I didn't even know you could eat this. [Laughter]
I am like, blown away? Absolutely blown away by this!
This may have been the coolest tour I've ever done.
What's up Tangerineys! We can hardly contain our excitement today!
Because it is a special day. A more special day than the special days that
we usually think it is. [Laughter] Where are we headed? We are going to the town of
Tequila. Tequila, Jalisco for a behind-the-scenes look at
... This might be our driver. No [Laughter]
For a behind-the-scenes look at Herradura.
A special, extra special, I just keep saying special. Because I'm
so excited, I can't think of other words. We're gonna show you how Tequila is made.
We're gonna do a tour of their distillery, and I'm sure there's a bunch
of other fun stuff that we don't even know about yet. So we are going to be
taking a quick drive, about an hour or so? Yeah. An hour or so to the city. Stay tuned!
We are now here at Casa Herradura. We walked through the hacienda where we are
not allowed to film because the workers are still living and working here. And
then also, after coming through there where it's sort of this small village
looking area, then you come to the house where the family still lives here. The
original owners. Original, yes the original family. So this place has been
around for 400 years now. We're just getting started with this tour here and
we are now standing in front of. This is a blue agave plant, you can see that it's
probably taller than Maddie is. They don't harvest it until it gets to be
seven or eight years old when it's as ripe as it can be. So there's still three
more years to go on this guy which is incredible. He was saying that it gets
wider and the base part of it gets even thicker,
and that's when it is ripe enough to harvest. We already learned that Herradura
harvests all of its own agave, meaning it doesn't buy from other
producers. Everything is planted themselves using natural fertilizer. No
chemicals so that they have full control over the whole process. So right now I'm
next to an agave plant, and it has this little baby agave plant right here. It
actually reproduces itself, so it's taking the nutrients from the big plant
and then it creates some of these little baby plants around it, and then they can
uproot these little baby plants, and replant them somewhere else. That's how
they can continue to grow.
So this is a baby agave. So when we cultivate this, we
take it away from the mother. We cut some pricky leaves, and then we cut
this last part. And then we plant it. We dig a hole in the soil and we plant it. So
once we plant it, when the agave is about 4 years old, we start having these sprouts, the
baby ones. And then when the baby one is one-year old like this, we take it away
and we will plant it. So this is about a year old? This is about 1 year old. Okay.
So as you can see, after we harvest,
we have to cut it in two because we cut out that spot.
That is called "cagollo."
From the cogollow, the prickily leaf is produced; it's born. But, we cut this last part because...
I'll show you.
You see that type of web? (Maddie "Wow! Yeah.") The agave on the prickly leaves, the agave
kind of web, which is a type of wax. The wax protects the agave from losing
water. And the wax protects the agave from the environment if it's too cold or too hot.
We cut this last part because if we cook it
with this, that wax is going to add a bitter flavor to the heart of the agave.
That's part of the recipe. That's why we cut it and we leave it there. And remove that. Okay.
And it's just that one small part? Just that small part because the rest of
the wax is on the leaves, and we cut the leaves already.
The leaves remain on the field and becomes fertilizers. So after we harvest one of
these lands with agaves, we leave the land with no agave for about five or six months.
Later, we go there, we remove the soil, we fertilize with organics, and then we'll plant
baby agaves again. And then we wait again seven or eight years in order to have the agave ripe to produce Tequila Herradura.
So with each of these hearts, they weigh approximately 80 pounds, which will
eventually equal six liters of tequila. Six liters of tequila. That is just insane!
I don't know about you, but I thought this was super cool watching him
chop all this. So the man doing this, he is called a Jimador, and he is using this
tool called a coa. C-O-A to chop off all these leaves, and it does look extremely
sharp for how thick the leaves are, and for how thick this 80-pound heart is. Just
sliced right through it, like watch out, you could lose a finger!
[A loud roar from the ovens]
We have to stand a little bit far away from these ovens because it's pretty
loud here, but hopefully you can still hear us. We're standing in front of about
20 tons of agave hearts. They have all these ovens lined up
here, and in each oven they put 48 tons.
So two and a half times what's right behind us here, and this is an enormous
pile! Huge! And he was saying that here at Herradura they use,
brick and clay ovens. Brick and clay ovens. As opposed to iron ovens because
that allows them to steam it for 26 hours an ideal temperature, as opposed to
an iron oven, where it takes about 10 hours, it's a much higher temperature, and
the flavor is just not as good, it's not as high of quality.
And then they allow 24 hours for it all to cool inside
of there before they take it out. I think it's pretty crazy to think that these plants were
planted seven or eight years ago!
Yeah! There are hundreds of years of agave here! This is just wild!
They have a number of ovens here. Like I don't know, at least a dozen. At least a dozen or more!
I mean, think of how many tons of agave that is! That's just insane!
From everything that we have learned so far, the focus on quality is immensely high!
They're not switching to these new iron ovens which might make it faster. They're
still using the traditional method of these older styles of oven for a longer
amount of time, and just like they're not harvesting it after four years when they're big
enough or good enough, they're waiting the full seven years for
them to be perfectly ripe. And they're not purchasing their agave from a bunch
of different producers. They own all their own agave, it's all organic. I
think that's pretty awesome! We're standing here in front of these ovens
now trying this cooked agave, which we're apparently supposed to chew but not eat
the fiber of. So I didn't even know you could eat this. [Laughter]
Oh my gosh, it's so sweet! It's like, kinda reminds me of what a really, really sweet
pumpkin might taste like. Oh yeah. This has a really great flavor! Mmm! [Laughter]
Now, I'm standing in front of where they take the cooked agave from the
ovens. These are the back sides of the ovens, and it smells really good here.
There's like a strong smell of cooked sweetness. I don't really know how to
describe it. He was just telling us everything here is self-sufficient.
They're a 100% green company that produces no pollution.
We think that's pretty darn cool! So we showed you that 20 tons of agave earlier,
and this truck right over my right shoulder is actually full of agave as
well, and each one of those trucks is 20 tons. So they need about two-and-a-half
trucks full, just to fill one oven! So, so far, we're pretty much seeing every step
of the process here on these grounds. From the harvesting, to ovens where it's
being cooked, and then where they pull out syrup from it, and now we are walking
to the fermentation area? Yep, and then the distillation, and then the aging process.
All of this is here. It's not like you're being told about this where it's
happening somewhere in the world. It's all here. Yeah, coming here I literally
thought it was going to be one building. [Laughter] I don't know what I pictured. Why I
pictured that. But there's so much more to it than I ever could have imagined.
We're walking under these pipes right now, and these pipes are going from where
the agave is cooked, to the fermentation process. Through these pipes are agave
honey, agave juices, and some purified water. We are getting close now to the
fermentation area, and this is something I find absolutely fascinating! They don't
add anything to the mixture that they're putting for the fermentation. They rely
on the environment. The microorganisms that are around here in order to eat the
sugar and then produce the alcohol. So they plant citrus trees like lemons,
limes, mandarin, guava, pomegranate so that it attracts those special microorganisms
that are needed for this process. I am like, blown away?
Absolutely blown away by this! I know, me too! Yeah, you see all these trees and
the black parts on the leaves. That's the microorganisms. They're attracted by the
citrus, and that therefore get inside the agave mixture that they have here, and
then produce the alcohol.
Eight meters. Eight meters? Eight meters tall, oh my gosh!
Ta-da!
Wow! Put your hand here and you feel a lot of heat coming off.
I feel like I'm going to burn my hand. [Laughter] I'm told it's safe.
And suddenly there's no heat. These giant
8-meter tall containers, these open-top containers - all this heat's coming off of
it, but it's completely natural. They're not adding any heat to it which seems
crazy to me. I would have thought for sure that they were heating this up. So
this is the carbon dioxide, co2 being released? Yes because the microorganisms
are consuming sugar, and producing alcohol, and also expelling CO2. Since there are
billions and billions ... that's why it bubbles. That's where the bubbling effect comes from?
But then you get the aroma. Smells terrific!
Yeah, it's very sweet. It's kind of like a
more concentrated version of what the agave tasted like, sort of. So for four days
here in Casa Herradura, it bubbles and boobs, because there is a lot of sugar to
consume. These microorganisms from the environment that consume the sugars.
After four days, it goes slower and stops,
which means that the microorganisms from
the environment consumed all the sugar. Since there's no sugar, it dies. Okay. And after
four days eating sugar into 5% alcohol per volume.
Just 5% here? Yes. Okay, I'm curious to know where the rest of it comes from. I'll
tell you about it! So after the juices ferment in this building over here, you
have a 5% alcohol liquid that's then pumped into these containers. And here is
where the distillation takes place. It's put into these stills and there's
different types of alcohols in here. Something they call heads, something
they call tails, and then what they call the heart. The heads and tails are the
alcohols they don't want. So they get rid of those, and after three hours in the
first still, you're left with a 25% alcohol. So from there, they have to go
into another still for another six hours. That's where you get Herradura
Tequila Blanco, which is 55% alcohol.
I was surprised to know that it was that
high a percentage. Most of the tequila they sell is not the 55% alcohol. To get a
Repasado, or an Añejo tequila, or an Extra Añejo, they're going to put it into
wooden barrels and let the flavors of the tequila mix with the flavors from
the wood. Tor their Repasado, they keep it in there for 11 months. Their Añejo,
they keep it in there for 25 months, and they're Extra Añejo is 49 months.
We're going to get to try all of those. That'll be pretty cool to taste the
differences of how the different amount of time in the wood makes the flavors
change. So I've been pumped to try all these but more than any one, this one. I
gotta say, even though I'm hoping we're doing a really good job showing you the
ins and the outs of this place, and giving you the most important and fun
facts and details, I don't think there's anything that could come close to
actually being here and being able to taste the freshly cooked agave,
to feel the heat from the fermentation process.
All the different smells and aromas as you move from station to station. And
just see all of these things in person. We enjoyed it so much, in a couple
weeks we're gonna go back and take their Herradura Express. Because we honestly
sort of felt like this was some good taste of Herradura, but not quite enough,
and there was another option for us to do, which is this package experience:
Going on the train, and into the town of Tequila, so we are doing that in a few
weeks. Stay tuned for that! I can't even stay tuned for that, I'm too excited! So
if you guys are interested in checking out this whole fun tour and behind the
scenes look at Herradura as well, we're just gonna go ahead and put all the
details that you might need down below in the description. This may have been
the coolest tour I've ever done! I just had so many misconceptions about tequila,
and didn't really know the history, and even though it's my favorite alcohol in
the world, I knew none of this! Yeah go ahead and check out the description if
you need any of those details if you wanna take a tour. One note of
clarification. Although we are very, very close to the town of Tequila, this is not
technically in Tequila. This is just outside of the city, it's in Amatitán.
So notice how they have horseshoes all over the place here, even above the ovens.
That's because Herradura means horseshoe, hence their logo. We're now looking at types of Herradura
Tequila. Fair warning, I've never been great at
drinking tequila. [Laughter] I think it's strong but it's not like
you get some terrible bite with some tequila's where you're like Oogh. This is
just powerful, lots of, you know 55% alcohol.
After you lose the burning, you get a lot of aromas and flavors in your mouth.
But this is the the first, right? Yeah. Most of the time, these are for connoisseurs, you know, because
when you are not used to drinking tequila, that might be kind of ... powerful. Powerful. Alright, so
next up is the Blanco Original. This is the first tequila Herradura
produced back in 1870, and what they do to make this one, is take the one that's
straight from the still, which has 55% alcohol, and add purified water to reduce
the alcohol volume down to seven, down to forty six.
Also a lot of flavor in it too.
But it is smooth. Smoother than the first one.
I like that. No faces at all. This is Añejo aged 25
months, forty percent alcohol.
I could hardly feel like go onto my tongue, that's how smooth it was.
At first, that's why I was like "Did I
drink any?" You're gonna like that!
I don't think it gets much smoother than
that, but it might. [Laughter]
Wow! Do you know what I mean? It was like "Did
I even get any in my mouth?" That was how smooth it felt.
Añejo crystalino. Crystalino Añejo (Clear Añejo)
So I've been pumped to try
all of these, but more than any one, this one!
Yeah, I mean, it tastes so much sweeter
too! And it's smooth. That's very, very smooth. Oh my gosh! I could drink this all
day! After trying all of these, which do you think is your favorite? Not a single
one of them was bad. Which is saying a lot because Jordan does not like
drinking straight tequila. He's like a piña colada kinda guy.
Or margarita. Or margarita. I like margaritas! [Laughter]
Añejo and Herradura Ultra were probably my two favorites. If I had to pick one, I'm going to go with the Ultra.
Because it's a little sweeter. I'm gonna have to go with Añejo because it was
just so smooth and sip-able! We would like to introduce our lovely tour guide
Jose, who is a third-generation, right? Of jimador. So his father and also his
grandfather were also jimadors. And that is how you're so knowledgeable in
this whole process, you've actually gone through, and basically experienced it all
firsthand. So thank you very much for doing this tour for us!
This, we learned so much, and it was all so easy to understand too, and really a lot
of fun! Thank you for coming, and we appreciate people like you coming here to
be interested in our tequila which we are proud of. Right? Because Tequila
Herradura has to do with a lot of families, generation families, traditions, workers
right? So we would like you to help us to let people know that what we do here
it's tequila, but this is part of our identity, you know? Yeah. Absolutely! I can see why you're
proud of it, there's a lot to be proud of! Yeah. There really is! From the beginning
to end, there's so much care in every single part of the process, including
making sure that there's no bad environmental effects. There are so many
companies that just only care about profits, but that doesn't seem to be the
case here. It's like you want the end product to be something that people
would really love, and then also make sure that it's leaving a good
environment for future generations to come. Thank you so much! Thanks a lot! If you liked this video, please give it a
thumbs up, and subscribe to our channel. If you're just as excited as we are for
the Herradura Express, going to the town of Tequila that you guys have wanted us
to do forever, I'm dancing now, I don't know why! [Laughter]
And [Gong sounds] [Laughter] GONG That Bell, so you get notified
when we post the Herradura Express video!
I think I pulled a muscle.I should do some stretching before that. Oh my gosh! [Laughter]
Don't gong with bell
without stretching you guys. [Laughter] See you in the next one!