spirits
Artisanal agave In honor of National Tequila Day, July 24, we serve up a half-dozen of the top tequilas in the world. Salud! By Virginie Boone
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here’s one drink with an eponymous anthem all its own: tequila. Recorded by the Champs in 1958—a time when this liquor was barely available in the U.S.—the sax-driven instrumental with the random yelps of “tequila!” seeped into brain cells as powerfully as a stiff drink. Back then Jose Cuervo was just about the only brand known. How things have changed! Now there’s no drink that’s hotter; nearly 14 million cases of tequila were sold nationally in 2014, and sales keep climbing at an average yearly
Partida Elegante Extra Añejo Gran Reserva The top of Partida’s line, priced at $350 a bottle and limited in production, Elegante is aged a minimum of 40 months in American oak. Complex and velvety, it combines brooding layers of black pepper, toasted oak and dark chocolate around a persistence of almond, caramel, vanilla and coffee. It even suggests the undeniable goodness of maple butter and bourbon. Handcrafted, with each bottle numbered, it comes with a crystal decanter stopper and a sterling silver charm (called the Partida Tequila Spirit Bird) around the bottle’s neck. It makes an impressive gift.
rate of 5.6 percent. Some of that growth has been powered by the priciest bottles—pure artisanal versions with price tags upwards of $300. Tequila is made from agave azul tequilana Weber, or blue agave, a Mexican plant with ties to the lily family that can take from eight to 10 years to mature. (Mezcal, on the other hand, can be made from more than 30 varieties of agave, including blue agave.) Just as bubbly must come from the Champagne region of France to officially be called Champagne, tequila must be produced in specific areas of Mexico.
Tequila Ley .925 Ultra Premium Extra Añejo Pasión Azteca It’s the bottle, not the tequila inside, that drives the price of Ley .925. The Diamond Sterling Bottle (or La Ley del Diamante), which boasts 4,000 diamonds set in a five-pound platinum bottle designed by Mexican artist Fernando Altamirano, fetches $3.5 million. A more reasonable option offered by the distiller, Hacienda La Capilla: the $225,000 version pictured, which is handcrafted in gold and pure platinum. Only 33 bottles were made, and each comes encased in a leather box with a series of pictures of the original Pasión Azteca by Mexican painter Alejandro Gomez Oropeza.
Gran Patrón Platinum Silver Tequila Among the producer’s higher-end offerings, triple-distilled and aged in oak to become both smooth and full-bodied, this is a remarkably citrus-tinged drink, with bursts of fresh agave and black pepper. Each bottle is crafted from crystal and hand-numbered, cradled in an elegant black case. It is a sultry sipping tequila priced at $195.
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