Tequila Blanco, 'Madera'

• Limited edition blanco tequila produced at Destilería el Ranchito (NOM 1414) in Arandas, Los Altos, Jalisco
• Maestro Tequilero Sergio Cruz
• Produced using 100% estate-grown Azul aka Blue Weber (Agave tequilana) matured 6–8 years
• Roasted in brick ovens 48–50 hours
• Milled using a roller mill
• Open-air fermented with fibers using sonic harmonization (aka “the Mozart method”) in pine vats for 8 days using propagated wild yeast and deep well water
• Distilled twice in copper pot stills
• Powerful aromas of fresh agave, citrus, lychee, jackfruit, dry grass, and wood precede a palate anchored by raw and cooked agave with secondary and tertiary notes of citrus and tropical fruit that echo the nose
• Jay Kosher certified
• Additive free
• 54% ABV

Though the Vivanco family fabrica was launched decades ago, recent years have brought a renewed focus on heritage methods, spurring Sergio & co to begin upgrading infrastructure with historic equipment and allowing NOM 1414 to explore more variations in production.

For this expression, Madera, meaning “wood” in Spanish, references the traditional wooden vats, or tinas, used for fermentation. These large pine vats each held 2,000 liters of mosto fermented with the milled agave fibers and a proprietary wild yeast propagated at the distillery. The long open-air fermentation also introduced ambient yeasts, drawing upon the influence of the distillery’s surrounding fruit trees, which include orange, lime, grapefruit, banana, and pomegranate. With so much bold roasted agave and tropical fruit flavor, this massive expression was bottled at a 54% ABV to best deliver the full intensity of the contributing land, air, and agave.