Spirit Tasting: 'Tequila'
The Agave juice was flowing freely for the first Inside Liquor tasting at the Stones Corner Hotel on Tuesday 22nd February. With 20 brands of tequila to be tasted our panel was into it pretty quickly.
With the panel having a good base knowledge of the product, we started right away with the first Tequila which started a lively discussion about its position in the market place.
As you can imagine by having such a diverse group of industry personnel on hand - bar designers, buyers, account managers and brand ambassadors, there were varying views on the products we tasted.
One opinion was shared by all, tequila is suffering from an identity crisis. It seems to carry a dirty reputation in the general market, with too many consumers not understanding the product.
By holding this tasting, we may be able to bring a little light to the mystery of this ancient Mexican spirit.
It was a long yet entertaining afternoon watching people stroll by looking at an abundance of empty glasses and a group of guys deep in discussion. As expected, there were a few products that stood out. With such variety, we were surprised by some of the products we tasted.
It would be fair to say that there were a few surprises which came from some of the lesser known tequilas in the Gold category.
The big brands also held their own and received high scores from our panel, especially at the premium level.
Once we tasted our way through the dark Tequilas it was on to the Blanco/ Silver category and I must admit this was the biggest surprise for me. I have always found this to be a very harsh and raw style of Tequila and I have generally stayed away from it until today.
To the credit of the Tequila distillers, I must admit there were some truly stand-out products in the range and this has changed my mind on white Tequila.
I urge everyone to try this product over and over again. There is a big market out there and some of the styles we tried today showed us all that as a shot, straight, on ice or with a piece of orange, Tequila is a great drink.
The quality has been raised in Mexico over the last ten years and we're lucky to finally be getting some of these great products on Australian shores.
Tequila has developed and become one of the great world spirits and I believe it truly deserves your respect and your time.
Get out there to your local Tequila bar and have some fun and improve your knowledge of this amazing spirit. Inside Liquor would like to thank Kylie Hey and her team at the Stones Corner Hotel for their support of the Spirit Tasting Panel and in particular the fantastic facilities that were provided for this event. We would also like to thank the Spirit Tasting Panel participants for giving of their time, commitment and integrity to make this a truly objective 'blind' tasting.
*The figures indicated against each product are based on a rating scale of 1 – 5 (one being the lowest/worst and five being the highest/best), with the scores for all participants averaged out to determine the final result.
