Agave Timeline & Evolution

What is Agave?

Agave is plant in the species of monocot, which grow in arid, hot, and biodiverse landscapes in the Americas. Many people think that an agave is a cactus, somehow connecting it to mescaline, the hallucinogenic juice you can get from the cactus peyote. You may have heard some pretty fanciful stories about the insects (worms) in the mezcal bottles and how they make you affect your psychosis. Check out our article COMING SOON to see what’s up with the worm!

The agave plant is actually closer in relation to asparagus and yucca than to cactus. The plant is often called “The Century Plant”, which gives the allure that it blooms once a hundred years, when in fact they bloom in as early as seven years. The bloom is the important part. It produces the contents which yields dozens of beverages, syrups, materials, and most importantly spirits. The term century plant often refers to its “once a lifetime yield”, since most people don’t live over a century.

The agave plant has been distilled, fermented, eaten, and been used to create everything from clothes and ropes to straws and insulation. This magical and unique plant has such an intertwined biological connection to its environment that without it many plants and animals would go extinct. We will be going over the distillation and fermentation history of agave, but feel free to research all the sustainable contributions agave has given us!

Origin & Evolution

1000 B.C.- 200 A.D- The Aztec civilizations of Central Mexico consumed a fermented beverage called pulque. Essentially, pulque is beer that is created by allowing the sap from the pina of the agave plant to ferment. This process produced a milky liquid that was so important to the Aztecs that they have two gods dedicated to the alcohol. The first was Mayahuel, goddess of the maguey (agave), and Patecatl, the god of pulque. The first record of pulque are from cave paintings from around 200 A.D. However, historians believe that pulque may have been consumed by the Olmecs as far back as 1000 B.C. 

1400’s- 1500’s- In 1521, Spanish Conquistadors made their way to Mexico. The Spaniards were at the time dominantly brandy drinkers, but as their supplies began to dwindle they needed a replacement. They used their knowledge of distillation, combined with the readily available maguey plants, to create mezcal. That’s right, mezcal came before tequila! The new spirit was a hit among the conquistadors and by the mid 1500’s a trade route was established between Manila and Mexico. 

1595 - King Phillip II of Spain banned the planting of new vineyards in Mexico and other Spanish colonies. This meant that there would be no more growing of grapes to produce wine and brandy in Mexico. This was done to retain the market for Spanish wine in the New World and reap the benefits of export taxes. 

1600 - Don Pedro Sanchez de Tagle, the Marquis of Altamira (modern day Jalisco), saw this ban on vineyards as an opportunity to take advantage of the native growing agave plants. He created the first mass-producing tequila distillery and became filthy rich. 

1758 - The Cuervo family began producing tequila.

1873 - Don Cenobio Sauza is responsible for identifying the blue agave plant as the best for making tequila, and his grandson was the guy behind the idea that true tequila could only come from Jalisco when the Sauza family began production, that tequila was exported to the U.S. 

1821 - The Mexican War for Independence caused a real shift in the production of Mezcal. 

1900’s- Tequila became popular in the U.S. during prohibition. American drinkers began smuggling it across the border, as they did rye whiskey from Canada, or simply drove down to Tijuana, where 100’s of bars had popped up to serve thirsty Americans. By 1936, prohibition had ended and there was no need to go to Mexico anymore. However, the one drink that came back with these American drinkers was the Margarita, which has become a staple for good cocktails 

1974 - The Mexican government took ownership of the name ‘tequila’, claiming it as intellectual property. This means that you cannot make tequila anywhere else in the world.