A SHORT HISTORY OF TEQUILA & MEZCAL
The story begins with agave itself.
For thousands of years, agave has been an important part of life in Mexico, used for everything from food and fibres to building materials. Indigenous communities were also fermenting agave long before Europeans arrived, most famously in the form of pulque.
Distilled agave spirits came later. Exactly when distillation began in Mexico is still debated, but production developed during the colonial period following the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century.
Over time, different regions developed their own traditions. Around the town of Tequila in Jalisco, Blue Weber agave flourished in the volcanic soil and a thriving distilling industry emerged. By the 18th and 19th centuries, commercial production was well established and the spirit produced there increasingly became known by the name of its hometown: tequila.
Elsewhere, particularly in Oaxaca, families and communities continued making agave spirits using local varieties and traditional methods. These spirits became collectively known as mezcal, from the Nahuatl mexcalli, generally translated as “cooked agave.”
Today both tequila and mezcal have legally protected denominations of origin.
Tequila can only be produced in authorised areas of Mexico, principally Jalisco and designated municipalities in Guanajuato, Michoacán, Nayarit and Tamaulipas. It must be made from Agave tequilana Weber variedad azul — Blue Weber agave.
Mezcal has its own designated production regions and can be made from dozens of different agave varieties. Oaxaca is by far the best-known producer, although mezcal is also made in several other Mexican states.
One of the biggest misconceptions about mezcal is that it is simply “smoky tequila.” It isn’t. The smoky character found in many mezcals usually comes from the traditional practice of roasting agave hearts in earthen pits, but smoke is only one possible flavor among many.
There is an often-repeated line that “all tequila is mezcal, but not all mezcal is tequila.” Historically and linguistically there is some logic to it, since mezcal was once a broader term for distilled agave spirits. Legally today, however, Tequila and Mezcal are separate protected categories, each governed by its own rules.
What they share is agave — a remarkable plant that can take many years to mature before it ever reaches a bottle.
