The Magical Land of Tequila A guys’ getaway starts with a spirited train ride and culminates with visits to family-owned distilleries This is how dreams begin in Mexico, with a ride on a tequila-inspired train.
Text and Photos by MICHAEL SHAPIRO
My longtime friend Julio Bermejo and I board the Jose Cuervo Express, the train that travels from the city of Guadalajara northwest to the town of Tequila, now officially recognized as a Pueblo Magico (magical village). We’re in the recently unveiled Elite class woodpaneled train car with mariachi bands, premium tequila tastings, and a Mexican lottery game. Sipping tequila while rolling past fields of agave, the spiky green succulent from which tequila is made, is the perfect way for a couple of guys to kick off a long weekend celebrating Mexico’s premium spirit. Julio, the beverage manager at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco, is a tequila ambassador (see sidebar on page 31). After my travel advisor suggested a trip to explore the origins of tequila, Julio got right on board. “Grape fields are all over the world, but agave grows only here,” Julio remarks as the train chugs past a towering volcano. “It gives you a sense of place. When you see agave fields, you know where you are; it reminds you everything comes from the land.” Later, at the sprawling Jose Cuervo distillery called Fábrica La Rojeña, I turn the lever to open an oaken cask and pour my own bottle of Cuervo’s finest
tequila, its Reserva de la Familia. Then I push in the cork and dip the bottle in molten red sealing wax. The next day, we visit Guillermo Sauza at Tequila Fortaleza. As his surname suggests, he’s tequila royalty. He was in line to run the tequila behemoth Sauza, but in the late 1980s, his family sold the company. So Guillermo launched Fortaleza, the small premium tequila maker, in 2002, almost next door to the distillery that bears his family’s name. Tequila making can’t be rushed, says Guillermo, looking relaxed in a Hawaiian shirt. The agave heads take seven to 10 years to grow and weigh 50 to 200 pounds when harvested. The spikes are hacked off with a long-handled blade called a coa. Then the heads, called piñas because they look like gigantic pineapples, are roasted under pressure in a steam boiler built by Guillermo’s grandfather more than a century ago. Guillermo Sauza ENSEMBLE VAC ATIONS I FALL 2021
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