PATRON en LALIQUE

| BY KEVIN PILLEY

best, and swallowing the best. I have been a Patron loyalist for years. My partisanship is unquestionable and unswerving. I have not been seduced by George Clooney, I have not been bowled over by The Rock, and I have never believed Michael Jordan is the real deal. I am a Patron person.

I am on the “Good Boss” fanbase. I went very quiet and became tearfully emotional when I heard the rumor that Patrón Café XO might be discontinued.

I sulked for weeks when I couldn’t get hold of a pair of limited edition, ultra-edgy Patron x John Geiger sneakers.

My life has been a long, happy series of Tequila Espresso Martinis, Mile High Margaritas, Bull Riders (with Red Bull), highballs, coupes, and Collins glasses.

Like many others worldwide, a day now rarely goes by without building myself a Highlands of Jalisco Old-Fashioned, a Lowland El Valle Paloma, or an extra añejo

And raising my favored glass and garnish to celebrate all the lessons learned.

Now “El Alto” has come into our lives to raise us further up into vegetal Heaven. And further our toasts to all the jimadors, tahona millers, macerators, fermenters, distillers, and bottlers of the familia Patron.

A new Patron has a strange effect on agave worshippers. My skin prickles. My fingers begin to tingle and twitch. And I can feel the hairs on my drinking arm popping up. My tastebuds get goosebumps, and my palate becomes excited and noticeably aroused.

My tongue is restless and won’t leave my lips alone. My palms get clammy, my heartbeat quickens, and my hand involuntarily reaches out in search of the closest citrus zester.

The arrival of a new addition to the Patron line is the tequila lovers’ equivalent to the release of a new Glenmorangie or the latest Islay expression to the malt whisky connoisseur.

The occasion releases the same amount of endorphins.

The original Patrón Tequila was produced by Casa 7 Leguas, one of the oldest Mexican distilleries. The company was founded in 1980 when two business entrepreneurs,

John Paul Dejoria and Martin Crowley, fell in love with tequila and devoted themselves to making the best possible. Then, it was rare for exported tequila to be made from 100% blue agave plants.

Patron has been a modern cult for years. Now it has moved into the “prestige space” with the launch of Patrón El Alto and the unveiling of the Patron en Lalique Serie 3. The Bacardi-owned brand’s third collaboration with the iconic French luxury glassmaker.

Serie 3 fetes the Blue Weber agave with the crystal decanter’s design inspired by the plant. Master distiller David Rodriguez used 14 rare extra añejo Tequilas, each aged up to eight years in French and Armagnac casks.

The decanter was created by Marc Larminaux, Lalique’s artistic and creative director. Each decanter is handmade and individually numbered at Lalique’s factory in

Wingen-sur-Moder, in Alsace, France.

Patron previously partnered with Lalique in 2017 to launch an Art-Deco-style bottling and in 2015 with an Art Nouveau-style decanter. Limited to 299 bottles globally, Serie 3 is priced at RRP US $7,500.

Luckily, Patron El Alto selling at $180, is much easier to acquire. But your feelings at the moment of opening are hard to define.

You know you are in for something unique and different and to be savored as soon as you see it poured for you into a Champagne flute. The bottle is svelte and irresistible.

Maestro tequilero David Rodriguez’s team “endured” more than 300 tastings to refine the blend of tequilas aged in eleven kinds of hybrid barrels. That means El Alto is technically a relatively young reposado tequila, even though most of the mix is extra añejo, aged more than three years.

Patron El Alto is a blended luxury tequila that raises the art of tequila-making to new, rarefied, and refined heights. Sweet, figgy fruity, and floral, it aspires to be breathtakingly smooth and of high terroir. The go-to-high altitude, top-end tequila. The highest of highs.

One inhalation, and you are in Atotonilco El Alto. Or the El Nacimiento. One sip and you can hear the axes cutting the giant agave “corazon” hearts and the volcano stone millstones grinding.

Trained Patron noses can smell the brick ovens and copper stills going about their age-old business. You will taste the oak and vanilla, the tradition and innovation; Patron will make you swoon.