Tequila History

The origin of tequila is surrounded by many myths and legends that come to blur the history of tequila. On myth is that it was discovered during a lightning storm, and that an agave plant was stroke by lighting cutting the heart of an agave plan in half and in turn cooking it and that the natives of the area took juice as a divine gift.

However, tequila, as we are going to read here is made from the origin of native agave through a distillation process that brought the Spaniards.

The tequila comes from the meeting of two cultures: on one hand the Mexicaslearned that the agave was a strong drink fermented, and on the other hand the Spaniards introduced the distillation technique, as well as new methods for the wine making process and liqueurs. For many years tequila has been the mezcal wine known as tequila or mezcal, since mezcal was one of the names of agave.

In the year of 1600 came to the region of Tequila Mr. Pedro de Tagle, Marquis de Altamira and knight of the Order of Calatrava, who established the first mezcal wine factory in New Galicia, what now is know as the city of Guadalajara, which is the capital of the tequila state. Don Pedro was the producer to a larger scale of mezcal wine "tequila"; hence he was considered "the father of tequila."

In 1621, in New Galicia and New Spain the king issued bans against manufacturing of alcohol, which affected the mezcal wine. The rationale of these prohibitions was that the colonial power wanted to encourage imports of wine and other alcoholic beverages from Spain, and because of that the tequila then mezcal was produced in clandestine manner.

In the seventeenth century when the wine mezcal reached its highest volume of production, and the government chose to authorize its trading. During the time specific stores were set out to sell wine mezcal, which increased the income from colonial rule, bringing the wine mezcal to earn popularity

In 1758, Antonio Jose Cuervo received the rights of the king of Spain to develop plant, produce and distill agave in Jalisco, also was the first mezcal wine to be sold in glass bottles. This drink gradually changed its name to tequila mezcal.  Later in the government of Porfirio Díaz, the production of tequila fell back because it gave preference to European society to import French Cognac and Champagne, which were then the highest class drinks

The Mexican Revolution gave a new impulse to tequila, with the overthrow of Porfirio Díaz, ending the preference towards foreign goods.  Mexico shifted to other divisions according to their own customs and culture to reinforce their identity and nationalism. Thus consuming tequila became a national drink. In 1906 several producers began packaging and selling tequila in glass bottles, contrary to the practice of transporting and selling it in barrels.

Between 1910 and 1940 the Tequila industry went into a crisis, because the industrial infrastructure was affected by political conflicts, and armed uprisings between the years 1910 to 1917 as well as the agrarian reforms of 1930. Therefore, the amount of agave decreases in large quantities. At the beginning of World War II (1940), tequila showed a slight recovery in demand, which replaced the whiskey because it was difficult for Americans to get it. Thus, tequila, reached the United States and the exports of tequila reached astonishing levels.

The 1930s was a difficult time for most producers of tequila, because many fields were affected by the division of lands during the government of President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) and cultivation of agave covered only a thirty-five percent of what it was ten years before.  Although it was a difficult stage, tequila experienced a small growth during the oil boom, which represented a significant increase in sales and consumption of tequila.

During the 1970s the Mexican government established a quality control regulation to monitor the quality of the types of tequilas that should be produced. By the 1990s the tequila popularity increased tremendously that sales were globally.