"As long as our family focuses on quality, on tradition and not taking shortcuts and not lose that focus, I think there will always be people that will want to appreciate a nice, good tequila."

– Eduardo Orendain Jr, Fifth generation tequila maker at Tequila Arette

If you happen to visit the Tequila Regulatory Council building in Jalisco, Mexico, you would find standing four large bronze busts said to immortalise the visionary founders of the four Tequila Founding Families. One of these busts represent Don Eduardo Orendain González, the patriarch who founded the Orendain tequila family. So, here's a little bit of lore on the Orendains.

The story begins with Don Eduardo Orendain González who hails from a family said to have been making tequila as far back as 1844.

Don Eduardo Orendain González.

Don Eduardo established El Llano Distillery in 1926, a distillery that would mark the beginning of the Orendain family's journey into commercial tequila production. He would later become quite the figure in the tequila world; being the founder and first president of the National Chamber of Tequila Industry – the driving force behind the creation of the Tequila Appellation of Origin, and was also involved in founding the Tequila Regulatory Council, the body responsible for upholding tequila production standards.

Master distillers Eduardo Orendain Sr. (Left) and Jaime Orendain (Right).

In 1986, Don Eduardo's grandsons, Eduardo Sr. and Jaime Orendain founded a small batch production brand, Tequila Arette. While their grandfather had actually moved production of Tequila Orendain out of the El Llano Distillery some decades back, for their new artisanal brand the brothers decided to return to their roots at El Llano Distillery where the family's tequila history began. The distillery also holds the distinction of being the third oldest distillery in the town of tequila. The brand is named after Arette, a legendary one-eyed show jumping horse that won Mexico its first Olympic gold medals (more on this later!).

Since then, the Orendain family has remained till date the only remaining Tequila Founding Family that runs an independent and family-owned tequila business, which is truly a historic achievement. Arette has become something of a cult favourite for anyone who's into additive-free tequilas.

Recently, the next generation producer of the Orendain family, Eduardo Orendain Jr., was dropping by Asia for Whisky Live Singapore 2024. We grabbed the glorious opportunity to have a little sit-down with Eduardo and to have a chat about the big boots he has to fill at Tequila Arette!

A tale of tequila, from a member of the founding family of tequila. Boy, it doesn't get much more impressive than that!

Follow Eduardo Jr.'s agave adventures here: @eduardoorendain

Follow Tequila Arette: @tequila_arette

"There was never drinking at the dinner table, in the family house. It was just always kind of reserved for the weekends, special occasions and for celebration. So that's when I kind of just grew up thinking of how we should drink tequila."

[88B]: Let’s start by getting to know you a little bit more. You’ve said that – perhaps much to the surprise of many – in your family it wasn’t mandatory for you to have joined the Tequila business, and yet you actually chose that for yourself. You had gone to university to study business and after which you came back to the family business, and you’ve since been on the road a lot promoting Arette. You’ve even joked that rather than having a routine like most people, your work is you going to the airport and getting on a plane and going to a new city!

So we’re curious, what was the lightbulb moment that convinced you that of all the possibilities out there, even with the blessing of your family, that you’d want to get into the Tequila business?

[Eduardo]: Well, I think it's something I didn't really kind of think of. Looking back, there wasn't like a lightbulb moment, it kind of just happened.

I think it was more that my father has always taught us about work ethic. So even when we were little, he wouldn't just give me stuff if I wanted. If I wanted a toy, if I wanted a Nintendo PlayStation or something, he would make me work for it. So he would put us to work even at a very young age.

In the summers he didn't let us just stay in the house and watch TV or play video games. He would make us go to the distillery and work. He said, "Yeah, as long as you're in my house, you will have to have a job. I can give you a job if you want to work for me, but if you don't want to work for me, it's okay, you can go somewhere else and you can get yourself a job." But at the end of the day, he said, "You're not going to be able to just stay doing nothing the whole of summer."

I remember it was just helping carry bottles, cleaning bottles or filling them and putting labels. As I started getting older, he would also send me to the agave fields. [Although] sending me to the fields was sometimes more of a punishment. *Laughs* I remember when I was like 16 years old and I went to drink with some friends. By the time I got back home, he was going out to the distilleries and the fields. He was like, "You're going to come to the field with me today."

So I think at the end of the day, it just became part of my life. Growing up, I didn't think of it as anything special or different. It was just the way I grew up. But he was always very open about it. He would say, "This is not what you have to do if you don't want to, but you have to work, you have to do something, whether it's in the family business or something else."

A defining moment would be when I was in university. I had a big motorcycle accident and broke my leg. I had to get surgery and drop out of university for a semester while I recovered.

After one month, I started going to therapy. By two months or three months, I was already in crutches but moving around. But I was not in school, so my father was like, ‘I know you broke your leg, but it's been three months now and you don't have to be in the house all day.’ And he made me start going to the office to help and to work.

That's when I first kind officially started working more full time, because at the beginning I was too young and it was just helping out in the summers. Then after six months, seven months passed and then it was time to go back to college. I had already gotten really involved in terms of getting to know customers. I had already started to do some of the travel to meet some of the distributors in America and the U.S. I did finish my degree in business school, but I was always working hand by hand, side by side with the business.

I even chose my classes in the night, so I would go to class at like 6 or 7pm and so during the day I would be working. And then when I finished university, this was in 2015, so nine years ago, and then I just went. By that time I had already been working for the past three years before in the business. But I went just 100% into it.

"My father, he's definitely given me a lot of advice. One of them that comes to my attention right away is that he would always tell me: If you want to go far, you have to go slow."

[88B]: To that end, what is it about Tequila that you grew to love?

[Eduardo]: I think it was probably love at first sight. You can imagine growing up in my family, in the house, there were always a lot of bottles and cases everywhere in the house. In the office, in my dad's car, wherever I would go there would just be bottles.

I kind of just realised that it was not normal when I started growing up. I would go to my friend's house and see that they didn't have tequila everywhere. Or when my friends came to my house and they were like, oh wow, it's amazing you have tequila everywhere.

They would always ask me questions like, how are you not an alcoholic? Do you drink every day? And I was like, no, it's in the house, because that's what we do, you know? And I just thought it was normal that there were bottles in the kitchen, bottles in the living room, bottles in the car, in the garage. So growing up around tequila for me was just like, maybe for somebody else, just growing up around milk or orange juice. It's just normal.

Obviously, at a very young age my dad would always educate us on responsible drinking. He would always tell us this story about the family history and what we do and what the family has been making for generations. But he would also say you should not abuse alcohol.

I remember he would always say, everything in life needs to be in moderation, whether it's sports, whether it's your job, whether it's your hobbies, any hobbies, anyone. My dad, to be honest, I never saw him drinking in the house unless he had some friends come over. But he would only have friends come over on the weekends. But my dad during the week, Monday through Thursdays he would be in the house and I would never see him drinking.

There was never drinking at the dinner table, in the family house. It was just always kind of reserved for the weekends, special occasions and for celebration. So that's when I kind of just grew up thinking of how we should drink tequila. Tequila should be had on a special occasion or a celebration, whether it's your birthday or a wedding or a dinner party where you get together with family or friends. I think that was where he kind of led us a lot by example.

"I see it as part of my family. I see it as part of my identity. I could say that my father was a tequila producer, my grandfather, my great grandfather, myself, I consider myself a tequila producer. So for me, it's also not only Mexico, but also part of who I am."

[88B]: Right then, what does it mean to you as a spirit that is so uniquely and distinctively of the Mexican culture, that you want to share with people all over the world?

[Eduardo]: I think for me, it means so many things. One of the biggest things I would say, tequila is Mexico. Anywhere you are in the world now, I think you will find a bottle of tequila. Whether it's good or bad tequila, that's a whole different conversation. But I think there's not one country in the world where you would not find a bottle of tequila in a bar or a hotel in a restaurant that you go into.

I think pretty much anywhere in the world, the moment you say the word tequila, people would associate it with Mexico immediately and vice versa. You go to a country, and even if you don't make tequila or you have nothing to do with tequila, the moment you tell them you're from Mexico, they'll probably reply with tequila with excitement. So I think tequila is one of the best representations of Mexico around the world.

For me, I see it as part of my family. I see it as part of my identity. I could say that my father was a tequila producer, my grandfather, my great grandfather, myself, I consider myself a tequila producer. So for me, it's also not only Mexico, but also part of who I am.

[88B]: It’s been three generations of Orendains at Arette, beginning with your grandfather, and then your father, and now you, along with numerous of your uncles too. Could you share with us a memorable experience you’ve had working with your father, as a sort of passing on of the baton to the next generation? Did he give you any advice, and could you share it with us!

[Eduardo]: Definitely many many stories. All my life I have been surrounded by the distillery by the agave fields. Whether it's my grandfather, my father, my uncle, my cousins, all the birthday parties were always at the distillery.

I always remember since I was a young kid playing with my cousins, we would go and play hide and seek around the distillery. Obviously, my dad and my uncles would always be very worried about us falling into a fermentation tank or touching a hot still. But the fact that we were always there, for us, it just became just normal. So we knew that the stills were hot, so we never touched them or we never got close to them. We knew we could still fall into the fermentation tanks, so we were never around it. And then the agaves as well, you know the agave plant has a lot of spikes so you can get stung by it.

You could say that this was dangerous for a kid, but if you have always grown up around it, you learn to kind of just live with it. So I have a lot of memories of playing, in the distillery as a kid and in the agave fields, obviously.

One time every year my family would have a big party and lunch in the agave fields. My uncles would bring like ATVs, the four wheeled bikes. I remember I was like 10 or 11 years old and were driving these four wheelers in the agave fields. Of course, once in a while you had somebody crash into an agave and all the crying. I would always remember coming back from those parties or lunches with our legs bleeding because of all the spikes you got from the agaves.

I remember I had a dog that I would take to the fields all the time. The dog was used to being around the agave, but not when it was harvesting. Because every time I would take my dog to the fields, he would run in between the lines of the agave fields, which is fine. But one time I took him to the field when we were harvesting. So we had the jimadores chopping off the pencas (agave leaves), and all the pencas were on the floor. My dog was just running around all over the field and I just thought ‘Wow, this dog doesn't get poked by the agave. He must have really strong paws.’

But I was mistaken. That night my poor dog, all night long, was hurting and licking his paws. I had to take him to the vet the next day. And he had to get medicine and treatment because he was definitely very badly hurt.

As for my father, he's definitely given me a lot of advice. One of them that comes to my attention right away is that he would always tell me: If you want to go far, you have to go slow.

Obviously, when I was a kid, a lot of times I didn't understand that. He would always say that if you go too fast, you will make a lot of mistakes and it's better to go slow, but with firm decisions.

So it's like one foot at a time, and a firm step is better than speeding. He would all refer to everything in life, also in terms of the production of the tequila and the quality. He would say, like, in terms of not taking shortcuts in the production. So he would say, “I would rather take more time to grow the agave to make sure it's good quality agave. I would rather take more time in the production, in the ovens to cook slowly, make sure the agave has a nice cook inside out. I would rather wait in fermentation to have a nice natural fermentation and not with the chemicals and in the distillation, cut out the heads and tails."

And even though you're keeping a smaller batch of the production and losing more of the heads and tails in terms of cost. So. So he would definitely not take any shortcuts.

"Eventually I will have to be more at home, and then it will be my time to slow down and then start getting more involved in the production. So I think it's all about timing."

[88B]: We also know that whilst you’ve mostly handled sales and promoting Arette globally, there’s also the product side of the business which involves distillation, tending to the agaves, as well as ageing them for your reposados and anejos, not to mention the actual day to day running of the distillery itself. Which part of the business do you find yourself most interested in, and what would you say is the best part of your day?

[Eduardo]: I think all of it. I really enjoy all aspects of the business. But I also see it kind of like, in Spanish I say tapas, like small steps of your life. Right now I think my priority is on getting the brand out there for sales. I have been doing sales for 12 years now for Arette, and I can see myself maybe doing more sales and keep on traveling for another 10 years. But after 20 years, I would think it would be time for the next step and then slow down because I cannot travel forever. I think it will be a time where I would need to slow down and stop traveling. Right now, I travel 30 to 35 weeks out of the year.

I just recently got married, so eventually I plan to, if I can, have kids. So eventually I will have to be more at home, and then it will be my time to slow down and then start getting more involved in the production. So I think it's all about timing.

What I like the most is meeting new people, visiting new countries, and new cities. Also getting to experience new cultures, bars and restaurants all over the world. At the end of the day, it's making friendships in many different parts of the world. It's something that I really love at the moment.

For now, my dad and my uncle are in their 60s, so they have a lot of energy and still a lot of drive to work, being in Mexico and in the distillery or in the fields. But there will be a point maybe in 10 years where they will want to also slow down.

Then we will kind of pass the baton in terms of the production, and I would start getting more involved in the production and taking on the job that they are doing now. Then the next generation will come that will start helping out on the terms of the sales or the ownership of the brand.

[88B]: At this point, we have to talk about Arette – and we mean the horse! So Arette Tequila pays homage to a very special competition horse that actually helped Mexico win its first Olympic gold medals. It is said that your grandfather and his brother were big on horse riding and thus had to commemorate that big win!

Are you also a fan of horse riding, and could you also share with us the crazy story of how Arette the horse was actually secretly brought to the Olympics by a General of the Mexican army?

[Eduardo]: So there's a cool story, because Arette the horse only had one eye. He was a one eyed horse and the horse belonged to the Mexican army. So the rider was a general. His name was General Humberto Mariles. So when General Mariles wanted to take Arette to London for the Olympics, the president of Mexico at that time didn't want him to take the one eyed horse because he thought he was going to embarrass Mexico.

General Mariles and Arette the horse that inspired the brand.

So he said, ‘choose a different horse’, but General Mariles disobeyed and took Arette anyway. And when the President found out that Arette was already in London, he actually put out an arrest warrant for the general.

So the general was going to lose his rank and go to military prison. But since he ended up winning the first gold medal for the country, the president had to pardon him. When he came back to Mexico, there was actually a parade in Mexico City and a celebration. And even to this day in Mexico City there is a statue of Arette the horse and General Mariles to commemorate and honor the first medals for the country in 1948.

So my family does love horses. The family has horses and they're in Jalisco. When I was a kid, I rode horses and I do like horses, but to be honest I didn't have the same love as my father or my family has for horses.

For me it was more of the motorcycle. I would joke with my dad when I was younger when I had a motorcycle and I said: “Dad, you're riding one horse, but in my motorcycle I'm riding with 200 horses.” *chuckles* I'm not as much a rider as the rest of the family is with horses.

But my father and my uncle when they were younger, they used to compete. They never made it to the Olympics, but they still admired the horse Arette. So when they took over the distillery El Llano in the 1980s and they launched their own brand, they wanted to honor the champion horse champion.

[88B]: While we know you’re not much of a fan of celebrity endorsements for tequila which has become quite a popular thing to do for tequila, if you had to replace Arette the horse with a celebrity, who would it be?

[Eduardo]: I never actually thought about it that way. I would think I would have to think about it longer because I can see Arette right now, I'm trying to think of an animal, but if I have to think of a human, I don't know, it'd be weird to have tequila named after a person.

Right now, people that I admire are people like Elon Musk. But I wouldn't name my tequila Elon Musk, or like Jeff Bezos. It's not something you wouldn't name your tequila after, even though I still admire them as a person. It's difficult.

In terms of animals, I can't think of another animal that I would name it after. That's an interesting question. I would have to think about it over a cocktail. *chuckles*

"I would one day want to bring back tahonas, but not to improve the quality of the tequila... but it would be bringing a lot of history and authenticity to what tequila was in the past and kind of bringing those traditions back."

[88B]: And so going back to how Arette was founded in 1986 although the Orendain family has been making Tequila for much longer, this was the result of your great grandfather moving out of the El Llano distillery, and then your grandfather took up the distillery and restarted it, this time with Arette. Whilst Orendain Tequila (which is separate from Arette) has done quite a number of partnerships and has moved quite a bit towards a more modern approach, Arette has instead committed to only producing its own brand of Tequila, and has instead turned towards more traditional methods after a period of modernization in the 80’s and 90’s. You’ve signaled a desire for Arette to deliver more of the terroir through its Tequilas.

To that end, you guys have brought back traditional brick ovens, open air fermentation to allow wild yeast strains to spontaneously come into the picture, using concrete vats as well, which then forms your artesanal range. Looking into the future, do you see Arette bringing back more of these traditional practices? If so, what can we expect to see from Arette in the future?

[Eduardo]: Yes, yes, I do. I think, for example, the distillery Llano for many years had tahonas. We still have some old pictures of the distillery, how it used to be before it was remodeled during the 80s, and we had tahona there for crushing the agave and to extract the juices.

Traditionally, a mule-drawn volcanic stone (tahona) would be used to crush the agave.

In the 80s, when my father remodeled the distillery, he took it out and brought in the roller mills, obviously for more efficiency, and he didn't see it as a sacrificing quality. To be honest, I don't think one is better than the other in terms of quality. I think if you really do a blind taste of both methods, it would be really hard to notice the difference. But I really like the tahona, and I think it has a lot of history.

I would one day want to bring back tahonas, but not to improve the quality of the tequila. I don't think tomorrow, if I bring back the tahona and start making a tequila with tahona, but cooking my agaves in the same oven, fermenting it in the same tanks that I have now, and using my same stills; I don't think that my taste profile would change much, to be honest. I mean, we would have to test and see if it's true or not. My belief is that the taste would not really change, but it would be bringing a lot of history and authenticity to what tequila was in the past and kind of bringing those traditions back.

So I would want to bring a tahona back one day to El Llano for the purpose of telling the story of how it was made before, and how El Llano had a tahona.

Other than that, I would think to leave it as it is because to be honest, not much has changed. Other than the tahona, El Llano has been pretty much making tequila the same way for over 100 years now. Obviously equipment has been maintained, changed and fixed. Like the brick oven. We used the brick oven, then we brought in the autoclaves, then we brought the brick ovens back again. So obviously that has changed. But other than the oven and tahona, it has pretty much been the same way for the past 120 years.

"There's not a lot of room to innovate because the moment I start innovating, I start destroying that heritage. So it's like where do you put in the balance keeping the heritage and keeping the traditions while bringing innovation?"

[88B]: Continuing on that line, there’s much talk about what’s next for tequila. You’ve once said that tequila has undergone three booms – aging to produce reposados and anejos which originated from the casks used to transport tequila to the US in the past, the success of the Margarita cocktail, and then the third being the celebrity boom. What do you think is the fourth boom for tequila?

[Eduardo]: I think there are definitely three kinds of booms that the tequila industry has passed. Like I mentioned before, the first boom was during the prohibition era with the US and Mexico. If you really take a dive into the information of how many distilleries were producing tequila in Mexico before the 1920s, before the provision era, I think there were less than 10 distilleries. And if you go back and look how many distilleries were making tequila after the 1930s when provision ended, it went to like over 40 or 50 distilleries. So that's like a 400, 500% increase in 10 years. And it's not a coincidence that it was during probation. So I think that was obviously the first boom for the industry.

The second boom I think was during the 90s because of the margarita cocktail. I also think it was when the boom of 100% agave tequila happened. We have to recognize that Patron had a lot to do with it because I think before Patron, not many people knew about 100% agave tequila. Tequila was known around the world, but nobody knew that there were two different styles of tequila. Tequila mixture and 100% agave tequila.

And then the third boom. Right now it's definitely been on celebrities. George Clooney, Teramana, Kendall Jenner, Mark Wahlberg, all launching their tequilas. So they have been targeting very young generations. So these generations will grow up and be drinking those tequilas.

But I think one day they'll grow up and mature and start drinking better made, better quality tequilas. So if you ask me about the next boom of tequila, I mean, that's a hard question. It's always easy to judge from looking at the past. But it's obviously hard to see the future and to predict what's going to happen.

I think tequila is definitely a category that's here to stay. I don't think it's going anywhere or that people will stop drinking tequila. No, I think tequila has a lot of history, a lot of authenticity, a lot of character. So I think it will definitely keep growing with time, and obviously the market's big enough for all types of tequilas.

I'm not saying that everybody should drink Arette or tequilas that are well made, like Arette, Fortaleza or G4. No, obviously there's a lot of good tequilas out there, but there's also tequilas that are not so great. They're very industrial and with flavors and caramel colorings and they have a nice fancy, expensive bottle. So I think those tequilas will also stay. I'm not saying they're going to go away because at the end of the day, I think there's a market for everyone.

I think as long as we focus on what we do, for example, us, our family, focuses on quality, on tradition and not taking shortcuts. As long as we focus on that and we don't lose that focus, I think there will always be people that will want to appreciate a nice, good tequila.

[88B]: We’re also seeing some big trends starting to take place in the form of doing more interesting cask finishings, adding a Cristalino to the core range, using agave that is seed grown as opposed to clones, doing single estate releases, toying around with longer fermentation times, smoking the agaves with different woods – it seems like various producers are taking their bets on what the future might be for Tequila. We know Arette is of course already proudly additive free, and has also very innovatively produced a high proof Tequila (the Fuerte 101). What else is Arette betting on to take yourselves to the next level?

[Eduardo]: So in terms of innovation for us, it's sometimes a little bit challenging because at the end of the day, when we want to stay authentic in terms of production and keep making tequila the way my great grandfather was making tequila 120 years ago.

There's not a lot of room to innovate because the moment I start innovating, I start destroying that heritage. So it's like where do you put in the balance keeping the heritage and keeping the traditions while bringing innovation?

I'm not saying there is no room for innovation. Of course there is, there's always room for innovation. But I think we need to get creative because for any other brand that doesn't have or doesn't care about heritage or tradition, they can make strawberry flavored tequila and that's innovation. Now is that good innovation?

Well, it depends. If it's a new brand that's popping up and they're going to be going for nightclubs for kids, maybe it's a great product. Look at Smirnoff Tamarind. Smirnoff Tamarind was a huge success for young kids in the nightclubs. Now would that be something that we look forward to in our product? Definitely not. So the road of developing new products in terms of new flavors, it's definitely not a path that we would want to take on.

Now in terms of the cask, I think more of a realistic path that I could see ourselves doing and it’s something that we are actually currently doing. So right now, all the Arette that is normally released on the market as Arette reposado and anejo, we are right now using only American oak barrels and ex bourbon barrels.

But that's for the normal releases of Arette. We do have special editions that are only sold at the distillery, aged in ex-rum barrels, ex-wine barrels, ex beer barrels. And we do offer the possibility of accounts of clients, bars, restaurants or liquor stores, or even an individual, if they want, they can purchase their own full barrel.

[88B]: As someone steeped in the whole culture of tequila making and consumption, what’s a trend we should be keeping a close eye on?

[Eduardo]: There's two ways that the tequila trends have gone, at least that's the way I see it. One way has been in terms of keeping the tradition, the heritages and everything we have just been talking about.

We've been talking about quality and authenticity, so all this is kind of the ‘real’ tequila. But I think to be honest, there is a small percentage of people that actually care or know all about this information. I think the majority percentage of the regular consumer has no idea about diffusers, about tahonas, about copper or pot stills or columns.

Certain trendy tequila brands with a high amount of flavoring and additives are doing well commercially. But our biggest issue with this is that they're creating this false expectancy of what tequila should be or should taste like. I think this is a big problem because then at the end of the day when you have, you know, a young kid in their 20s drinking a sweet vanilla tequila. When you get to the moment they drink Arette or they drink Fortaleza, they're gonna be like, "What is this? This doesn't taste like tequila." And you have to be like, no, this is tequila. But the one you were drinking had additives and sweeteners to it.

"My grandfather says he's seen an agave price bubble happen three times in his lifetime. My dad has seen it twice. For me, it's my first time. I mean, history keeps repeating itself. Because humans, we don't learn from our mistakes. And this is just one example."

[88B]: You’ve talked about how one of the biggest issues facing Tequila makers is that agaves require 7 years to mature which makes it incredibly hard to plan for – this leads to a boom and bust cycle. When agave prices are high, farmers will overplant and tend to harvest earlier before the agave is fully mature, then flooding the market which leads to a bust in prices. Subsequently farmers will avoid planting agaves which then leads to a shortage and the whole cycle happens again.

It's so important then that folks know that for Arette, your Tequila’s are entirely made from estate grown blue weber agaves and that’s incredibly crucial because it allows you to be self-sufficient without having to purchase agave from farmers. This also means that Arette is able to control for quality in how you nurture your agaves, and to also make sure they’re harvested only when they are ready. What are some of the steps that you think the Tequila Regulatory Council can take to help fix this issue?

[Eduardo]: It's something that the council has been trying to do for many years and as we can see, it hasn't had the results that it wanted to have. The CRT (Tequila Regulatory Council) and the CNIT (Chamber of the Tequila Industry), both organisations are putting in a lot of time, a lot of work and a lot of resources to develop the information that is accessible to anybody.

Right now the CRT and the CNIT have public records and public information about agave fields and plants registered because this is something that everybody should be able to know or should be able to have access to if they want to know.

One problem is that at the end of the day, humans, we tend to be greedy, people always want more and people tend to be very optimistic specifically for businesses. That's why everybody, when starting a new business, everybody's very optimistic about it. And a lot of times they get this tunnel vision.

For example with agave, but it takes on average six, seven years to grow. It's a very long time that you have to wait until your agaves are ready for you to sell them before you can get a profit from them.

In 2015, 2016, 2017, agave prices went from 5 pesos to 10 pesos, then to 15, then to 20, it got all the way up to 30 pesos a kilo. I had so many friends calling me up and saying, “Eduardo, I should get into agave. I need to start planting agave. There are people that are doctors, that are architects, that are working in tech. They have nothing to do with the alcohol industry, have nothing to do with tequila, have never worked in a farm or in the farming.

They see that people are going crazy on agave, then they think it's just gonna go forever. I said to so many people: No, don't. Don't do this. It's too late. People who are successful now got really lucky or were very smart six years ago. If you're doing it now because you see everybody having success, it's too late. *Laughs*

Like, you have to wait for the next wave. This wave has already finished. It's like trying to get on - I have friends that surf, and I always say it's like trying to get on the wave when the surfers are already surfing it. It's too late. You can't get on that wave.

So I think at the end of the day, going back to the real question is, what does the government need to do? It needs to put out the information. The problem was that it took 6, 7 years to go from 5 pesos to 30 pesos. But he only took one year to go from 30 pesos back to 5 pesos. So the escalation was slow, but the crash coming down was very fast. And I think at the price point that it is now, which is now 4 or 5 pesos a kilo, I don't think it's fair for the farmers. Obviously the farmers need to also make money otherwise they won't plant agave. And not many producers are in the same situation that we are.

I think at the end of the day it's an open market. Tequila is by no means a necessity. So that's why the government doesn't really intervene. At the end of the day, if the farmers go on strike, the government is like, "Hey, you guys are striking about tequila, which is alcohol. It's not something that’s a matter of life or death. You guys have got to figure it out on your own. We're not going to intervene."

So the government is not really intervening in that aspect because they're like, you guys have to figure out yourselves. The farmers planted too much agave. Well, now you're paying the consequences. You planted more than the industry needs. The tequila producers cannot do magic and just buy it off of you. At the end of the day, yes, the tequila category is growing, but it's not growing as fast as the amount of agave that was planted in the last five, six years. So I think for the next five years it will be a big challenge.

This problem of the low prices of agave will definitely be a challenge because you will see a lot of farmers that are angry because they're not going to make good money or profits. Some might even take losses in the fields. But they can't put all the responsibility on the tequila producers and distillers, because nobody forced them to plant the agave.

You have to take your own responsibility. If you don't do the research on the market and realise how much agave the industry is using, how much it will need in the next 10 years and how much was already being planted. Right now there is eight times more agave planted than the industry is consuming. The tequila category is going to keep growing, but it's not going to grow 800% in the next five years. It might grow, if I'm being optimistic, 20% and I'm being super optimistic about saying 20, 25% growth in the next five years, six years.

It would mean that tequila would have to become the number one spirit drinking in the world. It would have to become vodka in terms of volume for it to be able to consume all the agave that has been planted. So I think there’s definitely a lot of challenge and I don't think there is one easy answer. There's obviously a big industry challenge at the end of the day, and it's going to take time to regulate.

My grandfather says he's seen an agave price bubble happen three times in his lifetime. My dad has seen it twice. For me, it's my first time. I mean, history keeps repeating itself. Because humans, we don't learn from our mistakes. And this is just one example.

"When we come with tequilas that are well-made with no additives, with no diffusers, and it's hard for people to give it a second chance."

[88B]: What other issues do you think tequila faces in becoming even more globally recognized and appreciated?

[Eduardo]: I think the biggest challenge that the tequila industry faces around the world is the perception of quality and reputation. Anywhere you go in the world, when you see tequila, you will think about Mexico and you will find a bottle of tequila anywhere. The problem is that for the most part, most tequila that you will find will not be the best ones. They will be the ones that are very cheap, very low quality, very low priced, mass produced in all the industrial ways with additives. So those ones are not the best representation of what the category is.

So my biggest challenges now is when I go to markets where I find tequila but not good tequila, it's hard for people to sometimes give it a second chance because a lot of times people will be like, "Oh, of course I know tequila. I've had it. I've had a crazy night taking shots. I know when I was in college or when I was with my friends, went to a nightclub, went to a party, we took shots. It was terrible. The taste was really bad. And then the next day I felt like I was gonna die with a terrible hangover. So I'm not drinking tequila ever again"

That is one of our biggest challenge because when we come with tequilas that are well made with no additives, with no diffusers, and it's hard for people to give it a second chance. But when they try it, a lot of times they'll say, "Oh, this doesn't taste like tequila." That's when I say, no well, this is tequila. This is what you were drinking before was not tequila.

To be honest, that's one of the biggest issues that I see in terms of the global aspect. Obviously markets like the US or Europe that have far in advance knowledge of tequila because they have had it for longer or because also the cocktail scene has risen more than other countries or other parts of the world.

I think the industry of 100% agave tequila has opened up a lot in the US or Europe. But I think we still need to do more.

We as tequila producers need to do a lot of work and a lot of education in other parts of the world where people are still not very knowledgeable about it.

For example, maybe here in Singapore, if I go out on the street and start talking to people and ask them about tequila, I'm pretty sure that most of the people that I talk to will say, yes, I've had tequila. But if I tell them, did you drink 100% agave tequila or a mix? I'm pretty sure they won't know. They'd be like, what? What are you talking about? Are you speaking French? *chuckles* They won't understand what I'm saying.

So that's our biggest issue. Education. It all starts with them first understanding that there is 100% agave tequila and there is non-100% agave tequila. But then it doesn't stop there because then once you get to the 100% agave tequila, okay, that's your first step in the door. But then does it have additives or does it not have additives? Was it made with a diffuser or is it made traditional? So there's a lot of work to do.

"We have a lot of people that have worked for 25, 30 years... Once they start working with us, with the family, they tend to stay. And that's because they know that we value them and we respect the job they're doing."

[88B]: Another thing that is worth highlighting about Arette that we find incredibly commendable is its commitment to sustainability and supporting the local community, with everything made within less than 200 km from the distillery – your bottles are made from 100% recycled glass that’s also sourced locally, and the labels and corks are all applied by hand rather than machine, making every bottle that much more unique.

Why is it so important to Arette to be sustainable and support the local community, and do you believe this is in part possible because Arette remains independent and family owned? Are there more in the works as to what Arette will continue to try to achieve in terms of sustainability and community support?

[Eduardo]: At the end of the day, we need to be grateful for what we have and where we are. And we need to keep supporting the community and the families that have helped us to get to where we are. I think for us, it's very important to keep on making as many jobs as possible, whether it's in the fields or at the distillery. We are a family and we see all our employees as family.

We have a lot of people that have worked for 25, 30 years, you know, we are very happy to say that we have a very slow rotation. The youngest or the people we have for the least time are like two or three years. So we don't have the problem where people come and work for us for one month, two months, and then they go.

Once they start working with us, with the family, they tend to stay. And that's because they know that we value them and we respect whatever job they're doing. We also pay competitive and good salaries that are way above the minimum wage of Mexico. Nobody in Arette makes minimum wage. Everybody makes way above that.

We have made some decisions which are maybe not the best business decisions in terms of having different family members working within the business. This means that there are daughters of, for example, people who are working in our fields. A lot of their daughters work in their bottling line. At the end of the day, we see ourselves as a big family, so we have no issues with doing it. So we plan to keep it that way.

Tequila town is a very small town right now. Only close to 40,000 people live in the town of Tequila. 90% of the people there work either directly or indirectly with tequila distilleries. It's all correlated. So you definitely want the town to thrive and succeed all together

Obviously, the big corporations, where everything is very corporate, have their pros and cons. I think both worlds have things that they can learn from each other. But I think the family businesses care much more about the people in the community.

Because the moment you talk about international companies, they're not always there. If they're just taking decisions behind a desk in their office in New York or their office in London or Tokyo, it's very easy for them to kind of just take decisions based on money and not based on passion or love or the people that are there.

[88B]: Now we also know that you regularly have BBQs with some other highly regarded Tequila makers, from Guillermo Sauza of Fortaleza, to Sophie Decobeque of Calle 23 and Carlos Camarena of Tapatio – and this is a question from your fans that we’ve asked – if you’d ever jointly make a blend of Tequilas from various distilleries, and if so who will you pick? You can also select them based on the unique flavours that their Tequilas bring to the blend.

[Eduardo]: I think I would definitely have to pick Guillermo and Sergio. Guillermo from Fortaleza and Sergio from Don Fulano. We are all in three distilleries that are in Tequila Town, and we're all in the same street a couple blocks from each other. Fortaleza is just one block down the road from us, and Don Fulano is like five or six blocks down the road in the other direction.

We have a really good relationship, all of us three. And we do a lot of events together. We share the same booth at events in Singapore at BCB and we've been doing BCB Berlin for almost 10 years now. Next year there will be BCB London that we just confirmed we're going to do together as well. There's also going to be a BCB here in Singapore, which now we are actually discussing to see if we do or not.

[88B]: Bring us through your thought process if you were to construct such a Tequila blend! Will you make it a blanco, reposado or anejo? And if it’s an aged Tequila, what cask would you use?

[Eduardo]: I mean, we haven't really talked about it or analysed it, but I think there's obviously two directions to go. First, whether you want to keep it as a blanco and just blend three blancos. If you do that, I would say, all of us three could blend the still strength of all three and just call it the special edition or something or. Or I think you could do one barrel from each (producer) and blend it if you want an anejo.

And I think to put a little more dynamic change to it, using three different casks, maybe one has an American oak cask, the other one uses a French oak and the other one uses, I don't know, something else, sherry cask or something. Just to make it a little more fun. But now that you say so, I will mention it to them to see if they're interested. *chuckles*

[88B]: One last question for you! We know you’re always quick to shout out your Blanco as your favourite for a daily drink, and your aged Tequilas if you’re having a cigar with your Dad or for a special occasion. We’d like you to do some food pairings here. How would you pair your various expressions with Mexican dishes?

- Suave Blanco

- Classic Reposado

- Gran Clase Extra Anejo

- Fuerte 101

[Eduardo]: Well, for the Blancos. I love to pair it with lighter dishes. So it could be a ceviche or fish or something fresh and light. If we're having dinner and we're having an appetiser, I would start with the blanco.

For the Reposado, it’s maybe for something a little more heavy, but not too heavy. So maybe like. Like a chicken or something warm. Maybe I would even go for red meat or steak. If I'm eating something warm, I typically like more of the reposados. If I'm eating something cold, I typically like more blanco.

So the Gran Clase, I really rarely drink it during a meal. I drink it at the end instead. If I'm drinking Gran Clase, I would definitely leave that for the end as my dessert. To be honest, I'm not a guy who likes sweets. I usually don't order desserts when I have dinner. So my dessert will be my Gran Clase.

I really like the Fuerte. It's one of my favorites, to be honest. I just love how much agave notes it has. So the Fuerte I can drink before a meal, during the meal, or after the meal. But of course that one, since it does the higher percentage of alcohol, you have to be careful with it.

So I also like to have cocktails made with the Fuerte because the agave really stands out. A lot of times when you have a cocktail with just a regular tequila, agave notes could get lost a bit if it's too sweet or too sour, you know.

In Mexico, we kind of just drink tequila with everything. You typically see people drinking in anejo typically either before or after a meal. But during a meal it is more common that they drink either blanco or reposado.

The anejo is preferred before or after a meal because it could be like an aperitif for some. For me, I like it at the end if I drink an anejo. Like if we're gonna have dinner, I always love the Grand Clase at the end. The. My kind of last drink of the night.

[88B]: Thank you once again for doing this interview with us! We’re really privileged to share our conversation with one of the most historic Tequila makers with our readers in Asia!

Once again, a big thank you!

Lok Bing Hong A budding journalist that loves experiencing new things and telling people's stories. I have 30 seconds of irresponsibly sanctimonious brilliance a day. I do not decide when they come. They are not consecutive.