Tequila Alquimia agaves are harvested on our ranch by our jimadores, who take great pride in the art of la jima, the harvest. They use razor-sharp coas, the tools that allow the jimadores to cut off the leaves of each plant with exact precision. Once the agave’s sharp leaves are removed, the remaining mass of the plant, called a piña, for its resemblance to a pineapple, is loaded into trucks to transport hundreds of piñas to the distillery.
Once at the factory, we bake the agaves in traditional stone ovens slowly for 2-3 days. This gives Tequila Alquimia complete caramelization of the sugars, without the bitterness which can result from cooking the agave too quickly. The cooked agaves are then shredded and mashed to separate the juice from the fiber. The juice is then fermented for 7 days with organic yeast before it is sent to our stainless steel pot stills. Tequila Alquimia distill our tequila twice, to retain as much of the natural agave flavor as possible in the final tequila profile.
After distillation, we bottle the first of our expressions, Alquimia Blanco. This is the purest expression of tequila because it has absolutely no added flavors, sugars or coloring and is made of 100% agave. Tequila Alquimia designed the bottles as a family, and our daughters created our brand identity and bottle design for our product. The designs are converted into hand-made glass bottles at a family-owned glass factory in Tonalá, Jalisco, where 100% recycled glass is used to create our works of art.
For each of Tequila Alquimia other expressions of tequila, Tequila Alquimia use American white oak barrels to age the tequila for different amounts of time to create each expression. Tequila Alquimia Reposado is aged for 6 months in the barrels, while our Añejo is aged for just under 3 years. Tequila Alquimia Extra Añejo Reserva de Don Adolfo is aged for 6 years, and Tequila Alquimia next expression has aged for over 12 years. Each expression is distinct in its flavor profile because of the amount of time it spends aging in the oak barrels. We add no flavors or coloring to the different expressions to create their unique flavors, in order to maintain a high quality product that reflects the care of our organic methods and all natural process to produce each of our exceptional tequilas.
Tequila Alquimia are all USDA certified 100% organic, which is important to recognize because not all organic tequilas are created the same way.Tequila Alquimia's inspection is awarded the highest ratings in the certification because Tequila Alquimia not only utilize organic methods and ingredients, but Tequila Alquimia also compost our green matter as much as possible after each harvest.