The Los Altos region of Jalisco is the second major tequila producing area after the Tequila region. It’s iron-rich red earth and cooler climate are considered to produce some of the best, and often sweeter tequilas.  Some of the most famous premium tequilas sold in the US come from this area including Don Julio (one of our favorites) and Patron, which is made here and shipped up to the US in tanker trucks to be bottled there.

Patron is not available for sale in Mexico, nor do most people here know of its existence, even though the brand has pretty much single-handedly changed the way people in the US think about tequila and helped created a booming premium tequila market. It’s owned by Paul Mitchell of that hair care line, by the way.

It seems every available space in the Los Altos region is covered with an ad for one of its many distilleries.

The Los Altos region has two main  tequila producing towns: Arandas and the much smaller Atotonilco el Alto, where our favorite tequila, Don Julio, is made. Many other big brands come from the area too, including Cazadores, Centinela, Siete Leguas, Corazon, Tequila El Charro, Tapatio, Hacienda Vieja and many more.

So why didn’t we see ANY tequila being made? Most of the distilleries were strangely offline. Local authorities blamed a dip in demand as a result of the recent swine flu brouhaha for the across the board tequila factory shut downs. However, if you ask us the swine flu was just an excuse for companies to send their employees home for a few weeks and save some bucks in the bad economy.

This old factory building on Hacienda de Guadalupe, a few miles outside of Arandas, is now part of a beautiful house. However, in the late 1800s this building was used to make the very first tequila distilled in the Los Altos region. The brand became known as El Cabrito and is still made by a distillery called Centinela.

For whatever reason, production at all of the major tequila factories in Arandas was shut down when we were there. We still wanted to visit them all even if they weren’t up and running, but we had little luck getting in even with the direct assistance of the Presidente (Mayor) of Arandas who made a few calls for us. In the end we visited the Don Julio gift shop in Atotnilco el Alto (where we scored a bottle of reposado for $23) and Tequila El Charro and Centinella in Arandas. Only El Charro allowed us to take pictures.

Beautiful blue agave fields surround the town of Arandas.

Tequila El Charro in Arandas.

The most interesting thing about  Tequila El Charro, besides their gorgeous facility and wonderful cowboy sculpture (charro roughtly translates to cowboy in English), is their innovative use of both old and new methods and machinery.

That's a lot of tequila, especially since there are 12 of these 50,000 liter storage tanks at Tequila El Charro.

Tequila El Charro employs an interesting mix of old and new including these beautiful traditional copper stills right alongside shiny new stainless steel stills.

For example, they use wonderful old-school copper stills right next to rows of ultra-modern stainless steel versions. And instead of steaming the blue agave hearts in a traditional oven, Tequila El Charro tosses them into enormous autoclaves where the sweet nectar is extracted in record time.

Centinella also has some twists and turns in its tequila production, including aging the stuff in old Jack Daniels barrels which give their top of the line reposado and anejo tequilas a distinctly whiskey-like roundness and earthiness.

The barrel room at Tequila El Charro was as big as an airplane hanger and the most orderly we've seen.

Just remember: whatever brand of tequila you drink stick to tequilas that are 100% agave, not 51% agave plus a headache-inducing mix of sugars and fake color. If it’s pure agave it will say 100% right on the label.

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