It’ll be a cold day in March when I march down to the Fairview Pacific Rim hotel for an all day lecture on tequila, but that’s exactly what happened.
All day. 9:30 in the morning to past 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon. In the”Star Sapphire” ballroom, which sounds magnificent but is really just a big, modern, high-ceilinged room. This is what the ceiling looks like.
Actually, that looks kind of cool, doesn’t it? But I was there about the tequila. And so were about a hundred other people. I’d say most if not all of these other people were being paid for attending by their employer or employers. I was there on my own time. I must really have a thing for tequila, which sounds strange, because I haven’t had a shot of tequila in years.
Tequila’s made from the core, or piña, of the blue agave plant. I found out that the Jimador are the guys that harvest the piñas by hacking off the agave leaves which are long with a pointy end. Then the piñas are baked and then crushed, milled, boiled and a whole lot of other stuff and at the end of an 8 step process tequila is the result.
The rather long, day-long lecture was given not by a representative of any maker of tequila but by a representative of the CRT. The Consejo Regulador del Tequila. This organization is dedicated to preserving and expanding tequila’s good name and reputation. It’s the certification body for the 146 producers in five Mexican states designated to produce tequila.
I’m assuming you can make whatever type of booze you want in Mexico out of the blue agave or any sort of agave but you can’t call it “Tequila” unless the blue agave is grown in these five states and the tequila is made there.
I love the sound of the names of these states. Jalisco. Michoacán, Guanajuato. Tamaulipas. Nayarit. When you’re lost in the rain in Jaurez and it’s Eastertime too is a good one, but that has nothing to do with tequila boot camp.
It was hard. It was long. But the Mexican lady delivering the lecture was also cool. A genuine Mexican lady speaking good English in that Mexican lady accent. For shame I can’t remember her name, but she was very low key that way. The day was about Tequila, not her. I’m calling her Esmeralda.
I now know more about tequila than I ever thought I’d know, so there’s that. I thought it was over but then the guy who’d introduced Esmeralda that morning, but didn’t identify himself at that time as a representative of the tequila that was also putting on today’s show, okay, I’ll tell you, it was “Patrón”, reappeared and started in about the Patrón story.
This after hotel staff working the event had laid out six sampler glasses on tasting sheets with samples of six Patrón tequilas for all one hundred attendees. And for the life of me, this is insane, I can’t remember this gentleman’s name. I guess I was getting enervated by this time. It started with an “S”. His last name. He’s an American.
He was talking. And talking. And my personal small samples of Patrón tequilas were on the table right in front of me. And it was getting late. I’d organized to be out of there at 5. I had to go. It was ten minutes to 5. Finally he suggested we take a taste of the silver Patrón. But then he was talking on. It was interesting, but I gotta go. My car is waiting.
The “silver” sure did taste like tequila. It brought back memories. I sampled the other five quickly. Seriously. You can do this if you know what you’re doing. It was three minutes to 5 and Mr. “S.” is going on interestingly. Does that make sense? I got up and left.
Yrs in the rain. A fine March day.
samoyeddogs 