Why tequila is a woman

“Tequila is irresistible, demanding, and powerful,” wrote Mexican poet Vicente Quirarte. Like love, he added, it is not for the half-hearted.

“Tequila has always been a part of charro mythology but in a sophomoric sense,” says Gonzalo Delapezuela of Cazadore, a well-respected distillery in the highlands of Arandas and the second stop on my pilgrimage. “Twenty years ago, it was more about a right of passage into adulthood, about bravado and machismo. Now it is about connoisseurship and tradition and refinement.”

To make her point, she brought out from behind the tasting room bar Cazadore’s newest super-premium tequila, Corzo, which comes in a sleek, elegant bottle designed by Fabien Baron who is best known for designing fragrance bottles for the likes of Calvin Klein and Jil Sander. Over a hearty lunch of carnitas and handmade corn tortillas, I sipped an amber reposado, with hints of vanilla, green apple, and pepper, that had been distilled twice, then aged in white oak barrels for two months, distilled a third time, then rested in oak barrels again. The taste was as stunning as actress Dolores del Rio, as unforgettable as Mexican diva María Félix. When I told this to my hosts, they laughed and said it was because of the music. What music? I asked.

They led me through the Cazadores distillery, where Corzo is made, to a building where rows of stainless-steel tanks, filled with fermenting agave juice, were bubbling away while listening to a German recording of Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.”

Cazadores’ tequila masters claims the micro-organisms in the fermenting agave juice are moved by the music and feel happy so they ferment quicker and are more relaxed. “

This is what I mean when I say tequila is feminine; what other spirit likes to listen to moody Russian composers while she ferments?