Let's drink tequila

Everything else
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It seems fitting that I start this thread while drunk.

I’m sitting in a hotel in San Diego right now. I just finished a dinner with some business associates. After wassailing home from dinner, I stopped at a tequiliaria called El agave.

I just realized that the autocorrect on my phone replaced “walked” with wassailing. That seems so apropo that I cannot bring myself to correct it.

Let us wassail tequila.

I like tequila. It is an amazing liquor that has an undeserved bad name. Because we all had bad experiences with tequila. I dunno why, but we did.

But I am here, drunk, to tell you that tequila is a wonderful liquor. It is the greatest liquor. (I am drunk) one thing about tequila is that it is much less appreciated than other liquor, and this makes it much cheaper. A bottle of high end tequila will cost you maybe $35, where an equivalent bottle of Scotch might cost you over $100. Try tequila. It’s good.

Let me tell you a tale. There is a place in San Diego called “El agave”. They have a ridiculous selection of tequila. So many. A few years back, I came here and had dinner (they have some serious business mole), and ordered what I knew to be a reasonable, mid tier tequila, milago’s Blanco. It’s fine. But the waiter was some older Mexican guy who said, “I’m gonna bring you something else. It’s the same price, but it’s better.”

Alright dude. Let’s see where this goes.

He bought me a Blanco from a distillery called semental. Oof. So good.

Not crazy fancy or expensive… But so nice. Probably one of my favorite tequilas now.

Just went to the same place tonight, and they didn’t have anything from semental. Heartbreaking. But they had something from a places called 1519, and it was very nice. Similar.

I’m kind of tired of working on my phone, and I had a bunch of drinks before even starting this, but QT3 needed a tequila thread, and here it is.

Made by timex, while he was drunk in San Diego.

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A local party store with a wide selection of liquor, beer and wine periodically does some free taste testing. I was in there last week and was surprised to see they had three different bottles of Casa Noble tequila available for testing.

They had the Casa Noble Crystal, Respado and Anejo. I am definitely not an accomplished liquor drinker, but after talking with the nice lady there, she and store owner encouraged me to give one a try so I picked the middle one, the Respado. I believe they were in the $40 to $60 range a bottle. I was very impressed. I am not much of a liquor drinker of any kind, but it was quite good. I believe this one was aged a year and there is more detail on their website that I just looked over.

I may have to consider getting a good bottle to throw up in the liquor cabinet, heh. There is a bit of everything in there, but rarely tequila.

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I have become, recently, a big fan of tequila. Particularly when the objective is drunkenness.

I’ve always enjoyed a nice margarita (on the rocks, no salt, please) when on vacation, or enjoying Mexican-inspired food. For a margarita, any old tequila will do. But when you up your game, and step up to a nice reposado, or even better yet, an aged anejo? Yummy.

My personal favorite at the moment is Cazadores Extra Anejo. It’s like $75/bottle at the LCBO (probably less than half that in the US), but it’s so smooth.

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I love tequila. So much. Probably my favorite spirit.

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High end tequila at $35/bottle? You have a lot to learn my friend.

If you can find it, costco had Casa Dragones at $55/bottle recently, but it usually goes for $200-300/bottle.

Don Julio 42 usually goes for about $35/shot. Clasa Azul is also solid (and I’ve seen a $30,000 bottle in Cabo), but their standard is about $65/bottle.

Note, these are all sipping tequilas.

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I was reintroduced to tequila a few years ago during a friends wedding. Yep, I had avoided it nearly entirely since a bad experience late in college. What really got me recently though, is that I had NO idea there was anything outside of the cheaper clear tequilas, generally not aged at all (blanco.)

At any rate, he introduced me to several reposados and about three anjeos and my mind was officially blown. Smooth, with that barreled taste and so much flavor. I promptly bought tasting shots in a few places since that where I saw they had some variety.

And as @Pyperkub mentioned, I have a bottle of Don Julio 1942, and it was certainly NOT $35 a bottle, it was just short of triple that cost. But holy hell is it smooth. And tasty almost to the point of a fine bourbon or scotch, more so if you ask me because I think tequila carries more flavor.

I’d love to hear some more brands to try though.

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The only times I ever vomited while drinking were from tequila. So, yeah. @Timex nailed it, we all have a bad tequila story.

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Tequila shots are a bit TOO easy to drink. I’ve certainly been sick drinking other things, but those early learning lessons with tequila were HARSH.

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I have several!

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Heh, my most recent was while streaming a game live. I hate-played Privateer 2, and drank so much tequila during the broadcast that I blacked out. Needless to say I’ve not repeated the error. And no, you can’t watch it.

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I’m not a heavy drinker so I haven’t had a bad experience since I only drink small amounts at a time. Because of this the occasional sipping of a tequila works for me.

But some friends have said it had affected them. One got sick. Another said it makes him violent.

Anyway, on a trip to Mexico we visited Tequila and took tours in some of the factories. It was very interesting to see the process of mashing the agave. And all the tours had samples. It wasn’t just blanco, reposado, anejo. They also made all kinds of flavored stuff, really nice drinks with almond flavor or various fruit flavors and one like a coffee liqueur, although those are probably getting away from tequila. The shops there also sell some amazing bottles. Big tall colored glass bottles of tequila. There was another in the shape of a horse. Another was a set where the bottle was shaped like a pistol and sat in the center of a wooden tray, and was surrounded by six shot glasses, so the whole six shooter theme.

This was about four years ago and nothing bad happened on the trip but I was always a little leery of the surroundings. Supposedly the guy running the hotel where we stayed lied and said he was just a nobody when he was actually related to the owners, to help prevent getting shaken down by the narcos but I don’t know how you effectively hide that truth.

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The Mexican government controls the manufacture and / or distribution of tequila. To be called “tequila” it needs to be at least 51% agave. If the bottle does NOT say 100% agave, you can be assured it’s 51% agave and the other 49% is “neutral corn spirits.” Avoid this shit like the plague. Not even in margaritas. DO NOT DRINK.

You can easily get a bottle of “cheap” 100% agave for $20 that’s fine for mixing. 1800 is fine.

The thing to remember about tequila is it will dehydrate you more than other liquors, so you need to drink more water than normal after drinking it to avoid a hangover. This is mostly likely where its bad rep comes from.

I used to drink a lot of tequila, always in margaritas. I’ve never been able to sip alcohol of any kind. But for the last several years my drink of choice at home has been Captain’s and CCZ. It’s just so easy, delicious, and low calorie.

When I go out I usually get a fancy margarita, though. Something like a Prickly Pear. Yummy.

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Speaking of semi-low-calorie drinking. I was introduced to a mixer that works really well with multiple types of liquor.

Shot of the liquor of your choice
Soda Water
Liquid water enhancer

The latter has multiple brands: Mio, Dasani, Stur, Vitaminwater, etc.
They are either no calorie or close to zero calories per squirt or two. The soda water gives it the amount of fizz you want and the alcohol evens it out to taste similar to most soda/liquor combinations. You can mix and match flavorings too. It also mixes well with sparkling waters.

I’m talking about these things:

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image.jpg642×558 130 KB

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Timex, are you ever in the Bay Area? Sounds like you really need to pay a visit to Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco. :)

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Tommy’s is amazing.

But they wouldn’t open the bottle of Tres, Quatro, Cinco they had for us a few years back…

One of my old roommate’s family brought home some charred oak casks (personal size) filled with tequila mash from Mexico which was awesome.

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I don’t do much hard liquor of any kind, but when in a Mexican restaurant I will have a margarita. Recently we hit a happy hour where they upgraded the tequila in their normal margarita and I will have to admit it was much better.

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I didn’t even know they made sipping tequila until we went to a local place with a hundred of them available. The waiters are helpful but the selection is so huge I always forget what I like. I guess I should take notes on my phone.

Sometimes I force them to make me a margarita with one because I’m an uncultured brat. But an anejo margarita is still an interesting flavor.

I should buy a bottle of something for sipping at home when I need a break from bourbon.

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You absolutely can find top tier tequilas for $35 a bottle.

Don Julio is wonderful, but it’s also very well known, which increases it’s price.

A great thing about tequila is that there are bottles which most folks just don’t know about, but which are amazing. Not even “secret” hidden gems, but just tequilas which aren’t as widely marketed, and so they don’t draw as much attention and can’t cost as much.

For instance, take Fortaleza’s anejo. It’s one of the best tequilas in the world, straight up. Or hell, anything from Fortaleza. They are all consistently rated at the top of the charts, by anyone rating tequila (and generally always above DJ’s 1942). And you can get a bottle for $60. For one of the best tequilas there is. Or take their Blanco, which is again always highly rated, and you can get it for $45 a bottle.

Or, you can just find a tequila you like that’s expensive, and then look at other brands with the same NOM. If they share the NOM, it means the distillery is the same, and often the products are very similar.

For something like Clase Azul, on some very real level you are paying for a fancy looking bottle. Your paying for marketing. They also make the also make Avion, which is kind of garbage.

Like most liquors, once you get into the very specific limited edition stuff, the price can go up to arbitrary levels… But you don’t NEED to spend that money to drink some of the best stuff there is. Price does not equate to quality when it comes to tequila, in my experience.