media as “definitely a large driver” behind its popularity. While it has always been drunk as a swift shot, “suddenly it’s become sipping for everybody; it’s like people have woken up to its nuances, which had gone ignored for so many years,” he says, speaking to the trend. “But in all fairness,” he quickly adds, “good tequila was always hard to come by in India.” It’s expensive and it’s not a cheap drinking habit, notes Manu: “it's still a drink for the haves”. 

The Source

The origins of these three spirits are intimately interconnected with each other. “The ancient Aztecs of Mexico were the first to make tequila, or rather its predecessor called pulque,” says Merwyn Alphonso, the bar manager at Yauatcha Bengaluru, giving us a brief history of these alcoholic beverages. Pulque was the fermented juice of agave sap. For this drink, the heart of the agave plant, which grows underground, called a piña — similar to a pineapple but white in colour — was baked underground in brick ovens to transform the starch into sugars. This result was crushed to extract a sweet juice, which was fermented with yeast to transform the sugar into alcohol. “The introduction of distillation to this traditional technique from Filipino merchant sailors and Spanish conquistadors, along with a new-found appreciation for the flavoursome extract from the Weber blue agave plant (Agave tequilana) initially found around the town of Santiago de Tequila in the Mexican state of Jalisco, lent its name to this more modern version of the spirit,” Alphonso tells us. 

The Specifics

It’s *only* tequila if produced by cooking and fermenting the hearts of the Weber blue agave plant; double distilled in a part-copper pot still; bottled and inspected in the five Mexican states: Jalisco, Nayarit, Guanajuato, Michoacan and Tamaulipas. 

It’s mezcal when the spirit is produced and processed from the little over 30 agave species, varieties and sub-varieties indigenous to Mexico. “The piñas are roasted underground in pits, which lends mezcal its characteristic smokiness,” explains Shashank Singh, the assistant bar manager at Bengaluru’s Ouro. 

And finally, the spirits made from the 200-odd species and subspecies of the agave plant found outside of Mexico are called agave spirits. And each brand, or producer, of agave spirits processes their product differently. “We use the same species of agave plants used to produce mezcal — the wild Agave americana found in Deccan Plateau, which has this wonderful smell of petrichor…earthy and enticing — but we process it like tequila, by cooking instead of baking and double-distilling in a part-copper still,” explains Kimberly Pereira, chief operating officer at the Goa-based Maya Pistola Agavepura, one of the popular national producers of agave spirits. 

Each of these spirits are available in five grades: blanco, the least aged, clearest liquid and most agave-forward; reposado, or rested for a less than two years in barrels; añejo, aged for up to three years in an oak barrels; extra añejo, extra aged with a rich amber colour; and the latest classification, cristalino, i.e. aged tequila filtered through charcoal to turn the liquid back to transparent.

The Spike

“The contemporary pattern of consumption in general shows that people are more cognisant of what they are putting into their bodies, so people are conscious of the calorific content of their liquor too. And are reaching more for drinks with no added sugar,” says the brand manager Pereira. Chef-entrepreneur Chandra echoes this insight and adds, “a bunch of recent studies established that the natural sugars — agavins — found in the agave plant aren’t digested and absorbed by the human body like other naturally-occuring sugars: sucrose, sucralose, or fructose. And so, it’s become the latest skinny drink, a diet drink.”

The Scope

For mixologists, it’s the versatility of these spirits that has them buying more bottles for their bars. “For example, cristalino tequila allows for the infusion of its caramelly, cask flavour profile of aged tequila into a Margarita, without transforming the familiar colour of the Margarita but gently elevates its drinking experience,” says Singh, Ouro’s bar-man. These agave-based spirits don’t have to be masked by fruity, sweet notes any longer, declares Yauatcha’s Alphonso. “The ageing process of these spirits has made them more complex, and so they are able to pair with a range of ingredients, and are just perfect for salty, spicy and savoury drinks,” he adds, describing creations spiked with ghost chillies and jalapenos.

“I make a mean Martini cocktail with agave spirits,” Pereira boasts, speaking to the trend of tequila sliding in as a substitute into classic cocktails as well. She even recommends skipping the cocktail prep and going simple with it as a nightcap: “Just a splash of cold water or poured over cubes of ice is great.”