When I first started out in the wine and spirits industry, I thought I knew a good amount about tequila. Then I met importer and brand owner Jake Lustig and realized how little I actually knew. Whereas most aficionados at that time talked about the “burn” of a tequila, how smooth it was on the palate, and whether it did or didn’t give you a hangover, Jake talked about tequila like a winemaker. He was and continues to be my tequila mentor.
Jake told me about soil types, brix levels (of sugar), cooking techniques, and distillation practices. He broke down the differences in flavor between mountain agave and valley floor agave as if we were talking about Napa Cabernet. And he completely blew my mind with his line of ArteNOM tequilas, sourced from the best distilleries in Mexico and made with the same standards and commitment to quality that Jake himself espouses on a daily basis. I can safely say at this point that everything I know today about what constitutes good tequila, I know because of Jake Lustig.
In 2014, Jake took me to Oaxaca and Jalisco for a first-hand look at each of his producers. Back then, tequila wasn’t quite the juggernaut it’s become today, so there was still plenty of “real” stuff on the market. When I say “real” tequila, I mean tequila made without diffusers—the machine that has either completely ruined or saved the industry, depending on how you look at it. In the past seven years, however; everything has changed and it’s getting harder to determine which tequilas are made without manipulation. As a result, almost every bartender I know uses Jake’s Cimarron tequila for cocktails because it’s one of the last value options on the market that is still made without additives.
Seven years after our first trip to Mexico, I thought I would sit down with Jake for an update on where the industry is at. We caught up via phone over the weekend and a transcript of our conversation is below:
David: So where are we? As an industry, what is the state of tequila?
Jake: The industry has largely run dry of mature agave; that’s where we are.
David: What does that mean for the average consumer?
Jake: It means more tequila is being made without mature agave, i.e. diffusers.
David: Can you give me an example of what’s happening agriculturally?
Jake: Yes, I’ve made some videos about the different states of mature agave. Once an agave is an adult there are five stages, so I went around to my cultivator/producers including Enrique Fonseca to take some footage and document the evolution. Can you believe it took us hours to find one single overripe agave? Typically an artisan producer will have anywhere from five to fifteen percent overripe agave in the mix, but they’re just gone already this season, being used up as quickly as they’re deemed overripe.
David: So this means everyone is harvesting at the minimum possible maturity?
Jake: Yes. At the end of this last rainy season they took everything out of the ground that they could. There’s no overripe agave anywhere. It’s slim pickings even for mature agave at 24-26 brix. Patron is still not using additives, nor are they diffusing, but they have been expanding their operation and sucking up much of the available mature agave in the process. Don Julio is now cutting with diffuser spirits and the rumor is that other historically-traditional producers have now moved over to diffusers.
David: It sounds like there are going to be some difficult choices ahead, as even the industry’s top tequilas are being forced to change their quality standards due to a lack of available produce.
Jake: It’s not even an economic choice anymore. The tail is wagging the dog. People didn’t plant enough agave—pure and simple. Everywhere you look there’s two year old, three year old, and three and a half year old agave. And coincidentally, diffusers use two year old, three year old, and three and a half year old agave, so go figure.
David: What’s the old line you used to say about not needing agave to make tequila in the future?
Jake: It’s from a Cuervo agave buyer, told to Enrique Fonseca’s father in the early 1980’s: We just need to figure out how to make tequila without agave. That’s what he used to tell my partner. Not one of their tequilas is made with mature agave at this point, and for that reason Cuervo is closing the La Laja plant; known as Los Camichines, where they’ve been making Reserva de la Familia. It’s the last Cuervo distillery to not use a diffuser. That’s where they used the best and most mature agave for the last products that weren’t diffuser-based.
David: It sounds like the industry is being swallowed up by diffusers.
Jake: Right, so back to the question: where is the industry? An extremely small subset of cultivator/producers are cornered. Everything is either big brand or celebrity-driven tequila. There are three legs on that stool: the money leg, the route-to-market leg, and the marketing leg. If the marketing leg does its job, why would anyone make tequila without a diffuser when it’s so much cheaper? The route-to-market leg, however, says we need the quality and the flavor in order to sell it. Then the money leg says: well then why not get a celebrity like George Clooney or Dwayne Johnson to help? Clearly, we can use the diffuser Tequila that’s 80% cheaper and use the celebrity endorsement as our way to market.
David: Clearly, that’s exactly what’s happening. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a celebrity-endorsed tequila that wasn’t diffused.
Jake: That’s a big piece of the industry now with Casamigos doing so well. Especially during the COVID era with everything being pushed to off-premise now that bars and restaurants are closed. We’re all just speaking to our own audiences now. The top brands are exploding. I’m getting contacted once every few weeks about doing a celebrity tequila with some of my producers, but you can’t go to a distillery now like you could a few years ago and find a mature agave tequila to buy. They’ll make it for you, but they’ll ask if you have your own agave to do it with because they don’t have access anymore.
David: What are the ArteNOM producers saying about all this?
Jake: Someone like Enrique Fonseca or Felipe Camarena believes that there will always be a need for mature agave, and they’ll just maintain their role outside the new focus of the industry.
David: Don’t you find it ridiculous that traditional tequila made with mature agave is now considered outside the norm? I guess it’s like being a corn farmer that doesn’t use Monsanto these days.
Jake: Yes, but—man—they are the belles of the ball now! Felipe Camarena of G4 now has a line out the door of people who want to do projects with him. There are so few additive-free distillers out there and they have so little ripe agave available that their tequilas are at a premium right now. But there’s so little work being done to explain these points of differentiation. No one is up to date on this message.
David: Well that’s what we’re here to do! It’s sort of like single barrels right now. Everything has been picked over and there’s not much to get excited about.
Jake: Right, there’s not much new to be excited about. Are you getting the fruit flavors when you taste a new tequila? Are you getting the notes of cinnamon that come from the inclusion of overripe agave in the recipe? You’re not.
David: I’m sad. What else is going on?
Jake: Everyone was hoping for the price of agave to get so high that the bubble would burst and the prices would come down. But that hasn’t happened, so as a result fewer tequilas are going into barrel because they’re rushing fresh distillate to market. Reposados now are like the red-headed stepchildren of producers. The barrel maturation isn’t fast enough to market to make money, and the tequila itself isn’t old enough to charge more. You’re going to see reposado dry up as a category on the market very soon. There are very few good ones out there at the moment.
David: How are you feeling about all of this? Are you feeling secure in your relationships with producers?
Jake: Everyone is handling it differently, but they’re definitely sweating it. Who can you go to anymore? Who is doing anything interesting?
David: That’s my question for you!
Jake: I like to research the history of tequila for new ideas, so what I wanted to do was dump some of my Don Amado mezcal barrels, rush them to Jalisco while the barrels were still wet, and fill them with valley-floor Cascahuín blanco at a higher proof. We’re conditioning the tequila for 25-28 days, so it’s like flash aging. It’s not 60 days like what’s required for reposado, so it’s still considered blanco. The Don Amado barrels are American white oak, first used for Mexican brandy, then used for mezcal, then used for tequila. That’s my version of blanco histórico.
David: What made you want to do that?
Jake: If you made a Venn diagram of agave flavors, you would have minerality and citrus on one side and sweetness with baking spices on the other. When you look at the historical records, you can see that the Camarena family was one of the first to bring agave to the highlands. For the entire 19th century, almost all tequila came from the lowland valley. But were they barrel aging it? Not really. They were storing the tequila in large wooden vats called tonéles in Spanish or pipones. You wouldn’t get too much wood contact, but what you would get was oxidation and settling. There wasn’t much color, but it would still be rested, or reposado.
David: That sounds like a fun project!
Jake: I have an old friend who told me the future of our industry isn’t about brands, but rather interesting projects and one-offs.
David: Who could that have been?
Jake: Some asshole.
David: HA! I’m honored. Is that it? Is that the state of the tequila industry?
Jake: So you’ve got the end of mature agave, the rise of new celebrity brands, the dominance of diffusers, and the growing irrelevance of Regulatory Council certified products. You’ve got more products like Cinco Sentidos and Caballito Cererro that are making what is in essence mezcal and tequila, but they’re distilling in areas not certified or using types of agave that are not allowed, so they have to call it simply destilado de agave. It’s all uncertified, but people love it.
David: That takes a lot of education though because you can’t put the names mezcal or tequila on the label, so a number of consumers get confused. Not that we can’t help educate, but it’s an uphill battle. Have you found anyone or tasted anything in that realm that you might partner with?
Jake: No, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there. I haven’t been traveling or keeping up with what’s happening in Mexico over the last year, but hopefully I can get back out there soon and keep my ear to the ground.
-David Driscoll