Tequila

Long before tequila, there was pulque: the fermented sap of the maguey plant (Agave americana and related species), milky, thick, and mildly alcoholic, drunk by the Aztec and earlier Mesoamerican peoples for at least two thousand years. Pulque was not merely a social drink—it was sacred. The Aztec god of pulque was Patecatl, consort of the goddess Mayahuel, who was herself depicted as a maguey plant with four hundred breasts representing the four hundred pulque gods. Pulque was given to warriors before battle, to sacrificial victims before death, and to elderly people as a comfort and right. It was tightly regulated; drunkenness outside prescribed ritual contexts was punishable by death.

Distillation arrived with Spanish colonizers in the 16th century. The Spaniards, finding their own spirit supplies insufficient, applied European distillation techniques to Mesoamerican plants. The result—distilled from the cooked heart of the blue agave plant (Agave tequilana Weber), not the sap but the piña (the pineapple-like core)—was a clear, potent spirit. Early versions were called mezcal wine or simply mezcal (from Nahuatl mexcalli: cooked agave). The Cuervo family began producing it commercially in the Tequila region around 1758; the Sauza family followed in 1873.

The name 'tequila' comes from the city of Santiago de Tequila in what is now Jalisco state. The Nahuatl etymology is debated: leading proposals include tequitl (work, duty, or task) + tlan (place)—'the place of work'—or a derivation from tecuani (wild beast) + tlan, or from a root meaning the place of the Tiquilos, a pre-Aztec people. Another interpretation connects it to terms for cutting or harvesting. None is definitive. The city existed before the drink; the drink was eventually named for the city.

Mexican law established the denominación de origen for tequila in 1974—one of the first non-European geographical indications protected internationally. True tequila must be produced in the state of Jalisco (and a few small regions of adjacent states), must be made from at least 51% blue agave (100% agave tequilas are the premium standard), and must be certified by the Tequila Regulatory Council. The global market for tequila has grown explosively since the 1990s: in 2021, tequila surpassed whiskey as the best-selling spirit in the United States by revenue. The Nahuatl place name is now one of the most recognized words in global spirits.