Loco Tequila with Alberto Navarro and Juan Pablo Torres Padilla

Join us for a great conversation with the guys from Loco Tequila. This is a brand that is going against the grain as they look to honor the history of authentic tequila and push the boundaries for the future. To learn more about the brand, you can go to https://loco-tequila.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

So part of this episode is brought to you by siptequila.com. It's summer, which means lots of pool time, family gatherings, and cookouts. Make sure you're stocked up on all your tequila and agave needs. With all that planning for events and celebrations, you don't have time to drive around from store to store searching for your favorite tequila. That's where Sip Tequila comes in. That's siptequila.com. Premium brands shipped direct to your door so that you've got more time for other things. To create something remarkable, You usually have to be a little crazy. Those that persevered when they were told it won't work. When quitting looked easy, but you kept going. You are the mad geniuses. Just like my guest today who set out to create a brand that upholds the history and legacy of tequila and are doing things a little differently. We're going to hear their story and see how loco they really are on this episode of The Agave Social Club Podcast, hosted by me, Doug Price. Welcome to the show. This is the Agave Search Club podcast. I'm your host, Doug Price. I recently had the honor to spend a few days in El Arenal with my guests as I'm here with Juan Pablo Torres Padilla, managing partner, as well as master tecalero Alberto Navarro of Loco Tequila. Guys, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23

Thank you for having us, Doug. Thank you

SPEAKER_00: 1:24

very much. I had the chance to spend some time with you guys not too long ago as Loco has been busy. You guys have a lot going on. Before we get into it all, JP, I wanted to see if you could start Start us out and tell me a little bit about your background and how you got involved in Loco Tequila. Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 1:40

And again, thank you for having us. It was an honor to have you with us in El Arnal and it is a real pleasure to continue this conversation. In terms of background, I would say that the main, the most relevant elements that I could share, it actually starts with wine. My grandfather started pouring me wine when I was seven or eight years old and I ended up moving from Mexico to France when I was 19 years old. I was going there for six months and I actually ended up staying 18 years in France. And what happened was that when I moved to France, I started looking for something related to my country, to my culture, to our heritage. I was actually studying, studying engineering, and I spent many years working on engineering, nothing to do with actually either tequila or wine. But back then there was no FaceTime, there was no WhatsApp, there was no videos. So I wanted some link to my country because I was nostalgic. And I started tasting the tequilas that were sold in Europe, and it was not tequila. It was a bad alcohol that was called tequila in a bottle of tequila. So that's when I started researching a little bit more about tequila. I did not used to drink tequila in Mexico, actually. And I started researching and bringing bottles of higher-end tequila from Mexico to France when I spent all those years. And that's how the whole passion for tequila started in my case. And then to make the link with Loco Tequila, a few years later, well, actually more than 12 years later, in 2012, We were gathered with some friends and family with my two co-founders, which are actually the real co-founders. They honor me calling me co-founder, but actually the ones who did the whole job were them, Pedro and Gabriel. And Pedro said in 2012, May 2012, so it's actually now, it's 13 years now, the origin of the conception of Loco Tequila. And he said, you know what? It's a pity. It's a pity that there's so much tradition, exceptionality, elegance, creativity, innovation, authenticity, courage to do things differently and better in Mexico, and people don't realize and people don't know that. So he already had thought about the whole thing, and he said, we're going to create a tequila, and we're going to create a tequila that will... recover the highest levels of purity and quality of what used to be produced in the five centuries of production of tequila. So we ended up understanding after a while, and Alberto is going to be way better positioned than me to tell you about this because he led all this search with the pillars that he will tell you about, but we ended up understanding that we needed a different set of of identity elements, and that's how the whole thing starts.

SPEAKER_00: 4:56

JB, it seems like you're a guy that helps bring everything together, both you and Alberto. You guys do such an amazing job educating, you're so passionate. But today, 12 years later, or when you joined, what are some of the things day-to-day that takes up your time or that you get to be involved in with Loco Tequila?

SPEAKER_02: 5:17

I am based in the US. As you know, I'm based in California. And I manage and aim at developing... our presence in the United States. We have a good and a bad problem to have, thanks to Alberto, which is that obviously Alberto is focusing on producing the high level of quality with creativity and innovation. And we only get so much of local tequila into the US whenever Alberto can send us and ship us some product. So our main work today, fortunately, is to make sure that we allocate the local tequila that we receive in the US on each of the batches of production that Alberto creates to the places where it's going to be really appreciated and perceived. So my main role is developing the team and developing the relationships with bartenders, with chefs, with fine wine and spirit shops that actually have an audience that is constantly looking for excellence, for impeccability, for what we call now radical authenticity. It works both ways, actually. That is my main job based in California. We have now the beginning of a presence in California, and this year we're starting some... with some allocations in Texas as well.

SPEAKER_00: 6:52

And I know as we were there, we got to enjoy, and we'll talk through the taquitos because we just got to enjoy it and sip on it. And when we were there, I know you would continue to go... Hey, Alberto, can we make sure we get some more of this, the Almbar? Can we get some more of this to the States? Because I know a lot of it, a big following in Mexico. Alberto, Master Tecalero, I've not come across many people that are as educated as you are with tequila producing, but more than that, the history of tequila and agave. You wrote the book, La Roza del Tequila. How did you become so passionate about all things agave?

SPEAKER_01: 7:29

It all started about 25 almost years ago, my background, in fact, is marketing. And I first entered the industry in marketing. But it was since that very same day that I entered that I realized that there was something different about spirits in general. As a marketeer, you're very used to see the typical process of having raw materials coming to a process and then coming to a final product. But in spirits, there's much more than that. You have history, you have legacy, you have passion, you have love. You have a lot of history, a lot of enthusiasm about these people that produces in every different steps of the production chain, any given spirit. So it was then when I first started going to distilleries to understand what I was selling in marketing. I just fell in love with the process. And since then, I started... going more and more often every time I could to understand how things were done, right? So I started talking to Maestro Tequileros and I started talking to agronomical engineers and technical guys from the lab and gimadores and jornaleros and all sort of people. And all of them were because they noticed I was very interested. They were telling me a lot. And I felt like a sponge absorbing information all the time. And that happened every single day that I was there. So in the end and in time, there was a point where I did have a lot of knowledge. I started to learn and do a lot of research, not only towards tequila, but other Mexican spirits and other Mexican agave spirits. So this is how I started traveling to Oaxaca and to Sonora and to Chihuahua and learn about mezcal and bacanora and sotol, which is not really an agave spirit, but it's similar in a way. Understand what is raisilla and what is tusca and what is excomunión and chichihualco and sisal and all of those that are part of the Mexican legacy and they're cousins of tequila, but they have evolved in a totally different way. I also leaded a program, an international program, because my responsibilities started in Mexico, but eventually I had responsibilities abroad in the rest of the world. First in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and then the rest of the world in education. I started a program, it's called the Town Society, which initially was an educational program. So in order to have all the seminars and all the educational part of the Town Society, I did, along with... A friend of mine who passed away, sadly, Henry Besant, and also Dre Masso and Charles Wexenant, a lot of research about the history of tequila and whatever happened in all these 500 years that made tequila to be what we know nowadays as tequila. So it all started like that. So eventually I was spreading the love of agave out there in the world in places I wouldn't even think of, in the most hidden corners in Russia, in Vladivostok, in South Africa, Turkey, China, everywhere in the world. In time, I had the need to study a lot also about vodka and about rum and about whiskey and about cognac in order to put some other educational programs as well. And it was not long after that when the local tequila project came to me. And at that very time, I was very concerned about where the tequila category was heading with the type of innovation that has been running for about more than 10 years, I would say, with all these things that are now normal with ultra filtrations for cristalino tequilas, not only using, but using the additives, because you can use additives in a more serious and moderate way, but if you abuse them, then it's a bad thing. All this ultra modern production processes are in fact taking the category, the identity of those liquids away from the original identity of tequila. So when we started talking about loco tequila, we knew from the beginning that we wanted to make a legacy tequila. So what is a legacy tequila? Tequila that is powerful, that is complex, that is robust, that actually has flavors and notes of agave. The land where those agaves are growing, we in fact decided to make a terroir tequila. And at the same time, we wanted to make a luxury tequila. So putting all these things together, along with the dream of representing this type of Mexicanity that we wanted to show to the world, this modern tequila, complex, sophisticated, world-class Mexico that exists out there, but not a lot of people really think of it, and represented through a Mexican icon, which is tequila. It was all a combination of facts that came together in the Loco Tequila project. Once we were clear about what we wanted to do, we started to find a place to work. And by then, Hacienda La Providencia was already about to be purchased. And we knew since the very first time that we, the very first time I met Hacienda La Providencia and I was there, I was surprised by a number of things. First of all, some processes that are not used or were not used some years ago, like the town milling stones, like the small copper pot stills, like the traditional ovens, the wooden fermentation baths and all that, that were worth to be restored, and we did that. But at the same time, I saw some elements there that Back in the 60s when it closed and it was abandoned for about 60 years, so we're talking about last century, that must have been high-end technology elements in the production line, in the bottling line and all that. So it was a sort of innovation, ancestrality and traditionality that we were looking after in order to put together this legacy tequila, terroir tequila and luxury tequila. So we knew... that it was not going to be possible to produce right away in Hacienda La Providencia because it's a gigantic project to build a new distillery, especially not from scratch. I've seen it. It's a big project. Absolutely. Imagine. And what you saw there is very, very different from what you normally see in a tequila distillery. So put all that together has taken us literally years. So in the meantime... We were very, very happy and lucky and honored to meet and work with the Rosales family because they were one of the few people who are knowledgeable in tequila and they know how to make tequila really well, who were open enough to let us do whatever we wanted to do with all this differentiated process and all this craziness that we have in production at their distillery. So the deal is, It's not that they're making our tequila. It's not that they are selling us tequila. But we are producing inside of their tequila facilities, in their distillery. In fact, we implemented some of the processes that were not there, like the Taona, Millenstone, and all that. And we've been really, really lucky to have this partnership with them in the meantime, while we are ready with Hacienda La Providencia. But there was a point in time where all this was just an idea. And when we were exposing this idea to people who really know how to make tequila, people from the CRT and even some advisors and counselors and stuff, they were all saying the same message. Beto, this, what you're saying, is going to be very difficult. It's going to be barely controllable. You're not going to be able to replicate that. If you want to follow that path, you and your team, you're... You

SPEAKER_00: 15:41

know, when you think of this tequila at first glance, you could say, you know, why would you name this higher end quality luxury tequila brand that's so focused on detail as crazy? But JP, when we first got in the vehicle together, when we landed, you started going, yeah, but look at the people in the world that have made a major impact. And, you know, the Picasso, the Albert Einstein, just like Alberto, you're saying at some point somebody said, man, those people are crazy. Very easy. understanding of how it's all connected. This idea of in order to look towards the future, we have to look towards the past. And there's so much we can learn from the surrounding areas and how things were done so long ago. Was that something that was always on the forefront as you were? Because, you know, we'll get to the profile and everything, but these are things that you're leading the charge on. But it just seems like in talking with you and spending time with you that you're always going, hey, I want to look to the past because I think we're going to get a lot of answers for how things things are done in the future.

SPEAKER_01: 17:00

We do look to the past, but also we do look to the present and the future. So that's very important. You need a vision. And the vision, as we said before, is this attribute to this genius craziness or crazy genius that we've been talking about. But first we need to define what is that, because it might be confusing, a little bit confusing to understand what a crazy genius is. My whole point is the result of of being a crazy genius is all the processes that you saw and all these things that we do in a different way and we'll get through that. But it is very important to understand that those things were not going to be possible if we wouldn't have that vision of crazy genius. And being a crazy genius first has this element of being bold enough and brave enough and have the courage to defy what's already been established. no matter what, to be true to your beliefs. And it doesn't really matter what everyone else says. Do for what you really believe and defy what is already there as an established way of doing things. So this bravery, this boldness to defy is one of these elements. The other one JP was already mentioning, creativity. But it's not just a regular creativity. It's a creativity that arrives to say, It's a transcendent creativity. Something that even when you're not there anymore is going to be there and it's going to survive time. And the third one, JP was also mentioned in it, is being really, really authentic in a way that you are radical. This radical authenticness means that whatever you do is something that you really look after yourself to express yourself in whatever you are doing. Again, it doesn't matter what the rest of the world says. This authenticity is a part of yourself. So all these three elements are part of the crazy genius that we have as a motto. And all those processes that we are experiencing in fact, going to be talking about are there as a result of this. I

SPEAKER_02: 19:20

want to go back to your comment on analyzing and understanding the past. in order to build a future with innovation, with creativity, with radical authenticity, with this locura genial, with this inspiring madness or crazy genius-ness, which, to be honest, we haven't found yet a true translation into English of locura genial. The meaning behind the local tequila identity is locura genial. One translation that I like is inspiring madness. Another one is referring to the people, the crazy geniuses. But what we did in order to do that, as Alberto was mentioning, was defining what were the different elements of the identity that we were looking for in the spirit, in the tequila itself. And one of those elements was the terruño, the terraro, which doesn't exist often or doesn't exist much, unfortunately, nowadays in the industry. And that is what took us to Hacienda La Providencia. I think we went a little bit too quick over that part earlier, a few minutes ago. And I want to share with you the process that took us there. The Hacienda La Providencia, as we discussed when we were there, is located at the entrance, at the gateway of what is a UNESCO classified site. which is called the Agave Landscape and Ancient Facilities of Production. It is at the very beginning of what it's called, as you know, Los Valles, El Área de Valles de Tequila, the Tequila Valleys, which is really halfway roughly between Guadalajara and the town of Tequila, which is around the volcano of Tequila. So why did we go there to that area first? Because with the concept of Terruño as being one of the pillars of the identity of what we wanted to achieve, we wanted to go back to the historical area of where everything started, as you said, to understand, to analyze. And we were looking for a place to be the home of Loco Tequila for a long time. We were looking at for an ongoing distillery that we could hopefully acquire and do something. And we didn't find that. But we found this abandoned 250-year-old hacienda, which when you say it like that is easy, but it's really a lot of time, history, legacy, tradition. And not only it was a heritage and a legacy by itself, but it used to be, we ended up understanding that it used to be the home of of what was probably the most well-recognized tequila in the world 100, 120 years ago, even a bit less than that. So that's how we ended up arriving at La Providencia. It took us many years, as Alberto said. And when we were about to... negotiate with the family who owned La Providencia, we realized that it was abandoned 70 years ago, as Alberto said, and as you saw, we've been working on the design, conception, permitting, construction, everything in the renovation for many years now, and we're about to open the distillery sometime later this year. But when we realized it was abandoned, the second generation didn't really do much with the hacienda in terms of production etc. The third generation was the owners or the owners of the hacienda. And Gabriel, the co-founder together with Pedro, Gabriel negotiated for a few years with more than 30 cousins and relatives that were the owners of the haciendas. A lot of patience, a lot of purpose in order to get to that place. And my second comment with respect to Alberto, what he's not going to tell you because he's very modest. Once we have the place and the concept of Toruño, then we say, okay, Pedro and Gabriel and myself, we might bring... the vision, especially Pedro and Gabriel again, but we might bring the vision, we might bring the passion, we might bring the personality, all of what we want, but we don't have the least idea of how to make tequila. And obviously we want to learn and we have been educating ourselves, but then we started looking for the person who had the largest amount of knowledge and understanding of spirits and in particular of agave spirits in the world. And that's how we ended up. discussing with Alberto. As you know, he's the author of the La Rusa of Tequila, which is basically the Bible of tequila. And in my understanding and in the understanding of most of the people that I know that know Alberto, he is the person by far that knows, who knows the most about tequila and about the spirits in the world, not only agave spirits, but the spirits in general. And as he said, he's been traveling all over the world in his life. And so again, I just wanted to put that into the context because that was the beginning of the landing of the identity. You were mentioning, okay, why to give this name Loco? And Alberto gave you an explanation of how people started telling, oh, you guys are crazy if you're doing that. At the very beginning, we didn't know we were going to need to do all of that because Pedro and Gabriel did not make tequila, and me neither. So we created the concept of Loco Tequila. Pedro came up with the concept of Loco Tequila really as a tribute and an homage, a recognition to those visionaries and pioneers who dare to do things differently, who are really the owners of this radical authenticity, of this inspiring madness, and have that courage to innovate, to create and to challenge the established paradigms, the Beethovens, the Da Vinci's, the Van Gogh's, the Frida Kahlo's, all of them, that was at the origin of the whole thing. And we believe that is a very powerful concept. After that, a few years later, when Alberto accepted to join us, because I believe at the beginning, he really didn't believe us much about what we wanted to do. But when he realized what we were able or at least what we were committed to do and to invest, that this was now not just a celebrity brand, nothing against that, but we were really committed to the tradition and to the innovation and the creativity. That's when he joined us. And then he spent another few years creating these, recreating these ancestral methods and innovating at the same time. And that's when we confirmed the name because, as Alberto mentioned, the industry is a small industry and a lot of people know what the others are doing. So they started telling him, like, Alberto, you're doing doing this, this, this. No one is going to pay$400 for a bottle of tequila. No one is going to look for that level of refinement and sophistication. You're crazy. It's not going to work. So that's when we confirmed and we said, yes, we're crazy. And this is Loco Tequila with the highest level of commitment to that inspiring madness. And I'm going to finish this part with a sentence that I love. from one of our main brand ambassadors, if you like, or representatives in Mexico, an architect who has been one of the greatest architects from Mexico to the world, Mr. Legoreta. He has a sentence that he says, the world goes on and continues and survives thanks to the sane people, thanks to the normal people. But it only moves forward thanks to the mad and the crazy geniuses.

SPEAKER_01: 27:21

I think he's absolutely right. Building a little bit more on what you're saying, JP, all this crazy genius, all this inspiration, all this propositive creativity they do have is shared through a common conductor, which is art. Art as a way of expression. In our case, Loco Tequila... is not only a tequila, tequila done like local tequila is done, is, I would say, it's like an alchemy. Because you need to understand the science, you need to understand about biology and physics and a number of scientific elements, but also you need the sensitivity as well as the creativity, meaning that you have now a sort of alchemy. So always, and since the very beginning, art has been a part of our DNA. And that is, it shows everywhere in our communications, in our packages, in what we do, the distillery that you just visited, that one of those tanks is a piece of art, is a working piece of art by Adam Paredes, for instance, and many other things that are happening in there. And even the artistic expression is actually shown in our fields, which you visit. So I'm bringing in Tony Sanchez, our maestro agavero, a very important part of the brand, on the human side of the brand. It's actually Tony. It's not only that he's looking after all those almost 100 hectares that we do have with all the different cycles in agave that you saw, and he and his team, which is only five people, are having those fields in the most best maintained way that it can be done. There are pristine fields and it can be shown with the quality of agaves that you have there. But also the design of those fields are not normal fields. It's not the typical lines that you see out there. It has forms and geometric figures that are not common in the industry. And they do have, in fact, an inspiration. You might have heard before about Huachimontanes. And if you didn't, well, you were with us on the trip and we all went to the archaeological site, Huachimontanes, which is part of the... cultural legacy that we have in the area. It's not really far away from the distilleries on the other side of the volcano slopes. The shape of those pyramids, and we're talking about a pre-Hispanic culture, one of the few in the world that built pyramids with a round shape. So those pyramids concentric circles that form the pyramid are actually inspiring Tony in his design of the fields. But it's not only that, it also has functionality. We do that in the hills. Remember that we're talking about terroir tequila. So that means that we are going to be planting and harvesting and producing in the same spot through time. Now, remember that agave is a plant that tends to exhaust the land. So what normally happens is after the third time or so agaves are planted in the same spot, a change of crops is required. So you need to plant the chickpeas and beans and this kind of plants that actually restore back the nitrogen to the soil. And normally you have a cycle or two or maybe three where you are not planting agaves. But we need that piece of land to have our terroir. So what we did is the lines that are... the land lines that are in between the lines of agave, which are called melgas, I don't have a word for that in English, are far away from each other in much more measure than the standard in the industry. So that means that when we're done with the line of agaves and we're going to do the selective harvesting, the entresaque, and we'll talk about that later, we're going to plant in between the and let the rest of the land to restore naturally in between six to eight years. And if there's a need to plant the chickpeas or the beans, then we'll do it. But having that design helps in that way to control the land not being exhausted. And second, irrigation. That's also very important. Remember, agave is a supplement plant and it survives during the rainy season. It sucks water. and retains the water during the dry season. So agaves don't really like that much water. So you have a flatland and you have agaves and you have a lot of rain. You need to dig lines so the water can actually go in between the agave lines and not touching the roots because otherwise they're going to get rotten. The circles that we build form terraces. Now, remember, agaves are not irrigated. They rely just on the rainy season. And when it rains, those terraces allows us to have an even irrigation of the field, having the water that we need, but not excessive water. So there's a number of functional and even sustainable elements that are related to the artistic design of our fields.

SPEAKER_00: 32:43

You know, going out there, a big part of this trip was, you know, you guys going, hey, we want you to see what we're working on. JP, I mean, you already said it here that you guys, it took years. And I'm sure at some point, you know, there could have been like, is this going to happen? I mean, this is like two blocks from Cascuin where historically is where you've been stepping in and producing local tequila right there at NAMM 1123. And if you just go past it, There's this beautiful, I mean, this hacienda, I'm trying to figure out how you guys found this place. I mean, the history that's there just tucked back a few blocks is absolutely breathtaking. And there's so much history there with, was it Avelino Ruiz Rosales, who is one of those figures that historically has done so much for tequila. I think they said what he was the first that exported tequila to Europe via the United States and just, you know, And this is history. And you guys are continuing to build on that. And I know right now we're not testing batches. You guys are still putting things together. You guys have done a lot of work there to see. So I'm expecting to come back at some point as you guys are running some test batches. But I loved the education. I loved every step of the way you guys were telling us, whether that's the elements of the distillery or the innovations or things that you're doing. But it was really... Alberto, I mean, going to those pyramids and seeing, I mean, these are historical sites and seeing the round circular pyramids and then to go out there. into your fields and to see, you know, they're not all around. You guys, as you said, you've got a lot of fields that have in the line like we see, but to have it circular is pretty spectacular. And I had the drone and I got to take some top view of it and you just see it and go, wow, this is different. You also had kind of going up some mountainside. It was rocks. You had agaves growing everywhere. And the rocks. And I've never seen that. You know, we joked about, man, how are we going to harvest these agaves? Have to get up there and, you know, what's the thought process in that as you guys are continuing to push boundaries and improving the name Loco?

SPEAKER_01: 35:02

Well, if you think of it, the raw material is so important. In order to make the best tequila in the world, you need to have the best agaves in the world. That's for sure. In the industry, there are times where we have good agaves and there are other times when you have not so good agaves and you have pineapples that are probably like 10 kilograms. People just take it because they need them in order to keep on producing. In our case, we started producing in the peak of the agave shortage, when agave was the most expensive. Even though it was expensive, we didn't hesitate on getting the best of the best in order to make agaves a selective harvesting. That means not only harvesting the whole field and wiping the whole field, but actually hand-picking and selecting the ones that are ripe in order to get them into production and leave the others in order to come back for them later, maybe a year or two later, or get a third party to come and get them to their process. So as we were evolving with the thought of having the best agave ever, we also were very, very aware of all this little details that you need to consider in order to get rid of the flavors that you don't want to have into production. Starting on how you cut the bitter honeys in the oven, which is actually related on how much green matter you have in the agave that's introduced into the oven. And that green matter has all these waxy and oily substances and pectins that deliver a lot of bitterness. So the more you shave the piña, the closer you have the shaving into the core of the plant, the less green matter you're going to have and therefore the less bitterness you're going to get. In order to have the fillet of the fillet, if you call it this way, the best of the best, you need to, and what we do is actually we chop off those leaves short in the field When we're talking about a third party, when we're talking about our own fields, we do it on site. And when the agaves arrive to the patio, we do a second shaving in order to have this greenness of the agave actually disappearing and have white piñas. Then we chop it in half and remove the corolla in order to have only the best part of the agave getting to production, which is actually causing us to lose a lot of weight, but it doesn't really matter because our commitment is to quality. Now, with all this process, with all this training, of thoughts on having the best of the best. When we were talking about the fields and designing the fields and what to do with the different shapes that we have and slopes and hills and flat sites we have on the field, we understand and we know beforehand that agaves that grow in different conditions have different profiles. So that means that those agaves that you saw growing on the hillside are On the slope, it's a lot of inclination and a lot of rock. Those guys are not going to grow very robust. They're not going to grow very big because they're growing in very harsh conditions. They're growing in a very stressful way. Therefore, they're going to be... They're going to be a little sweeter, maybe? They're going to be... Yeah, exactly. They're going to have different kinds of sugars, better kinds of sugars, and not much... more concentration of sugars. So that is actually entitled in us to work on different ways on working our fields and our states or the different segments of the state in order to have different expressions if we want to, which is, again, something not common.

SPEAKER_00: 38:47

JP, as we were looking at the Hacienda, you guys gave us the tour and I don't, know what it looked like years ago as you guys took it over, but you guys have been doing so much work there. There's also a lot that You know, it's going to be maybe phases or over time, but there's a lot of things. I mean, you guys are looking a museum. Again, you want to continue to preserve that history. But what are some of those things that, because at some point people are going to be able to come and visit it. And it's not just come tour our distillery. It's a come be a part of this story and this experience. What are some of those things? Because you were showing us, you know, there could be some guest rooms, there could be some fun things, tasting room, maybe in ovens. but what are some of the plans that you guys have? You know, I know you're working on production and getting that all set up, but at some point, there's going to be a real experience center that people can come to and go, man, we see this. Exactly, and

SPEAKER_02: 39:47

thank you for bringing that up. It's a very important part of our identity as well. It is based, as you mentioned, the production area with respect for the ancestral methods while having exceptional, innovative techniques and equipment is the main part of it. And that is the first phase. You were mentioning phases. Indeed, we're doing this in phases. This first phase is going to be finalized before the end of the year. But there's more, indeed, as you say. Why? Basically, because the identity of Loco Tequila really revolves around what you mentioned about living, experiencing life, something for yourself, for your close ones, for the people that you love, creating memories, creating exceptional moments with the others. We believe that all of those treasures, because at the end of the day, they are treasures. I mean, when we found the Hacienda, to partially answer your question as well, it was quite stunning because We found it almost as if people had left the day before. It was 50, 60, whatever, 70 years, and there were rooms with the old typewriter machines. There were rooms with the labels that were produced. It was really like a museum in an exceptional state. It was well-respected by the community as well, and Alberto has a good way of describing this. That being said, that really told us that... we were really building upon something that was part of that used to be part of an ecosystem, community, social, industry ecosystem. Let's remember that back then, Mr. Avelino Ruiz was one of the top three producers, if not the top producer in quality. And there's many anecdotes between Mr. Sousa back then and the Vegma family with Cuervo back then and Avelino Ruiz, who were the top three producers back in the mid-century. So in addition to this state-of-the-art production facility, we started in parallel a project in another part of the hacienda that you visited as well, in order to offer what we believe is the highest level of hospitality. Together with the this inspiring madness, this radical authenticity, and this courage to dare, we believe that hospitality and being able to experience a range of different elements around the senses, around art, and around that creativity, the five senses and art, are the ways to perceive, to live, and to experience the loco tequila identity. So we are in this initial phase, we are building a handful of suites in the hacienda to be able to offer not only the possibility of staying overnight, but also the possibility of doing many different topics around astronomy, experiences, educational, terroir-driven topics and activities. So that's an important part of our project. And let's not forget, if I may say, as a third element, all of this is possible only thanks to the people that are there. We love tequila. We love agave spirits. We love all of our elements and values that I have been describing. But let's not forget it. We're incomers. I mean, Alberto is not because Alberto and you know that all that area matters. exceptionally well. And I have to say, I was extremely surprised. I have never been with a guest that knew the area, not only better than I, but almost as well as Alberto. So what do you show there in terms of your knowledge of the area and just for your audience, like Doug was going through the highways and Doug was, yeah, we're here and this is here and this place is here. All these places are here. I love

SPEAKER_00: 44:13

the area. I'm there quite It might have been. I will be there next week.

SPEAKER_02: 44:16

But as you pointed out back then and as we discussed it and I was saying it earlier, all of that is possible only thanks to the people that are there and that actually enable the preservation of that as a treasure. Alberto has a way to say that it is that in any normal or more or less unfortunately, normal circumstance. A place like that could have been robbed and all the time. I mean, imagine seven years abandoned and the place was intact, was truly intact. That talks a lot about the respect of the people, the community, the admiration that all the region used to have, not only to this gentleman, Abelino Ruiz, who was the last family on it after it was abandoned, or before it was abandoned, but also for all of the heritage of the 250 years before. So all of these, we aim at having all of this area gradually, hopefully benefiting and recovering. It used to be, El Arenal used to be, from what I'm reading and understanding in some of the historian books, It used to be one of the top towns, if not the top town in the area. But obviously when the hacienda was abandoned, the whole economic activity went down and the town is not the same after seven years. But that is hopefully the third phase. Somehow, get also an impact in the whole area and the whole region. That is a long-term, very ambitious goal, but we believe that it's only fair to aim at with this type of

SPEAKER_01: 45:55

efforts. When you put all the pieces together, And you have what we do in the fields, what we do in production, what we do with the branding, what we do with the concepts that we have, what we do with the distillery, what we do with the visitor center, what we're going to do with the hospitality and everything. It all ends up adding the concepts that we have in the brand of this crazy genius we've been talking about, this artistry and artistic expressions. Luxury, of course, but In the end of the day, it represents a way of living. And this lifestyle, yes, of course, a luxury lifestyle, but it's not just a regular luxury lifestyle. Of course, it's not show-off or anything like that. It's not something that you just want to put on the face of people. It's something that we think that we're aiming for. For these people who will understand us are going to enjoy. Of course, they're going to be able to supply that for themselves. To be honest, we're talking about a lot of elitism. It's loco tequila. Let me be very, very honest about this. It's not the regular tequila that you're going to see everywhere and distributed everywhere, actually accessible to everyone. It's not the case. It's a totally different model. But it's more about all this hedonism and this ways of being happy and the delight of life. And not only living that life, for yourself, but sharing with others. So in the end, we normally like to say that this is how we celebrate life. The art of celebrating life. That's key.

SPEAKER_00: 47:39

Yeah, I love that you're going, hey, we're investing in the area. I mean, you guys have been there. We all know that is the gateway. I mean, that is such an important area for tequila for so many years. And for you guys to go, hey, we want to do our thing and do it at the highest level, but we also wanted to bring technology. all of the other ships up. And to go there and to see it, it is a pretty special thing. You guys currently have three products available here in the U.S. when JP can get his hands on it. But I wanted to see if you could walk us through the production process. I know you've talked a little bit about it. We talked about in the fields and that double shave. I mean, I saw it. I mean, it is a tight, you said those white piñas. I've not seen that and don't see that very often. But I wanted to see if you could talk us through. And I know you've got, you know, we took some video of the distillery, but you guys said, hey, don't post anything because we're, this is something special for us that we're working on. But I've got your Blanco, local Blanco in front of me. But if you could talk us through a little bit of the production process.

SPEAKER_02: 48:50

Doug, this is obviously a question for Alberto, but I'm going to dare to start with a one minute introduction as an answer. In my own world, in my own perspective. The production, the whole production process that Alberto has put together and continues to refine is described in one word. It's art. It's really art. We can talk, and I'm sure Alberto is going to describe many different things and actually many of the differences of what he does with respect to what the industry does today. But I want to start by saying the whole production process is art. What Loco Tequila is today, I am proud to say that it is a result of art, of Alberto's creativity, innovation, and this identity of daring to question and challenge established paradigms. I just wanted to put that as a prelude, Alberto, but obviously you're the master, so please go ahead.

SPEAKER_01: 49:52

Thank you very much, JP. I do agree. that making a tequila like Loco Tequila requires artistry. And in fact, it is an art. I do agree with that. So if we go directly into the process and we start with the feels, As I said before, in order to make the best tequila ever, you need to have the best agaves ever. So the terroir is a very, very important element. We did a lot of research when we knew that we were going to have Hacienda La Providencia. We started, we were, I was very, very familiar to terroir in the way that people in the industry know it, knowing the differences that there are in between the valley region and the Altos de Jalisco region, knowing that in order to have any sort of terroir experience, Well, of course, you need to supply only from a particular region. And then you have other conceptions about terroir. But we did understood that the Arenal municipality, although it's sitting there in the middle of the valley region, or at least in the beginning of the valley region, it does have its own microclimate. So as close as we are to Amatitán and Tequila, we're only seven minutes away from Amatitán and 25 minutes away from Tequila. We are slightly higher in elevation. Our terrarium is rather flat. It's surrounded by hills and mountains. You have the volcano over there, the Amatitán Hill, the Cascawin Hill, and Bosque de la Primavera out there in the distance. Because it's higher, it tends to be a little bit more fresh. It's not as hot as Amatitán. Amatitán is like a pothole. And same thing happens a little bit like that in tequila as well. So humidity and heat is concentrated in a different way. Whereas in the Arenal Municipality, we have air flowing in it. in a stronger way. So it's a little bit chillier. It's not, you've been there, it's not cold at all, but it's not as hot. And very importantly, the soil, it does have, of course, all this volcanic influence of the explosion of the volcano of Tequila, spreading all this volcanic materials through all those valleys, a lot of silics, obsidian, volcanic gravel and stuff. The water is actually one of the most important elements that differentiate that there are, knowing that the water that is actually getting into Amatitán and Tequila Town is coming from the volcano, from the leaks of the slopes in the volcano. Remember when we went to Ruinas Chimulco, the spring that they have there is actually getting the water from inside the hill of Amatitán Hill. In our case, actually, the water is coming from 40 kilometers away from Bosque de la Primavera. So Bosque de la Primera is in fact closer to Guadalajara than it is to El Arenal. So all this water is filtered through the water tables for about 40 kilometers in this kind of soil, not only making it clear and pristine, but actually characterizing that water in a different way. And you know that in every single distillery, the water source is very, very important because that characterization is actually going to play a role in the profiling of the product. So Terroir, very, very important. Second, the quality of the agave. Not only needs to come from the terroir or our definition of terroir, which is the El Arenal municipality, but it needs to be not necessarily the oldest agave, but the highest quality and sugar concentrations that we can get in a way that we are in fact having access bricks that are barely unreachable for many other producers. The average in bricks in the industry, we're talking about 25, 23, 26 sometimes, but the readings that we get is normally 38 or even closer to 40 bricks. That's a lot. And that only happens because our harvesting crew, leaded by Tony Sanchez, is making this Entresaque that we call the selective harvesting. He goes to the field and he analyzes the plants, the signs of maturity, Even if it's the leaves, the central leaves that are shorter than the other leaves and the outside of the plant, the spots that you might have on the base leaves, the color of the plant. When you chop off one or two leaves, these red spots that you might get, which is actually starch, naturally starting to convert into sugar, those are signs of maturity. So he does select and handpick the ones that are right, and he leaves the others out there in the fields untouched. So we can come back later for them. Not only that, we do the second shaving that you saw, which is pretty uncommon. It's not standard. On top of that, we remove the cogollo. So starting by that, we have the influence of the terroir with the best of the best in agave. So all that goes into a traditional masonry oven. We don't use pressure. We don't use autoclaves. autoclaves work in a much more efficient way than masonry ovens because those doors are closed in the case of the autoclaves and pressure is increasing because you can achieve much more temperature with higher pressure. Those agaves are cooked in, depends on the autoclave, in between 8, 12 degrees 15 hours now the masonry oven which is what we use is actually a very long process of roasting and cooking it takes about three days and uh you're probably asking yourself why is that i mean why are you waiting wasting so much time in cooking agave well time matters the more you have, all those physical and chemical processes that occur during the cooking process actually result in a much richer integration of flavors. So it's more richness in flavors and a much better integration. Something very similar to what happens when you cook for the Christmas dinner meal and you eat that same food the day after, once you reheat it. you did have the time to have a much better integration of flavors. And normally, that's better the second day, the day after. So it is then when we start splitting our different processing to different production lines, and we'd have different ways of extracting the sugars, the more ancestral ways, the Taona milling stone. Taona milling stone actually macerates the fibers It doesn't really wash away the fibers and the juices. It doesn't separate them, but it's much more rather like a maceration. Just to put things in perspective, it would be something similar to make a guacamole with a molcajete, right? With a mortar and pestle. You don't bang the agave very hard. You don't extract that much of the oil as you would do if you do it automatically with a machine. Again, you have a much more intense flavor when you are having tequila that is extracted, actually sugars that are extracted with the taona. But at the same time, having the rolling meal, which is a totally different process, which actually washes away the fibers from the juices, rinsing, squeezing and rinsing again and so on until at the end of the process you have just the juices and dry fibers which are actually discarded and going into fermentation. What you get from there is much more fresh herbal notes which are actually desirable in order to have a balance in between intensity and deep agave notes and freshness. and herbaceousness. Along with the terroir you have a very very specific profile already there. Now on top of that we once again split all those processes into different types of fermentation having Fermentation in ceramic tanks, or actually cement tanks, stainless steel tanks, and wooden fermentation baths. By the way, the wooden fermentation baths that we are using, we restored them from the old Hacienda La Providencia. And the yeasts, this is something that we learned from Ciatech. The yeasts that used to work back then, 100 years ago in those tanks, when the distilleries stopped working, those yeasts didn't really die. But they actually managed to get inside of the pores of the wood and remain there in a dormant status as if it's like a sort of hibernation. And once the new living conditions were given with temperature and heat and water and all that, they came back to life. And in fact, we rescue back an old yeast strain from 100 years ago that plays along with the environmental yeasts at the facility that we are working at this moment. Having wooden fermentation beds, having stainless steel tanks, having cement fermentation, it's different types of temperatures, the way that the product is kept, the way the microbiological environment works is different. And hence, you have, and therefore you have a different result out of it. Now, if on top of that, you consider that some of the processes are using only the juices, some others are using alcohol, the fibers are well as well and sometimes the fibers are loose fibers and some other occasions the fibers are restrained and contained into arpillas which is a sort of a I would say a type of a sack that acts almost as if it was a very large teabag those results are once again very very different so at This moment, we are keeping the process separately and they go again separately into distillation in small batch production with copper pot steels. Small batch allows us to have a much better control of the distillation, the temperature, the pressure, the cuts in the heads and the tails and everything. And The fact that we're using copper, well, copper, it is more expensive than stainless steel. It needs much more maintenance. It gets worn in a faster way. So eventually you're going to spend much more money on copper, but it does have an electrochemical affinity to trap sulfur compounds, which are naturally present in the fermentation processes. So in order to have a cleaner product, of course, you rely on how you do the cuts of the heads and details and how you do the alcohol selection based on temperature and the different evaporation that you have of the different types of alcohols with different types of temperatures. But remember, distillation is not perfect. We're not living in space. This is planet Earth. So you have the carryover as well. Having copper with this electrochemical affinity and knowing that it attracts the sulfur compounds, the smell of sulfur, which is not pleasant, is actually taken away and remains there as a plaque in the inside of the coils or the inside of the pots in the copper pot stills.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:12

Weren't some of those pot stills, they did not have a coil?

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:16

Yeah, the ones that you saw are different. The principle is exactly the same, the condensation. And you need to have pipes that run alcohol in form of paper, which is hot. And the inside of that condenser has cold water. So you have the contact of cold water with the hot alcohol. But instead of having a coil, you have pipes that go up and down. So it's much more efficient, but the result is actually the same. This

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:44

yeast strand that you really brought back to life, this, I would imagine, was not something that was at... Caskween distillery. So as you guys are testing, you've got some new things that you're going to be trying and it could, I mean, fermentation, the yeast, I mean, that, that plays a large role in, in flavor and things like that. But is that something you go, Hey, we're going to, we're going to try it. We're going to play around. I know you've got some experimenting. I met Berto from your team there that, you know, he's, he's been right there next to you, uh, really executing of you going, Hey, this is, this is what needs to be done. Are you guys going going to go through a series of these tests and you go, hey, we're going to try this yeast strand and see what it does for that final profile.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:30

Yeah, absolutely. We're facing a massive challenge and I'm not joking. It's really massive. We need to actually get the profile that we do have now in a different distillery with a different environment and different, I mean, the equipments are similar, but they're not the same. They're new for starters. So we need to curate all these equipments and we need to get them to work and everything. There's a number of things that we need to do before we produce local tequila during the trials. But the biological part of the process is very, very important. So all this microbiological consortium that lives today, a distillery where we are producing, needed to be actually activated. analyzed, evaluated, and the gists needed to be actually isolated. So we know that we're going to need actually to inoculate at the beginning the gists that we are using nowadays, including the gists that we actually got from the old wooden fermentation baths. in order to manage to get that impregnation of the microbiological environment into the new distillery and see if at some point we can actually stop inoculating or not. That doesn't really matter. The important thing is actually to get a product that is as closer as it can get to what we are doing nowadays with the same quality or higher. So that's actually the challenge. It's not something that's going to happen in a day or two. It's going to take a while and it's not something that's going to be easy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:12

Well, this Blanco, I've got this Blanco here. It's delicious. It's, I mean, that earthiness, that minerality of in the valley, all that, but there's a creaminess with this as well. Through and through, this is a delicious Blanco to sip on. You guys have another Blanco that is pretty unique. What can you tell me about that? Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:33

So the Blanco that you're having, you're now trying Loco Blanco. And the whole idea about Loco Blanco is actually to bring back the original identity to tequila into that proposal. So this is why you're having a robust, complex, intense sample. A lot of agave in there. Yeah. A lot of cooked agave, but also a lot of freshness. There's a lot of herbaceousness. In fact, you have fresh herbal notes as in mint, as in eucalyptus, but also you have some Mediterranean herbal notes like basil, like rosemary. And in fact, you do have something that is a little bit more pungent, like a green pepper or something like that. Now, along with that, you have the minerality that you were talking about that's coming actually from the terroir, something like dry salt where you have freshly poured rain. Petrichor is the right name for that aroma. A hint of citrix and a hint of spice as well, like white pepper. That's Loco Blanco. And that's the more traditional, the more powerful, the more legacy profile that we have. And it's all about the intensity and the power. Now we have also Loco Puros Corazones, which is the one that I have here on my right hand. And that's also a Blanco Tequila. But it is very different. What happens is that all this that we did with Loco Tequila, with the process and everything, was very, very experimental. In a way, Loco Tequila is still very experimental. We still keep on going with the experimentation and the innovation and everything. So at some point, we asked ourselves, okay, we've heard of all this stuff. speech. A lot of brand ambassadors and sales executives and people from marketing have in different spirits talking about the heart of distillation and getting rid of the heads and the tails and chopping a big chunk of the heads and the tails. And everyone does that. Everyone cuts the heads and the tails in accordance to their financial needs and their profiling needs and their quality needs. And You can have a little bit of here and that in all the different options that you have out there in the market. But the fact is that everyone cuts the heads and the tails somehow. And there's a lot of people that have been talking about, hey, we focus on the heart of distillation. Yes, well, that's for sure. Everyone focuses on the heart of distillation in a bigger chunk or in a smaller chunk. But what normally people don't know is what happens... to the heads and the tails that are chopped away in the industry. We're not only talking about tequila, we're talking about cognac and rum and whiskey and the whole spirits industry. And not a lot of people know that the heads and the tails normally are reintegrated. That's the common, the normal thing to do. Once again, because we're living in planet Earth and the distillation is not perfect, so you might have missed in the cut some alcohols that you need still want to recuperate or recover. So normally they are redistilled and reintegrated into the following batch that goes into the distillation process for the first time. Sometimes it's a lather, meaning second distillation goes into ordinario and ordinario goes into the dead musts or sometimes directly into the dead musts. So we asked ourselves, what if we do for the very first time, not only a tequila, but a spirit where the heads and the tails are not And to be honest, I did have an idea of what might have happened, but I was not really sure because no one has ever done it. And I feared I was going to get something that is probably going to be very neutral, something similar to a vodka. But then again, remember, I do have the advantage of the crazy processes that we have with a very, very wide selection and options to choose from with taona, milling stone, the rolling mill, the fermentation with the wooden bat and all that with fibers and everything. So I can also play with the formulation, although the distillation is not using the heads and the tails. So the result is in fact puro corazón. What happened is we do have All the notes and the characters of legacy tequila must have. You do have the agave. You do have the greenness, the herbiciousness, the green notes. You have much more fertility. You have much more florality as well. But in fact, Loco Puro Corazón presents the blanco tequila, the class as a whole in a in such an elevated way of refinement and finesse that it has never ever seen before. So this is why it's actually called Puro Corazón. Puro Corazón is not a marketing name. It's a technical name. The pure heart of the distillation without the integration of the heads and the tails.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:21

When you first tried it, what was it like when you guys first tried it? And you said, you know, because you said I had some hesitation, reservations. But the first time you guys were together and trying it, what was that like?

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:34

I ran several trials. Some of them didn't work, but others did. So eventually I ended up formulating in a different way.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:43

I was going to tell you, I can share the other version behind my scenes at least. Because I remember, I mean, just as a reminder, I live in California. I've been here for the past nine years. So all of this process was, yes, originally... conceived by Pedro and Gabriel. And again, they kindly consider me a co-founder, but they were the ones really leading the job, especially first to find Alberto. And then once they found Alberto, I was going to Mexico quite often and Pedro was coming and sharing all of these samples and all of that. But I do have the other version that I think is quite funny. So I'm going to share it with you guys. So, and it started with Loco Blanco. with Locoblanco that you talked about at the beginning. Because after, I don't remember, two or three plus years that Alberto went back and forth with all of those changes, ancestral methods. And I remember Pedro bringing samples to the U.S. just for us to try and me going to Mexico. At the beginning, it was obviously difficult and it was not at all something that just came up like that the first time. It was a lot of work, effort, and trial and error from Alberto. But at the end of Locoblanco, it was... success everyone was extremely happy great feedback from all of the people in the industry it's amazing it doesn't exist today anywhere else and everyone was super happy and Pedro Pedro told me he came back and his way of telling the version at least it was like he came back and challenged Alberto Alberto also was super happy, obviously, with Locoblanco because it was an amazing product that doesn't exist. I believe, as of today, it still doesn't exist, anything like that in the industry. But then Pedro came and said to Alberto, again, at least that's the way she used to tell me that, and she said, Alberto, this is amazing, but we have not created anything. We have only recreated... have not created, we recreated, which has a huge value because it doesn't exist in the industry. So it was a creation, but it was a recreation of what existed a hundred, a hundred plus years ago. And so, if we wanted to get something even more pure, more unique with a true creation, innovation of something that has never existed in the industry, even in the past 500 years or whatever. And that's when Alberto went back and did all of what he described for the process to get the heads and the tails removed, the titra, and experimenting with all of that. And then, obviously, after, I don't remember, Alberto goes, 12 to 24 months, I guess, to that puro corazón, which was actually quite short after all, after having done already loco blanco. And then they came and I remember the first time Pedro tasted a sample of puro corazón with me of that kind of finalized version. And it was just surreal. Honestly, it was surreal because it was... really that authentic agave terruño flavor that Blanco has. But with this texture... pleasurability and finesse and refinement that puro corazón has, that we said this should not be considered a blanco because people will misunderstand it. People will not believe that this is a blanco because what the category is of blanco today is not what puro corazón is. So that's why, even though it is technically a blanco because technically it's not aged, I used to say people in the U.S., our guests, our clients, it is technically a blanco but it is more refined and more subtle that many añejos or extra añejos just without the old part of it. So that was my version of the first times we tasted Puro Corazón.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:41

Yeah, it was delicious. And to understand it and to sit with it. And you guys were very generous those couple of days where there was always a bottle of it on the table to where we could enjoy. You had an incredible team. The guys that you work with for, again, making sure we had a great experience. They served us so well. And we'd always have three Riedel or tequila glasses. And you really had to be on your game because if you finished one, one of those guys would be right there filling it up. And I'm going, whoa, whoa, I'm still working on this one. I want to enjoy this one before you already refill me. But sipping on it was delicious. And for you guys to go, hey, we're going to do something different. We're going to really get to the essence of this and get to the heart. And JP, you were telling us on the trip and Alberto just said, hey, this is not a gimmick. This is not just a name. This is The pure heart. This really is what it is and really delicious. Time will tell if any of that ever makes it into barrels to see if if I know, Alberto, you have experimented. And I know that that that crazy genius in you wants to continue to push and go, well, let me try this. Let me try this. It's like, you know, you you look over the hill and go, well, I wonder what's going on over that hill. I want to go over there and see. And I think that's how your mind works. I want to continue to push. and go, well, what if we did this? What if we did this? So really a treat to spend a lot of time with. And then rounding it out, you guys have a delicious Reposado. And what you're doing with the barrels, this Loco Ambar, this is the Reposado, absolutely delicious, some special barrels. What can you tell me about that?

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:26

Well, in the end of the day, if you really think of it, it's all, not only for Loco Ambar, but all of the Loco Tequila expression is daring to defy what's there, being authentic, being original, and being creative. Of course, when the time of having a local... yeah, a reposado in the portfolio, uh, arised, I knew I was not going to do what everyone else does. You know, that 98% or even more of the industry in tequila uses the typical white American oak X bourbon cask. And it is not that I did that. I didn't experiment with that. I did. Uh, I in fact did, uh, bring some, uh, barrels from Buffalo trace. I still do have some experiments, uh, back there in the cellar with plantains and even with some neo-American oak. But I wanted to go way beyond that. And of course, in order to make an experiment, you need to plan for that experiment. So a few years ago, I brought very different kinds of casks from Europe, from the Americas, from Asia, some of them were new some others were previously used in something else different levels of charring you know different different variations in different casks. And I, of course, started experimenting with the different liquids that I do have. Loco Blanco, Loco Puro Corazón, and some other Blanco liquids that I do have out there, back there in the kitchen. So eventually, I started to realize there were some samples, some casks that were working beautifully for a reposado. But I was not happy in a hundred percent. I mean, they were fantastic, but I was still not fully happy. So then I realized that if I started playing with the blends, the synergy that I was going to be able to achieve was much more as a result than what I could get from a single barrel in terms of expressiveness and in terms of profiling. Long story short, I selected four rare, uncommon or not very normal, or as well, one of them is a cask that is not used by anyone else, not even in the whole industry. I mean, it's not talking only about tequila, but the rest of the industry as well. So I took a cooperage that works in Ireland and makes a cask, that is first used for an Irish whiskey, triple distilled. And you know how the traditional triple distilled whiskey is in Ireland, a lot of buttery notes, a lot of cereal notes, a lot of bready elements there. But once they're done with that cast, they take it also in Ireland to a microbrewery to... aged stout beer. So from the stout, I'm getting all these chocolate notes, all these cocoa beans, roasted cocoa beans, all these story facts that play along with the previous use in whiskey. And I bring it to Mexico and fill it with Loco Blanco. The second cast, I brought it from Spain. Of course, it had to do a sherry. But it's not just a regular sherry. We're not talking about Oloroso or Fino or Manzanilla or anything like that. We're talking about Pedro Ximenez. So we all know about the quality of Pedro Ximenez and the type of attributes that kind of grape actually delivers in the process and the maturation and the aging and everything. So this is why I get a very specific type of frutality of very ripe white grapes that are pacified, almost like raisins, but it does have a hint of medicinal notes as if you were walking through a European prayer. Something like that. Once again, I bring it to Mexico and fill it with Loco Blanco. Different aging, different times, different everything. So it's separated. The third one is coming from Portugal. It is a port and it's a town style. So being such a sweet town, style of port and because we're talking about a red variety of grape we have a lot of dates we have a lot of plums a lot of regular raisins dehydrated apples and apricots and such you know the typical christmasy kind of notes that you get that you get normally from port and the fourth one is a cask that is made with woods coming from the Lavos region in France so it's not used in anything else it's new and that type of oak being french oak but specifically from there is very very spiced so just as any other oak the french oak is going to deliver some vanilla and some caramel and all that but this one has a lot of clove uh it does have a lot of bergamot it has a lot of cinnamon even some black pepper it's very very much into the spicy uh notes so playing With the right proportion, the right amounts, the right percentages, with all these different forecasts, and the right times, depending if it is the first time that I use a cask, the second one, or the third time that I use a cask, I normally give a little bit more time as the cask is used more and more. And after a third time, I'm done with the cask. I make the blend in order to make loco amber. So this is a reposado expression not to be found in the market because of the complexity and the exoticity and the uniqueness of these different casts. You might have realized when you tried Loco Ambar for the very first time that it almost feels as if it was an Añejo, but it's not the case. It's a reposado. So technically it's into that class. But not only that, the profile... It's not something that you ever tried before. And second, the agave profile, the tequila character is not lost to the wooden contribution. That's very important for me. So to keep the agave character, but actually get the best from the different casts in expression and the wooden contribution in a perfect balance. So there's not a single note that will overpower any of the other notes. It's very complex and there's a lot of things going out there with loco ambar. Many, many different expressions, but they play along in a very well balanced way. It's very round. And very importantly, not only for loco ambar, but for any of the loco tequila expressions, I use no additives. So no glycerin, no sugar, no oak extract, no natural flavors, no nothing like that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:29

And to complement Alberto's talk, what Alberto is saying, he mentioned something very important that I believe is linked to the original intent of the regulatory aspect of Añejo Reposado. Talking under your control, you both guys here, but I believe... In order for a tequila to be called reposado, it has to be aged between 2 and 12 months. Given what has happened in the market in the past many years, that the demand has been going up, up, up, up, up in volume, the industry has been trying to keep up with the volume and rushing to provide more and more tequila, almost in many cases, unfortunately, to the expenses of So the vast majority of the reposados do the minimum, do two months. What Alberto is doing is really with respect to the original essence of the regulation, which was, guys, play with anything between two months and 12 months and get the best out of that. And that is the essence of the reposado. It is not beyond 12 months to be called an añejo, but it is way closer to what the industry considers to be an añejo because the same way the industry, most of the times, unfortunately, goes only with 12 months. for an añejo because that's the minimum that they need to do. And again, there's this rush to fill the volume. So that is why at the end of the day, not only is closer to an añejo of what the industry experiences today, but also it is closer to the to the essence of what the initial regulatory body meant. But, okay, let's play and experiment and create with anything between 2 and 12 months. That is an important aspect of AMBER. Together with the fact that I want to emphasize what Alberto mentioned at the end, the most important point is that the essence of the agave is still there. In many of what unfortunately has happened with this rush to fulfill the demand of the volume, we forget that tequila comes from an agave spirit and should be the result of a terroir, a minerality, the agave itself, that often, unfortunately, it's overwhelmed and completely covered by... oak in the best of the cases and additives in the worst of the cases. Oak in the best of the cases, if it really someone ages it, but it is with too much oak or with an oak that is too powerful for the agave. And additives, because as we know, many people in the industry go that way, not even to wait for the aging. But that's an important point for amber, for local amber.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:20

To make a different kind of comment, JP and Doc, to be honest, I do respect the rules. And I play with the rules. But I'm not really that worried about the rules. I'm not really concerned about the rules. For me, loco ambar is loco ambar, not arreposado. It's just loco ambar. And it's a way of expression. It happens to be legally arreposado. But I don't really care if tomorrow I make an añejo and it comes out in a much more clear liquid. And I still call it with a different name. And if it is an añejo or not an añejo or an extrañejo. To be honest, it's much more, from my point of view, to having the authority of having an alfor tequila, if I'm not really missing the point in the translation from Spanish to English, as opposed to playing with the... rules of the CRT when it comes to naming your product.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:26

Yeah, that ombar was delicious. I mean, the different barrels, the depth of flavor was absolutely delicious. Entire lineup is really, really good. Now, it is expensive. And we talked about that. I pushed on you guys on some of that. But there's a lot that goes into the process and that higher tier price point. But the good news is that You guys have such a big and loyal following that pretty much everything that you produce barely even makes it to the US because in Mexico, they all buy it. So there's a lot of people that they see. And we talked about this. It's getting them to see what you guys are doing. You're not just going, hey, we're trying to make a tequila just for the sake of making a tequila. There's something bigger than just making a tequila. And it is something very special. And there's this luxury. So the entire lineup is absolutely delicious. Guys, thank you. Thank you for an incredible few days in El Arnal where we got to spend time together, have great conversations. I do a lot of these trips and I do a lot of these trips with different brands and I'm very thankful and I'm humbled that you guys would even ask me. But this trip was so educational. This trip was to really spend time with you guys and to understand the why as to what you guys are doing and why you're doing it. So thank Thank you for that time. Thank you for coming on the show and explaining and walking us through. I'm excited to see as time goes on with this hacienda, as you guys are bringing it back to life, really is truly special. And Alberto, maybe towards the end of the year, as you guys are doing some test batches, man, it would be an honor to get back down there and just see what you guys are doing. Because that distillery, once you're up and running and everything is dialed in that I know you're going to spend time on- And it's going to be, yeah, it's going to be very, very special. Loco-tequila.com is the website for people that want to learn more about the brand. There is in the U.S., there are some opportunities to purchase through the website. Is

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:33

that correct? The different discussions that we had about the expensive or not expensive, because that's obviously a debate in the industry, and I'm glad you pushed that conversation. A lot of people make expensive tequilas for positioning purposes and just for brand purposes. And as I mentioned to you, this is not... Not only this is not the case, but as what Alberto was saying was a very good example. Alberto is creating, for example, Loco Amber. It happens to be reposado, but he's creating Loco Amber. Same thing with the pricing. We're creating what we believe should be, has been, and will be the best tequila in our understanding. And fortunately and unfortunately, fortunately it is feasible, unfortunately it costs a lot. It costs a lot because everything is manual, because there's a lot of details in all the processes that are extremely personalized and really taken care of manually, as you saw yourself in the fields and obviously in the distillery as well. And it's like when I say to other guests or people, whether it's in tequila or in wine, excellence matters. is not inexpensive to build. And if you are committed to excellence, you need to be ready to pay that cost. So yes, there is a small margin, but as I remember when we were in the car driving from the airport to El Arenal, I shared with you the math of a bottle, of the cost of a bottle. And as you might remember, there was really not that much margin after all. It is really the cost of producing it. And I'm going to close this part with, I believe I shared this with you, but I'm not fully certain. I was having a discussion with one of the persons in the wine world many years ago that I respect and admire the most, the wine critic and editor of Bloomberg. And she was telling me, okay, JP, what do you say to people, whether it's in wine or in tequila or in whatever, what do you say to people that tell you, hey, you can produce, in that case it was wine, but you can produce wine that is very similar, almost as good as for considerably less price. Obviously, she was testing me because she knows that we're committed to excellence. And then I told her, yes, that is correct. You can produce tequilas, wines, whatever, that are almost as good for considerably less amount of money. The curve of cost, as I'm sure you know, the curve of getting to that final price which is never final because you can always do better, but the curve of getting to the marginal increase in quality and purity and identity is exponential. So if you were to translate it into numbers, just for the sake of explaining this probably more easily, going from, let's say, 70% quality, obviously you cannot translate it like that, but just for the sake of example, going from 70% quality to 80% quality, costs less than going from 80 to 90. And that costs less than going from 90 to 100. So, yes, it is more expensive than the average, obviously, but it is really our commitment to to compensate every step of the process on a manual way. All the people that are actually there that you saw taking care of the agaves, then the jimadores, then the distillery, all of that. And it really comes from this vision that Alberto has described of that inspiring madness. to really be committed to the excellence and to doing better every time, no matter where you are. And yes, to answer to your question, this goes a long answer to your question, but to answer the question in the U.S., we do have the possibility of offering some bottles through the website. In fact, the little that... I always tease Alberto because I tell him that he only gives me so little amounts to the U.S. market. But anyway, whatever he... agrees to ship me to the US, I actually first fulfill our website with our forecast to make sure that the most likely scenario is that the website is always available between every batch. And then whatever we have left after fulfilling the website, we share it with the partners that have kindly believed in us, both restaurants and fine wine and spirit shops, both in California and in Texas physically But the first place where we always refill our stocks are really the website fulfillment, as you described.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:58

And there's a lot of states that you guys, a lot of states that you guys

SPEAKER_02: 1:34:01

can ship. Yeah, the website can ship to more than 30 states. Any state that has a normal spirits regulation, we can ship. There's some states, obviously, that have very difficult regulations. Those are more complicated. But I believe it's close to 40 states that the website can ship

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:17

to. There's so much that goes into it. And CNIS And like you guys gave me the opportunity to see it and to talk with you. You do see firsthand, man, how much that goes into this. So again, guys, thank you for coming on the show. Exciting to see the best is yet to come, to see what you guys are going to continue to do at this new hacienda. It's a historical older hacienda, but you guys are bringing it back to life. So I'm excited to see that over the next couple of years. Again, JP, Alberto, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing the story of of Loco Tequila. Guys, cheers. Cheers.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:51

Thank you again. Thank you very much, Doug.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:54

Guys, thank you. Cheers. That was Alberto Navarro and Juan Pablo Torres Padilla with Loco Tequila. To learn more about the brand, you can go to loco-tequila.com. Are you enjoying the show? Do me a favor if you listen on Apple. If you would, I'd love for you to rate and review the show. I'm Doug Price, and thanks for listening.