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TequilaBy Ben Widdicombe
Guadalajara, Mexico’s second city of six million souls, is the best base for exploring Tequila and the surrounding countryside. Dry and temperate, the city is 125 miles’ steady climb from Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific coast, and 35 minutes from the toned-down mountain resort community of Lake Chapala.
The beautiful cathedral and several fine museums (like the Museo Tonallán, a must see for art and archeology) are set off the central plaza and easy to find on foot. Tourist information kiosks are staffed by English-speakers with maps of the most popular destinations, and the Spanish-language daily paper, Mural, publishes an entertainment guide every Friday. Hotels are plentiful at all price points: the plush Quinta Real is among the best, but you can still find a clean, two-star alternative near the town center for under $100 a night. One word of warning: be careful passing through Guadalajara airport. On my last trip, the civilian security screener and his armed guard friend teamed up for what seemed an awful lot like a con to relieve me of some Yankee dollars (their need to take me to an interrogation room vanished when they learnt I was Australian). The local archbishop, Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, was assassinated in the airport parking lot in 1993.
There was some drama in the plantation I visited because the jimadors’ donkey had run away. Given that even the most agitated burro has a top speed of about half a mile an hour, the beast’s disappearance in this flat, treeless valley was a mystery to everyone.
Nestled in the narrow streets of the town is the imposing Jose Cuervo distillery and compound, distinguished by the crow motif woven into the wrought-iron fencing (Cuervo being Spanish for crow). Through its gates you’ll see mature agaves of all different sizes being dropped off by the cartload into garage-sized stables, each of which has a bicycle wheel mounted to the wall. The buyer and the jimador have a unique way of determining the price of the delivery. Each takes half a dozen numbered spikes to toss at random into the pile; the wheel is then spun, and stops at the number of one of the spikes. That agave is weighed, the weight is multiplied by the number of plants delivered, and the grower is paid accordingly.
While sipping tequila is a habit very easy to acquire, it goes without saying that the margaritas in the bars and restaurants of Tequila and Guadalajara are the best you’ll ever taste. Another local variation is the “red, white and green” (the colors of the Mexican flag), which involve consecutive shots of tomato juice, limejuice and tequila. Both the Cuervo and Sauza distilleries have gift shops with souvenirs and favorably-priced bottles of their product to take home. Just don’t embarrass yourself by asking why there’s no worm in the bottle: that little critter is only found in bottles of mezcal, not tequila. To learn about mezcal, you’ll have to go to the state of Oaxaca—and that’s a different trip. Useful links:Tequila myths and culture Guadalajara visitors’ guide Mexico Tourism Board |
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TM
For many people, a visit to Mexico means a choice
between a pushy, crowded beach resort or the daunting crush of Mexico City.
But for a trip that’s as much education as recreation, consider Tequila—the
city that named the liquor—in the country’s stunning south-central
highlands.
Now the state capital of Jalisco, Guadalajara has been
an important center since 1561, when it was the seat of the colony of New
Galicia. Like its Spanish counterpart, the city derives its name from the
Arab "Wad-al-hidjara", or "river between the rocks”.
After you’ve acquainted yourself with Guadalajara, rent
a car or a driver for the short ride to Tequila. The journey of about an
hour takes you through the valley plantations where rows of blue agaves, the
raw material for the liquor, grow like crowns in the red volcanic dust.
You’ll pass the agave farmers—or jimadors—each of whom wields a sharp, flat
shovel to prune the spiky leaves off the agave and, when the time is right,
pry it from the earth. 
The modest city of Tequila is kept buffed and polished
like a showpiece, given that it headquarters two major producers of the
liquor, Sauza and Jose Cuervo. My guide boasted that the Cuervo company had
donated all the public trash cans in town, although they’re less ornate and
more bolted down than their predecessors, each of which now resides in the
kitchen of a grateful citizen. 
To bear the Tequila appellation, the liquor by law must
contain a minimum 51% blue agave. But that hangover you got in college was
probably from drinking cheap tequila—like the popular Cuervo Gold—which is
bolstered by the added sweetness of distilled sugar cane. While the sweeter
blends are popular “shots”, 100% agave tequila is better for sipping. Aged
tequila—called añejo—is the finest, and the best examples (like Cuervo’s
Reserva de la Familia) have the smooth, opulent flavor of a cognac. 