The Bar Archives is a series written in collaboration with Biagio Castiello, a bartender friend and bar history geek. The idea is simple: explore historical documents, people and events to understand how our profession developed and what we can still learn from its past.

For this third edition, we’re travelling to Havana in the 1920s, where a group of bartenders decided to establish the Club de Cantineros de la República de Cuba, a professional association that would become an important part of cocktail history.

But this article isn’t just about the history of a bartending association. It’s also about something we talk about quite often in our industry: community.

And careful now, because the word community has become a bit of a cliché. We use it almost like salt and pepper, adding it to everything. Every event, competition, brand activation or gathering of bartenders seems to involve the community somehow.

If we look at the dictionary definition, a community is essentially a group of people connected by something they share, whether that’s a place, an interest, an identity or a profession. But sharing something doesn’t necessarily mean sharing the same values, responsibilities or understanding of how we should treat one another.

And this matters, particularly when we look at what Cuban bartenders were doing more than a hundred years ago.

The birth of the Club

To understand why the Club de Cantineros was founded, we first need to understand what was happening in Havana during the early twentieth century.

Cuba was already an important destination for international tourism, but the introduction of Prohibition in the United States in 1920 brought even more visitors to the island. American tourists could still legally enjoy alcoholic drinks in Cuba, while bartenders from the United States were also looking for opportunities outside their country.

As a result, Havana’s hotels and bars became meeting places for different bartending traditions, techniques and professional experiences. The city was already home to influential figures, including Constantino Ribalaigua, better known as Constante, whose work at the Floridita helped establish Havana’s international reputation for cocktails, particularly the Daiquiri.

It was within this increasingly active and competitive environment that the Club de Cantineros de la República de Cuba was founded in May 1924.

The idea was to bring bartenders together through a formal association, creating opportunities for social interaction and professional development. José Cuervo Fernández became its first president and played an important role in developing educational initiatives for its members.

In 1930, he collaborated on the Manual Oficial, a publication containing cocktail recipes and professional guidance. This was significant because it helped organise and preserve knowledge that could otherwise remain limited to individual bartenders and their workplaces.

Think about what this meant at the time. Bartenders were not simply working alongside one another or competing for customers. They were creating an organisation and finding ways to develop their profession collectively.

The profession of the cantinero

In 1948, Hilario Alonso Sánchez published El Arte del Cantinero o Los Vinos y los Licores in Havana.

The book offers an insight into how the profession was understood at the time. Sánchez discusses the history of ice, the selection of glassware, serving temperatures, wines, spirits and other technical subjects. But what makes the book particularly interesting is the attention he gives to professional behaviour.

He talks about diplomacy, discretion, honesty, personal presentation and the relationship between the bartender and the guest. Basically, being a good cantinero meant knowing much more than how to prepare a drink.

And then, on page 315, we find something particularly relevant: the Código moral del cantinero, or the bartender’s moral code.

We’re talking about a book published in 1948 that explicitly sets out principles for how a bartender should conduct themselves. The code addresses mutual respect, personal care, cleanliness and professional behaviour. These weren’t simply technical instructions about preparing cocktails, but expectations about the conduct of the person preparing and serving them.

And think about what that means for a professional community. When people establish common rules and standards, they’re also establishing a shared understanding of what is acceptable, what is expected and what responsibilities come with belonging to that profession. Those principles give members something in common beyond simply knowing how to do the same job.

Take honesty, for example. Sánchez condemns the practice of refilling bottles from prestigious brands with inferior wines or spirits. The problem isn’t simply that the customer receives a lower-quality product. It’s that the bartender is deliberately taking advantage of somebody who trusts them.

The same principle applies to diplomacy and discretion. A bartender needs to understand that different guests have different expectations and know how to adapt accordingly. Some want a conversation, others want a recommendation, and others simply want to enjoy their drink without being interrupted. Recognising these differences is part of treating people with respect.

Cleanliness and personal presentation also form part of this professional responsibility, because the way we maintain our workplace and present ourselves affects the people we’re serving.

One distinction is necessary here. Sánchez’s moral code was published in 1948, and it should not be confused with the official regulations of the Club founded in 1924. They are different historical documents, although both help us understand how bartending was developing as a profession.

Of course, the book reflects the attitudes of its time. Some of its moral judgements and claims about alcohol need to be approached critically today. But that doesn’t take away from the importance of finding a written discussion of professional conduct from that period.

We tend to focus on who invented a cocktail, which bar became famous or which technique appeared first. But the history of bartending also includes people trying to define what it meant to be a good professional, and how that professional should behave towards others.

What the profession teaches us about life

There is another passage in Sánchez’s book, on page 290, that we find particularly interesting.

Under the heading La profesión del cantinero es un arte, meaning The profession of the bartender is an art, Sánchez discusses the knowledge acquired through professional experience.

He describes how the school of work teaches us día a día y golpe a golpe, which we could translate as day after day, through every experience and setback, as we encounter the realities of professional life.

When we talk about what bartending teaches us, we usually think about cocktails, spirits, techniques, service standards and perhaps management. But working behind a bar also puts us in contact with an extraordinary variety of people and situations.

Every day, we meet guests with different personalities and expectations. Some are celebrating, others are going through difficult periods, and many simply want to spend a pleasant evening. We don’t necessarily know their stories, but we can learn to pay attention to what they communicate and understand that not everybody needs the same kind of attention.

The same applies to our colleagues. Working in a team means dealing with different personalities, recognising our mistakes, accepting criticism and sometimes learning from people who have less experience than we do in one area but more knowledge in another.

And this is how we interpret Sánchez’s passage. He is discussing the knowledge acquired through professional life, while we’re considering how those experiences can also influence our personal development.

But experience alone doesn’t necessarily make us better professionals or better people. We can spend twenty years behind a bar and continue making the same mistakes if we never stop to consider what those experiences are teaching us.

And this is where the connection with community becomes clearer. If we expect people to follow certain professional standards, we also have a responsibility to help them understand and develop those standards. Sharing knowledge isn’t just about knowing the right answer, but also about being willing to help somebody else learn.

What does community actually mean?

We often use the word community to describe people who work in the same industry, attend the same events, participate in competitions or know one another through social media. But sharing a profession doesn’t automatically mean we’re contributing to a community.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with ambition, competition or wanting professional recognition. These things can motivate people to improve, and competition was already part of Havana’s bartending scene when the Club was founded.

But we sometimes seem more interested in being seen together than in actually building something together. We attend events, celebrate achievements and talk about supporting one another, yet the practical meaning of that support can become less clear.

For us, this is where the historical material becomes particularly relevant. The Club de Cantineros gives us an example of professionals organising themselves around education and shared knowledge, while Sánchez’s book offers a perspective on the standards and responsibilities that come with practising the profession.

And these principles don’t require everyone to have the same ambitions, personalities or opinions. We can compete, disagree and pursue our own careers while still recognising certain responsibilities towards our guests, our colleagues and the profession.

A community doesn’t require everybody to be friends. But it becomes more meaningful when its members contribute something beyond their own interests, whether that’s sharing knowledge, helping others develop or maintaining the standards they expect from one another.

Final sip

We shouldn’t romanticise the past or assume that bartenders a hundred years ago were somehow more generous or collaborative than we are today. The historical documents don’t establish that.

What they do show is that bartenders were already organising themselves, sharing professional knowledge and putting expectations about professional conduct into writing.

More than a century after the Club de Cantineros was founded, we have more opportunities than ever to connect with other professionals, exchange knowledge and make our work visible. But having more connections doesn’t necessarily mean having a stronger community.

And perhaps that’s the most useful lesson we can take from this history. Calling ourselves a community is easy. What gives that word meaning is what we actually share, the standards we agree to uphold and the way we treat one another.

What follows is simply an observation, an attempt to analyse what I've witnessed over years in this industry.

Alcohol abuse, cocaine, weed, depression, terrible sleep, terrible eating habits, finishing work at four or five in the morning, carrying the night somewhere else and waking up a few hours later to do it all again, after enough years around cocktail bars and restaurants these things can become so much of a rutine, and you’re so exhausted that you’re not prepared mentally and physically to change. Its an endless loop.

And that is probably part of the danger, because when everyone around you is doing roughly the same thing, self-destruction can start looking like culture. You drink to be social, because everyone drinks, you sleep badly because everybody sleeps badly, you eat whatever is available because that is just how the job works, and slowly the line between working in hospitality and being consumed by hospitality becomes harder to see. But make no mistake, this article is purely pro self-control, not agaisnt anything else.

Over the years I have seen people go in very different directions from similar starting points. Some get pulled deeper into drugs, alcohol and chaos, while others walk into Muay Thai or boxing gyms carrying a lot of the same problems and slowly start changing the way they live. That contrast is really what this piece is about.

The cost of immediate relief

There’s a dear friend I have known a for over fifteen years, he’s Italian, in his forties , and he spent his entire life in hospitality, to protect his privacy, we will call him Johnny, and his story is useful because it shows very clearly what can happen when immediate relief becomes the main way you deal with discomfort. In his twenties he became addicted to heroin, eventually he stopped, which is already a huge thing, but the broader pattern around it never completely disappeared, jobs changed constantly, plans changed constantly, lighter drugs stayed around and there was very little long-term direction.

At the beginning of his addiction he started seeing a therapist who specialised in drugs and, according to him, it helped a lot at first. He was finally pushing things out, talking about what had happened, understanding certain things better, but after a while he felt that every session was bringing him back into the same story, the same memories and the same problems, even while other parts of his life were slowly improving.

He eventually relapsed before quitting heroin for good, and what stayed with me from that conversation was not some argument against therapy, it was something more specific, he felt that at some point he needed somewhere to go, not only something to keep looking back at. He needed a direction, something to build, because if all of your attention stays attached to what is wrong, the problem can remain the centre of your life even while you are trying to leave it behind.

The same pattern continued later in different forms, if he did not like a job he left, if he did not feel like doing something he did not do it, if the day felt heavy there was always another joint, another distraction, another idea that made the next few hours easier. The punishment for that kind of behaviour is delayed, which is exactly why it is dangerous, because one bad decision rarely destroys your life, but ten years of choosing relief over direction can.

And this is really why I am telling Johnny’s story, because he represents one side of the whole argument. Then I look at the other side and I see teenagers and young fighters in Europe and Asia already living with the discipline of athletes, training every day, eating properly because performance depends on it, sleeping because recovery matters, accepting correction and organising their lives around something they are trying to become. The contrast is almost impossible to ignore here.

The Fighters

One of the most interesting things I have noticed since spending time in these training facilities is how often serious Muay Thai fighters and boxers say some version of the same sentence, “Muay Thai saved my life”. Not everybody who walks into a gym says it, but among the people I have come across who train at a certain level, the sentence appears so often that it becomes difficult to dismiss as coincidence.

A British Muay Thai fighter I came across online explained one part of it in a way that stayed with me. His point was that when you are standing in front of someone who is genuinely trying to punch you in the face, whatever trauma, stress, anger or overthinking you walked into the gym with suddenly loses priority because something much more immediate is happening in front of you. You need to read the shoulders, see the kick coming, protect your chin, breathe, move, answer back and stay calm while somebody is actively trying to hurt you, and there is simply not much space left in your head for anything else.

He described it almost like a high, but a completely different kind of high. Drugs can take you away from what you are feeling, while fighting forces you completely into the present, and that distinction matters because you are not escaping pressure, you are learning how to function while you are right in the middle of it.

The coach tells you where the real limit is

Mario Vivenzio is an experienced Muay Thai coach whom after spending many years in Thailand back and forth, from his gym he produced several National, European and World Champions. The coach is not there to agree with you or protect every feeling you have, he is there to push you beyond the point where you would normally stop yourself.

Once I was running with the team when my cardio was not good enough, I made it around three quarters of the way and stopped because my body was telling me I had nothing left. The coach saw me and started screaming, “Come on, don’t stop now, we’re almost there, keep going”, and in my head I was convinced I could not do more, but I listened, kept running and finished.

What the coach explained afterwards was simple, most people stop as soon as the body sends the first strong signal that it wants to stop, because that feels like the limit. But if I had really reached my limit, I would not have been able to keep going when he pushed me, which means there was still something left.

That is one of the strongest lessons I got from Muay Thai, the first point where you want to stop is often not the end, it is simply the first point where discomfort becomes loud enough to convince you that it is. Push that point a little further today, then a little further tomorrow, and after enough repetition your idea of what you are capable of starts changing.

The coach also speaks a lot about the difference between motivation and discipline, and I think this connects directly to the same idea. Motivation is unreliable, some days you feel like training and some days you do not, some days you feel strong and some days you are tired, distracted or simply not in the mood, but if your entire routine depends on motivation then the routine disappears as soon as motivation does. Discipline is doing the work regardless of how you feel.

He also made an observation that stayed with me from his time training in Thailand. For some young fighters there, Muay Thai is not simply a hobby or a way to get fit, it can be connected to money, family and necessity, and that completely changes the relationship with effort. If training is tied to helping your family or changing your circumstances, “I don’t feel like it today” carries much less weight.

I do not think hardship should be romanticised, but necessity teaches something that comfort often does not, it forces action. The coach has spoken about how much easier it has become for people to remove discomfort from daily life, and the problem is not comfort itself, the problem is what happens when you become so used to it that every difficult feeling starts looking like a reason to stop.

Muay Thai does the opposite, it keeps putting you in situations where stopping would be easier, where resting would be nicer, where quitting would feel justified, and then it asks you to continue anyway. That is where discipline starts becoming real, not when you are motivated, but when you are not.

The boring work is the work

There is another part of Muay Thai that nobody makes films about because it is not particularly exciting, a lot of it is repetitive and boring.

Training can start almost the same way every day, running, shadow boxing, bag work, one hundred teeps, one hundred knees, abdominal work, push-ups, then you come back the next day and do a lot of it again. At the beginning everything feels new, after a while it does not, and that is where another form of discipline starts, because you learn to do something because it needs to be done.

That matters far outside a gym because almost everything worth building works like this, skill, fitness, money, a career, knowledge, they all require repeated actions that are often boring. People love the idea of improvement, but improvement itself is usually repetition carried out long after the excitement has disappeared.

Embarrassment loses its power

Another thing Muay Thai and boxing teach very quickly is embarrassment, because at some point somebody better than you is going to make you look bad. You miss something obvious, your technique falls apart, you gas out, you get caught clean, maybe you get knocked down in front of the entire gym, or in some cases, in front of thousands of people, and there is no polished version of yourself left at that moment, you are tired, exposed and very aware that somebody just proved they are better than you. And for a fighter, that is humiliating at the beginning.

Then you get up and keep training, and after enough experiences like that embarrassment starts losing some of its power. A few hate comments online, somebody criticising you publicly, somebody thinking you looked stupid, losing a job, these things do not feel as serious anymore because you have already been embarassed and exposed in a much more direct way.

That changes the way you move through life, because once you stop being terrified of looking stupid, you become much more willing to try, fail, ask questions and put yourself in situations where you are not in control.

Being the weakest person in the room can be exactly where you belong

This is another lesson I think translates directly into bartending, and it has a lot to do with ego.

When I walked into the coach’s gym, when I trained in China, and in other places where I was clearly less prepared than the people around me, technically, physically, athletically, the first reaction could easily have been that I did not belong there. Instead I started training myself to think the opposite, this is exactly where I belong.

If everyone around you is better than you, that room contains an incredible amount of information. Every person can expose something you do not know, every correction can move you forward, but you only get access to all of that if your ego allows you to be the weakest person there.

This matters in hospitality because young bartenders often want recognition very quickly, they want to be the person people look up to, but being the most knowledgeable person in the room has a downside too, where do you grow from there? If you are early in your career, being surrounded by bartenders who know more than you, and understand the business better than you is probably exactly where you should be.

Sometimes you need an environment that forces change

Hospitality loves giving people advice, sleep better, eat better, drink less, exercise more, all perfectly correct and often completely abstract.

What does “sleep better” actually mean when you finish at four in the morning, what does “eat better” mean when your routine is already a mess, and what does “drink less” mean when alcohol is literally part of your working environment?

Sometimes information is not the problem, the environment is.

Muay Thai changes that because it gives your habits an immediate consequence. If you drink heavily, sleep badly and eat badly, the next training session tells you very quickly, your cardio falls apart, your reactions slow down, your body feels heavier and suddenly the decisions you made the night before are there with you while somebody is trying to kick you in the ribs.

That is what makes the environment so powerful, it turns vague advice into something concrete. You start caring about sleep because you feel the difference, food matters because you need your body to perform, recovery matters because tomorrow you have to train again, and healthier behaviour stops being an abstract list of things you know you should do.

Start with the body

There is also an idea I have seen repeatedly in these environments, when your head is in a bad place, sometimes the quickest way to start changing it is through the body.

You train, your cardio improves, you breathe better, your body becomes stronger, you get physically tired in a healthier way, your sleep changes, and all of those physical improvements affect how you feel mentally as well. The interesting thing is that this reverses the usual order, instead of waiting until you feel mentally ready before acting, you act first and let the mind catch up.

You do not always need to wait for motivation to arrive before changing your life, sometimes you move first.

The same lesson with the Shaolin

I saw a similar philosophy while training with a Shaolin monk in China. If you stopped, got distracted, sat down or broke the exercise when you were not supposed to, you could be told to do twenty push-ups, and if you were exhausted that did not particularly matter, the instruction was still twenty push-ups.

They screamed at you, and the point, at least as I understood it, was not simply to make you suffer, it was to show you how quickly the mind starts negotiating once discomfort appears. You are tired so you want to sit, you are bored so you lose concentration, your body hurts so you start looking for permission to stop, and the training keeps exposing that negotiation until you start recognising it.

Do not always be yourself

This is where I think one of the most fashionable ideas in modern culture becomes worth challenging, “be yourself”.

That sounds nice, but if the version of yourself you are defending is unhealthy, addicted, emotionally ruled, constantly quitting, constantly repeating the same mistakes and making decisions that keep producing the same bad result, then being yourself is destroying you, you need to improve yourself.

That is exactly what Muay Thai assumes from day one, you walk into the gym as one version of yourself and the entire purpose is to become better, technically, physically and mentally. Change is not a betrayal of who you are, sometimes change is the responsibility you have towards who you could become.

Why this matters behind a bar

This is why I think Muay Thai and boxing are so relevant when we talk about hospitality. The industry can give you an incredible career, friendships, travel, creativity and some of the best experiences of your life, but it can also normalise habits that slowly destroy you if you never build anything strong enough outside of it.

And after seeing a few serious Muay Thai fighters and boxers say that training saved their life, and after seeing enough people change the way they live through it, I do not think that pattern is random. Muay Thai does something very specific, it puts you in an environment where better behaviour is required before you necessarily feel ready for it, and sometimes that is exactly what change needs.

Cognac is often marketed through evocative terms like VS, VSOP, or XO — but behind these labels is a precise legal structure that governs how long the spirit matures. This system, known as the Compte system, is the foundation of Cognac classification. Overseen by the BNIC (Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac), this aging system ensures transparency, quality control, and fair trade within the category. The BNIC, based in Cognac, regulates production, aging, and labeling, setting strict rules to protect the spirit’s integrity.

The Compte system doesn’t just count calendar years; it defines the official age of a Cognac based on time spent in oak casks, starting from April 1st following the harvest and distillation season.

How the Compte System Works

Cognac is distilled from wine made in the previous year’s harvest. Once distillation is completed — by March 31st at the latest, the spirit enters the aging process. From April 1st, the BNIC’s age clock starts ticking.

Compte 0: The period between distillation and the first April 1st the year after the harvest. This is freshly distilled eau-de-vie (newly distilled spirit) that hasn’t yet earned its first age count.

Compte 1: Eau-de-vie that has passed its first April 1st in cask. Still too young to be legally bottled as Cognac.

Compte 2: The legal minimum age for Cognac — spirit that has reached its second April 1st in oak. This is the youngest Cognac permitted on the market.

The system continues: Compte 3 means the spirit has passed three April 1sts in cask, and so on, until Compte 10+ for the longest-aged expressions.

These categories are not optional — they are legal designations that determine what can be bottled under various labels. For example:

• VS (Very Special): Minimum Compte 2.

• VSOP (Very Superior Old Pale): Minimum Compte 4.

• XO (Extra Old): Minimum Compte 10 (since 2018; previously Compte 6).

Why It Matters to Producers

For blenders and cellar masters, the Compte system provides the structural framework for building Cognac styles. Producers track their stocks meticulously according to these counts. A cellar will contain eaux-de-vie at different Compte levels, providing the blender with a palette of ages and characteristics.

Example: A VSOP might be crafted from a mix of Compte 4, 5, and 6 Cognacs, balancing younger vibrancy with older roundness. An XO might draw from Compte 10 and above, depending on house style and available reserves.

Barrel management: The Compte system also guides decisions about cask type (new vs. old oak), warehouse conditions, and when to transfer spirit into older casks to slow maturation and maintain balance.

The Role of the BNIC

The BNIC (Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac) ensures compliance with the Compte system through regular audits, stock declarations, and inspections. Every producer must register their barrel inventory by age category and location. This governance protects both the industry and consumers from misleading claims about age or quality.

Final Sip

The Compte system is more than bureaucracy — it’s the invisible structure that underpins Cognac’s quality and character. It allows producers to work with precision, ensures transparency for consumers, and protects one of France’s most iconic spirits. In the world of Cognac, it’s not just about age — it’s about time counted the right way.

Want to advertise with us?

If you’re building a brand and want to reach people who actually care about what is in the bottle, The Spirits Journal offers space for selected advertising and brand partnerships. We keep it honest and relevant to the people reading us and to the subjects we cover. We do not write about products we do not believe in.

If you want to advertise with us, drop us a message and we’ll send you the options.

A meeting place for all

In 1939, a small book was published in Havana dedicated to the Daiquiri and to one of the bars that would become a symbol of cocktail culture around the world: the Floridita.

Behind the counter was Constantino Ribalaigua, better known as Constante. Around him was a bar with an increasingly recognisable identity, a very deliberate approach to drinks and a clientele that included businessmen, politicians, writers, artists, travellers, Cubans and foreigners. The book captures all of these things at the same time: the bartender, the drinks, the people and the place.

And that is what makes this story interesting almost ninety years later. Because we talk constantly today about personal branding, bar identity, R&D, technique, guest experience and innovation. Of course, the terminology and the tools are different. But when you look at what was happening around that counter in Havana, some of the ideas feel very, very familiar.

The bartender and the bar grew together

Today, personal branding is everywhere in bartending. Bartenders build social media profiles, collaborate with brands, and sometimes become considerably more recognisable than the bars where they actually work.

The scale of this is modern. The idea of a bartender becoming ‘famous’ is not.

Constante had already developed a considerable reputation by the 1930s. In an account reproduced in the book, ‘United Press journalist’ Jack Cuddy describes asking around Havana in 1937 who the great reference for Cuban cocktail making was. The name that kept coming back was Constantino Ribalaigua. People were not simply interested in drinking a Daiquiri at the Floridita; the person preparing it had become part of the attraction.

But careful, because this is where the story becomes much more relevant today. Constante did not seem to build his identity separately from the Floridita. He built it through the Floridita. In fact, his reputation made the bar stronger, while the reputation of the bar made him stronger. The two went basically hand in hand.

However, there is an important distinction here. Building your own reputation can obviously create value for you as an individual. But when you work in a bar, that reputation can also create value for the place. People come because they want to see you, taste your drinks or experience your work, and every great experience they have strengthens the identity of the bar as well.

But that goes the other way too: A bartender working in a respected bar benefits from the reputation that already surrounds that place. The name above the door gives credibility to the person standing behind the counter.

Basically, one makes the other stronger.

Hemingway entered a bar that was already important

If you know the Floridita, there is a good chance you also know its connection with Ernest Hemingway. His association with the place became so strong that today it is difficult to talk about the Floridita without eventually arriving at Hemingway and his Daiquiri.

But starting the story there gives us a distorted picture of what made the bar important. In fact, Hemingway first entered a bar that already had an identity of its own.

The 1939 material describes life around the Floridita through an interesting collection of words: cocktails, refreshments, sorbets, smiles, flirting, happiness, business, effort and love, basically if you forget the romantic language for a second, you realise this was a modern version of a really cool dive bar :).

What makes this even more interesting is who those people were. The historical material describes professionals, businessmen, politicians, writers, artists, travellers, Cubans and foreigners moving through the same place.

And here is the really nice part: The way I see it, it looks like The Floridita did not become important because important people went there. It seems to have become important enough that important people wanted to go there.

And this distinction matters.

Today we spend enormous amounts of time defining target guests, demographics, concepts, drinking occasions and increasingly specific experiences. Of course a business needs to understand who its customer is. But the Floridita gives us another interesting way of looking at identity: a bar can know exactly what it is without requiring every person inside it to be the same type of person.

We should also be careful not to romanticise this. There is no evidence that the social differences between those guests somehow disappeared when they stood at the same bar. That would be a much broader claim than the historical material supports. What we can say is that people from very different backgrounds were using the same place without the Floridita having to become a different bar for every one of them.

The Floridita had built a world of its own, and different people wanted to enter it.

That is still one of the hardest things for a bar to achieve.

Five Daiquiris tell us how Constante thought

Then we get to the Daiquiri, but the recipes are interesting for a different reason than you might expect.

The 1939 book contains five numbered Daiquiris. The first maintains a relatively simple structure based on White Rum, sugar and lime. In the second, Curaçao and orange appear. The Floridita Special introduces grapefruit and maraschino. The fourth changes the formula again, while the fifth introduces grenadine.

We could spend the next thousand words discussing those recipes individually, but I don’t think that is the interesting part. Basta with discussing recipies!

Constante takes a relatively simple cocktail structure and keeps working on it. Ingredients change. Proportions change. The balance between sweetness and acidity changes. Ice changes. Texture changes. Preparation changes. The Daiquiri becomes a base from which he can keep testing different possibilities.

When a bartender does this today, we would definitely call it R&D. And it makes sense, doesn’t it?! A Cocktail as versatile as the Daiquiri can basically adapt to many changes.

The equipment available to Constante was obviously very different from what we have now, but the thinking behind the process is somewhat modern.

There is one detail that makes this particularly clear. Jack Cuddy’s 1937 account describes the preparation of the Daiquiri No. 4 in considerable detail. ‘‘The sugar should be finely granulated. The ice should be shaved until it looks almost like snow rather than simply being broken. The mixture is then worked with a mixer for around three minutes. Even the glass is chilled with ice and water before the Daiquiri is poured’’.

Those details matter because every one of them affects the finished drink.

He was trying to control temperature, dilution and texture, exactly the same variables bartenders still spend enormous amounts of time trying to control today.

Have we improved the bar since then?

From a purely technical perspective, comparing bartending in 1939 with bartending today would be ridiculous.

We have better refrigeration, equipment and access to ingredients from all over the world. We understand much more about temperature, dilution, acidity, texture and flavour. Information that once required access to the right people, books or years of practical experience can now be found almost instantly.

We should absolutely take advantage of that progress.

But better tools allow us to control drinks more precisely. They do not automatically create better bars or businesses.

And this is where all the different parts of the Floridita legacy start connecting.

Constante was working obsessively on a relatively simple cocktail, changing variables to understand how far he could take it. At the same time, his own reputation was growing together with the reputation of the Floridita. And on the other side of his counter, people from different countries, professions and social worlds were drinking, talking, doing business and forming relationships.

Constante spent years improving the Daiquiri. But while doing it, his reputation strengthened the Floridita, the Floridita strengthened his reputation, and people kept wanting to sit on the other side of that counter.

That is probably the most useful thing this little book from 1939 can teach us today.

The Final Sip

Almost ninety years later, we have better tools, better technology and access to more knowledge than Constante could probably have imagined.

But the Floridita is a good reminder that a great bar is a system. The drink makes the bartender stronger. The bartender makes the bar stronger. And the bar creates a place where people actually want to be.

Constante kept improving the Daiquiri, but he was also contributing to something much harder to reproduce: a bar people still remember today.

That, ultimately, is the part worth studying.

If you have spent enough time tasting spirits with other people, you have probably experienced this. Someone smells a whisky and immediately identifies a particular aroma. You go back to the glass, smell it again, and you simply cannot find it.

Usually, we assume one of two things is happening: either they are wrong, or we are not experienced enough to recognise what they are smelling. However, there is another possibility that I find much more interesting. They might genuinely be able to smell something you cannot. To understand why, we need to separate what is physically present in the glass from what your sensory system is actually capable of detecting.

Being there doesn’t mean you can smell it

When we analyse spirits chemically, we can identify volatile compounds present in the liquid. It is tempting to look at that information and assume that if a molecule associated with a particular aroma is present, then we should be able to smell it.

Careful though, because chemical presence and sensory relevance are not the same thing.

For an aroma to become consciously detectable, its concentration generally needs to reach what is called the ‘detection threshold’. Below that threshold, the molecule can physically be present in the liquid while remaining effectively invisible to your nose.

And here is where things become interesting: those thresholds are not necessarily identical between people. The same odorant, at the same concentration, can sit above my detection threshold and below yours.

So when we say an aroma is “there”, we are actually talking about two things at once: what is in the liquid, and who is smelling it.

Your nose is not my nose

Part of the reason for this difference starts before training, vocabulary or tasting experience even enter the conversation.

Volatile molecules reaching the olfactory epithelium interact with olfactory receptors expressed by sensory neurons. Those receptors are part of the biological machinery that allows us to detect smells. And our olfactory receptor genetics are not identical.

Genetic variation can affect how strongly different people respond to particular odorants. In plain English, the same chemical stimulus entering two noses does not necessarily produce exactly the same biological response.

This matters because we often talk about aroma as though the whisky sends a complete message to the brain and the only question is whether the taster is skilled enough to decode it.

There is no single “good nose”

This creates another problem with an expression we use constantly in the drinks industry: “He has a great nose.”

What does that actually mean?

Sensitivity is not necessarily uniform across every odorant. You can be particularly sensitive to one smell and considerably less sensitive to another. At the more extreme end of this variation is ‘specific anosmia’, where someone can have an otherwise functioning sense of smell but be unable, or much less able, to detect a particular aroma.

Then training enters the picture

Anyone who has spent years tasting spirits knows that training makes a difference. When I started tasting professionally, I could not separate and identify aromas with the same precision I can today, and still, I’m an endless working process.

Experience helps us direct attention, discriminate between smells, build sensory memories and connect a sensation with something we already know.

And this introduces another important distinction: detecting an aroma and identifying it are not the same thing.

You can know something is there without being able to tell me what it is. Anyone who tastes regularly knows that frustrating feeling where an aroma is clearly familiar, you know you know it, but the word simply does not come.

So when two experienced tasters disagree, there are several possible explanations. One may have a lower detection threshold. Their receptor sensitivity may differ. One may have more experience with that particular smell. One may detect it but fail to identify it.

And, obviously, sometimes one person is simply wrong.

So are tasting notes objective?

This is where things become particularly relevant for spirits education, blind tasting and competitions.

We often talk about tasting notes as though aromas were objective labels sitting inside the liquid waiting for someone sufficiently skilled to discover them. If the whisky contains certain volatile compounds, surely there must be one correct list of what it smells like.

Well, not quite.

The chemical composition of the whisky is real. The compounds are real. Their concentrations are real. But aroma perception happens when that chemical stimulus interacts with a human sensory system, and those sensory systems are not identical.

Now, careful, because this does not mean every tasting note is equally valid or sensory evaluation is completely subjective. Training matters. Method matters. Repetition matters. And some aroma claims can absolutely be investigated through chemical and sensory analysis.

Final Sip

We spend enormous amounts of time studying what is inside the glass: fermentation, distillation, maturation, congeners, volatile compounds and their concentrations. And we should. But the liquid is only half of the equation.

An odorant can be physically present and still fall below your detection threshold. Training can improve what we notice, separate and identify, but it does not necessarily turn everyone into the same sensory instrument.

Martinique AOC Rhum Agricole starts with fresh sugarcane juice which under the AOC regulations must also be grown in Martinique and harvested between 1st of January and 31st of August.

Once the cane is harvested, time becomes important. Sugarcane juice is highly perishable, so it needs to be pressed and processed quickly. Leave it sitting around for too long and microbial activity starts changing the juice before the controlled fermentation has even begun. That can eventually affect the profile of the spirit.

So at this stage, the rules are quite strict: fresh sugarcane juice only, locally grown cane harvested within the permitted period, and rapid processing after harvest. The point is to control the condition of the raw material from the very beginning, because what happens to the cane before fermentation will inevitably influence what happens afterwards.

The Fermentation

Fermentation is just as tightly controlled as the raw material itself. Once the fresh sugarcane juice is obtained, it needs to be fermented quickly. It is full of simple sugars and nutrients, but it is also a very unstable material, so the idea is to start fermentation before unwanted microbial activity begins changing it.

The AOC sets clear limits here: fermentation cannot last more than five days, and the fermented wash cannot exceed 7.5% ABV. During this stage, we are essentially turning fresh cane juice into a fermented liquid containing alcohol and a whole range of compounds that can later contribute to the aroma of the rum.

Acidity also matters during fermentation. Fatty acids formed in the process can react with alcohols to produce esters, which contribute fruity and more complex aromas to the spirit. But there is an important distinction here: the acids involved in fermentation can influence the formation of aroma compounds without necessarily making the final distillate taste sour. The acidity itself does not simply carry through distillation.

So this short fermentation is doing much more than producing alcohol. It is also building much of the aromatic potential that the distiller will have to work with afterwards.

The Distillation

After fermentation comes distillation, and here the AOC is again very specific. Martinique Rhum Agricole must be distilled in a column still made from copper, or from a combination of copper and stainless steel. The column must have at least 20 plates, creating enough reflux and separation to concentrate the alcohol without stripping away too much of what was created during fermentation.

The spirit must come off the still between 65% and 75% ABV, which is relatively low compared with many other spirits. And that matters. The higher you distil, generally, the more congeners you remove and the lighter the spirit becomes. By keeping the distillation strength within this range, more of the fermentation character can remain in the distillate.

So the objective here is a balance. You want enough separation to produce a clean spirit, but not so much that you neutralise the aromas and character developed from the sugarcane juice and fermentation.

Maturation and Style: Blanc, Vieux, and Beyond

Once distilled, the spirit can take two main paths. If sold as blanc, it must rest for a minimum of six weeks — typically in stainless steel or other inert vessels. This resting period allows the spirit to settle, but does not alter its profile through interaction with oak.

For rhums labeled as vieux, ageing must occur in oak casks smaller than 650 litres for at least three years. Beyond this, Martinique AOC recognizes further ageing designations:

• VO: minimum 3 years

• VSOP: minimum 4 years

• XO: minimum 6 years

These terms are legal definitions that guarantee the age of the youngest component in the blend.

Final Sip

Martinique AOC Rhum Agricole stands as one of the world’s clearest examples of a spirit defined by raw material and process rather than myth. Every stage, from cane harvest and pressing, through fermentation, distillation, and ageing — is regulated with precision. There is no reliance on vague notions to build identity. Instead, Martinique AOC is a spirit of transformation: a product shaped by law, chemistry, and the deliberate choices of its producers. Quality here is not imagined — it is built, measured, and delivered.

For more than a decade, one of the biggest trends in the US spirits industry was premiumisation. In simple terms, consumers kept moving up the price ladder. Someone buying a standard bottle moved into premium; someone already buying premium moved into super-premium or luxury, basically going higher and higher. Even when people were not necessarily drinking more, the industry could continue growing in value because people were willing to spend more on what they drank.

That trend has slowed considerably.

The latest US data shows a spirits market that is still shrinking, with some of the greatest pressure at higher price points. At the same time, certain mid-level and more accessible premium segments are holding up better.

Careful now, because it would be tempting to conclude that Americans are simply trading expensive bottles for cheaper ones, however that’s not what the data suggests. What it does in fact show is that the higher end of the market is struggling more, while the middle is becoming increasingly important.

The market is stabilising yes, but not recovering

According to the ‘Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America’s SipSource’ Forecast published on July 1, 2026, US core spirits recorded a rolling 12-month depletion decline of 4.19% in Q1 2026.

WSWA forecasts that decline to ease to 3.91% by Q4 2026 and 3.68% by Q2 2027.

There are two pieces of industry language worth translating here.

“Core spirits” means the traditional spirits market excluding spirits-based ready-to-drink products.

“Depletions” are transactions between wholesalers and retailers, including bars, restaurants and shops. SipSource is therefore looking at products actually moving through the US distribution system rather than simply asking consumers what they intend to buy. WSWA says its depletion database represents more than 70% of US wholesale volume across all 50 states.

The other important word is “improvement.”

Going from −4.19% to −3.68% is technically an improvement, but it is not a return to growth. If your sales fell 4% last year and then fell another 3% this year, your decline has slowed, but you are still selling less.

That is essentially what WSWA is forecasting. The US spirits market appears to be moving toward greater stability, but core spirits are still expected to be in negative territory by Q2 2027.

Higher-priced spirits are taking a bigger hit

The price data gives us a better idea of what is happening underneath that overall decline.

According to WSWA’s Q1 2026 SipSource data, published on May 21, 2026, core spirits volume declined 4.4%, while revenue declined 5.7%. Spirits priced between $50 and $99.99 fell 8.8%, while the $100+ tier fell 9.3%. WSWA described the widening gap between volume and revenue as evidence of consumers moving toward lower-priced products.

In a ‘speak like you eat’ language, less spirits are being sold, but the money generated from those sales is falling even faster. That is what we would expect to see when the mix of purchases shifts away from more expensive bottles.

And the latest available numbers reinforce the same pattern.

According to SipSource data published on September 9, 2026, covering July, spirits priced above $50 recorded an 8.9% revenue decline, while the $50–99.99 segment fell 9.5%. WSWA described this as a sign that consumers are increasingly prioritising value.

So we can say something quite confidently: higher-priced spirits are currently experiencing disproportionate pressure in the US market.

What we cannot say from these numbers alone is exactly where every consumer who stopped buying a $70 or $100 bottle moved next.

Any idea ?!

This is not simply a race to the cheapest bottle

If premium spirits are struggling, the obvious conclusion would be that consumers are moving straight toward the cheapest products.

But that is not what the broader data suggests either.

In its 2026 SipSource preview, WSWA analysts described weakness at both extremes of the price spectrum. The very high end was under significant pressure, but the lowest-priced value segment was also struggling. Their observation was that trends were beginning to converge more toward the centre of the market.

This is where the story becomes more interesting.

According to the July 1, 2026 SipSource Forecast, Tequila/Agave is expected to remain in negative territory, but WSWA says stronger performance in mid-tier price segments is helping to offset weakness elsewhere in the category.

American Whiskey and Scotch are also expected to improve gradually toward 2027, with stronger performance expected from what WSWA calls “affordable luxury” price tiers.

The terminology may sound slightly contradictory, but the idea is straightforward:

A product can still feel premium without sitting at the very top of the price ladder. I mean, come on, this is exactly what the marketing department of most spirits companies have been trying to achieve: Make X feel ‘Premium’, but not too premium so that most people can’t afford it. Sell it slightly below the ‘Premium’ price range, and the job is done!

And this distinction matters.

The evidence does not allow us to say that someone who previously bought a $100 whiskey is now buying a $40 whiskey. SipSource is showing us market-level sales patterns, not tracking individual consumers from one bottle to another.

What it does show is that more expensive spirits are declining particularly strongly while certain mid-tier and accessible-premium segments are performing better relative to the categories around them.

That makes the middle of the market increasingly difficult to ignore.

Premiumisation is under pressure, but it has not disappeared

This is also why saying that “premiumisation is dead” would be an exaggeration.

Premiumisation basically describes consumers becoming willing to spend more for products they perceive as better, more desirable or more premium. For years, that helped push the US spirits market progressively upward through higher price tiers.

WSWA itself has been warning that this behaviour is changing. Its 2026 market preview described consumers as becoming more selective while noting that premiumisation still exists. The important difference is that the strongest opportunities may increasingly sit toward the centre rather than at the extremes of the price ladder.

The latest September data strengthens that argument without proving that every consumer is behaving in the same way. WSWA reported that every spirits price segment was down more than 5% in revenue, so there is no booming middle tier replacing a collapsing luxury market. The entire spirits market remains difficult. The difference is the degree of decline.

That is an important distinction.

A segment can be performing better than another segment while still shrinking. “Outperforming” does not necessarily mean growing. Sometimes it simply means losing less.

Tequila shows how quickly the picture can change

Tequila is a particularly useful example because its outlook has changed substantially in a relatively short period.

According to a SipSource forecast published in June 2025, Tequila/Agave was expected to approach approximately 1% positive rolling 12-month growth by mid-2026, with consumer interest in premium tiers between $20 and $100 expected to support the category.

By the time WSWA published its July 1, 2026 forecast, the outlook had weakened. Tequila/Agave was now expected to stabilise in negative territory, although stronger performance in mid-tier price segments was helping to offset the broader category weakness.

This does not tell us that Americans have stopped liking tequila. Nor does it mean that every tequila brand is declining.

It tells us something much narrower, but still important: a category that had been expected to return to growth instead slowed more sharply than previously forecast, and the more resilient part of the category is now being found in its middle price segments.

There are exceptions

The same caution is necessary when talking about the overall US spirits decline.

According to the July 1, 2026 SipSource Forecast, Vodka is expected to outperform the broader core spirits market, although it is still forecast to remain negative.

Rum, Irish Whiskey and Brandy/Cognac are expected to underperform the overall market.

American Whiskey and Scotch are expected to improve gradually, while Tequila/Agave is expected to stabilise in negative territory.

Again, “outperform” needs translating to a ‘speak like you eat’ english.

If the total market declines 4% and one category declines 2%, that category has outperformed the market even though it has still lost sales. The same principle applies to individual brands. A brand can lose volume and still gain market share if the rest of its category declines faster.

This is why simply saying that “spirits are down” misses much of what is actually happening.

The market is shrinking, but it is not shrinking evenly.

So, where are consumers spending their money?

The most accurate answer is that the available SipSource data does not track individual consumers closely enough to tell us exactly where every dollar leaving higher-priced spirits is going.

What it does tell us is where the pressure is strongest.

Higher-priced spirits are declining disproportionately. WSWA says consumers are increasingly prioritising value. Its analysts have identified stronger relative performance toward the centre of the price spectrum, including mid-tier Tequila and “affordable luxury” American Whiskey and Scotch. At the same time, the lowest end is not universally benefiting either.

American consumers appear to be becoming more price-conscious and selective, while the middle and more accessible end of ‘premium’ spirits is showing greater resilience than the very top of the market.

Very important: That is purely a market-level conclusion. It does not tell us that every luxury consumer has moved into the middle!

Final Sip

The US spirits market is still contracting, and according to WSWA’s current forecast, that is unlikely to change before at least the middle of 2027. But underneath that decline, the structure of the market is changing.

The highest price tiers are experiencing some of the strongest pressure. Consumers are increasingly prioritising value. Mid-tier and “affordable luxury” segments are showing greater relative resilience in some of America’s major spirits categories, although even many of those segments remain in negative territory.

For years, premiumisation gave the industry a relatively simple direction: move upward. Convince consumers to spend more, then give them another, even more expensive tier to move into. This pattern seems to have slowed down, if not stopped completley.

The current data does not tell us that premiumisation has ended. It tells us that the assumption of an endlessly upward-moving consumer has become much harder to defend.

The American consumer may still want premium. In parallel to this, the harder question is what price still feels worth paying ?

When we talk about grain in whisky production, starch usually gets most of the attention. And obviously it matters: without starch, there is no sugar to ferment and no alcohol to distil. But looking at cereal simply as a source of starch misses quite a lot of what is happening.

Every cereal has its own composition. The amount of starch changes, the natural enzyme load changes, and so does the formation of aroma precursors and compounds that can influence texture. Some of these differences become important immediately, during mashing and fermentation. Others become relevant later, because part of that original grain character can make its way through distillation and into the spirit.

So before casks, maturation and all the things we normally discuss when explaining whisky flavour, there is already chemistry happening. And it starts with the grain.

Enzymes, Starch, and Conversion

The first thing we need from the grain is fermentable sugar. The problem is that cereals store most of their carbohydrate as starch, and yeast cannot simply ferment that starch as it is. We first need enzymes to break it down into sugars that yeast can actually use.

Barley is particularly useful here because, once malted, it has enough enzyme activity to convert its own starch. Corn and rye are different. They contain plenty of useful starch, especially corn, but very little enzyme activity of their own. This is one of the reasons malted barley is commonly added to mash bills containing these grains: it provides the enzymes needed for conversion.

And this is also why looking only at starch content can be misleading. A grain might contain a lot of starch and therefore have a very high potential alcohol yield, but that potential means very little if you cannot efficiently convert the starch into fermentable sugar. Starch and enzyme activity are part of the same conversation.

Barley

There is a reason barley became so important in malt whisky production. When malted, it gives you both starch and the enzymes needed to work with that starch.

Malting develops significant levels of amylase enzymes in the grain. During mashing, these enzymes break the starch down into fermentable sugars, meaning barley can essentially provide what is needed for its own conversion. This is why you can make malt whisky entirely from barley without having to introduce an external source of enzymes.

But efficiency is only one part of the story. Kilning and mashing also produce compounds that act as aroma precursors, and these continue to change during fermentation and distillation. Eventually, some of them contribute to the biscuity, nutty and lightly cereal character we associate with malt whisky.

If we compare barley with corn purely in terms of starch, barley actually contains less, so the potential alcohol yield is lower. But whisky production isn’t only a question of extracting the maximum amount of alcohol from a tonne of grain. Barley also brings its own flavour potential, and that matters.

Corn

Corn is nearly everywhere in American whiskey, particularly Bourbon, and its high starch content is one obvious reason why. There is a lot of potential fermentable material available, which means a very good potential alcohol yield.

What corn doesn’t give you is much natural enzyme activity. So although the starch is there, something still needs to break it down. This is why you often find malted barley in a Bourbon mash bill. The barley isn’t necessarily there because the distiller wants its flavour. It can have a very practical job: supplying the amylase needed to convert the corn’s starch.

Corn also tends to give a softer distillate, with a more neutral grain character and, in chemical terms, a smoother texture on the palate. That leaves plenty of space for other parts of production to shape the whisky, and particularly for new charred oak to build much of the final aroma and flavour profile.

But we need to be careful with generalisations here. Using corn doesn’t automatically mean producing a neutral spirit. How much grain character survives depends on the rest of the production process as well, including something as fundamental as distillation strength.

Rye

Rye is a different animal. Distillers love what it can bring to a whisky, but actually processing it can be a pain.

It contains less starch than corn and tends to produce viscous, sticky mashes, which immediately makes handling more difficult. Then there is the enzyme problem again. Rye has very little enzyme activity of its own, so malted barley is generally used in the mash to provide what is needed for starch conversion.

The reason for putting up with the extra difficulty is character. Rye has a stronger cereal signature than corn, with the spicy, peppery and sometimes slightly herbal notes we commonly associate with rye whiskey. More importantly, some of that character is robust enough to survive distillation and remain recognisable after maturation.

Part of the explanation is chemical. A rye mash generates a different profile of aroma precursors compared with barley or corn, and some of these eventually contribute to the sharper, more grain-driven character we recognise in the finished spirit.

Final Sip

We spend an enormous amount of time talking about casks when discussing whisky flavour, but the cask doesn’t start with a blank canvas. By the time the spirit goes into wood, the choice of cereal has already influenced the mash, fermentation, aroma precursors, potential alcohol yield and the character of the distillate itself.

Barley, corn and rye behave differently because chemically they are different raw materials. And those differences matter from the moment production begins.

Whisky starts with grain. So does its flavour.

When we talk about food and drink, many people say they “taste” certain flavours, but the reality is far more complex. The sense of smell plays the starring role in creating what we experience as flavour, working intimately with the tongue’s basic taste sensations and other senses.

The Anatomy of Smell

The sense of smell, or olfaction, is our ability to detect volatile molecules in the air. These molecules bind to specialized receptors located high inside the nasal cavity in the olfactory epithelium.

• Humans have roughly 400 different types of olfactory receptors, enabling us to detect and differentiate thousands of distinct aromas. and the combination and pattern of their activation allow us to detect and distinguish thousands (even tens of thousands) of distinct odors.

This diversity of receptors, along with the brain’s complex processing, gives humans an extraordinary capacity for smell discrimination.

• Unlike taste, which is limited to five basic sensations (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami), smell provides a vast spectrum of subtle and complex sensory information — from floral and fruity notes to earthy, smoky, and spicy nuances.

The brain processes olfactory signals in the olfactory bulb and then sends them to various regions including the limbic system, which partly governs memory and emotion. This is why certain smells can evoke vivid memories or strong feelings.

Taste, Smell, and Flavour: What’s the Difference?

• Taste is the perception of basic sensations detected by taste buds on the tongue: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. These tastes respond only to non-volatile compounds dissolved in saliva.

• Smell (Olfaction) is the perception of volatile aroma compounds detected by receptors in the nose.

• Flavour is the complex, integrated perception arising from the combination of taste, smell, and other sensory cues (such as texture, temperature, and even sight).

Put simply: taste is just a small part of flavour. The vast majority of what we consider “flavour” comes from our sense of smell.

Orthonasal vs. Retronasal Olfaction: Two Routes to Aroma Perception

Olfaction works through two distinct pathways, each providing unique but complementary sensory information:

• Orthonasal olfaction happens when we sniff aromas through the nostrils. This external smelling lets us evaluate food and drink before consumption. For example, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee or a glass of wine swirling in your hand is perceived orthonasally.

• Retronasal olfaction occurs during eating or drinking, when volatile compounds from the mouth travel through the back of the throat into the nasal cavity. This internal smelling is what largely defines flavour while we consume food or beverages.

Though the same receptors detect aromas in both cases, the brain interprets orthonasal and retronasal smells differently — orthonasal smells alert us to what’s around us, while retronasal smells shape our flavour experience from the food itself.

Why Smell Dominates Flavour Perception

When aroma molecules from food or drink reach the olfactory receptors retronasally, they provide a rich, multi-dimensional sensory experience far beyond the limited taste sensations.

• When your nose is congested (like during a cold), food seems tasteless or “flat” because the retronasal pathway is blocked.

• The same basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami) can combine with different aromas to create a staggering variety of flavours.

• The complexity of wine, whisky, coffee, chocolate, and many other products arises primarily from their aromatic compounds.

Additional Sensory Interactions Affecting Flavour

• Texture and Mouthfeel: The physical sensation of food or drink in the mouth affects flavour perception. Creaminess, carbonation, astringency, and warmth all influence how aromas and tastes are experienced.

• Temperature: Temperature changes the volatility of aroma compounds and can alter taste sensitivity.

• Visual and Auditory Cues: The appearance of food also play subtle roles in shaping flavour perception via multisensory integration.

Training and Enhancing Your Sense of Smell

Olfaction is highly trainable. Experts like sommeliers, perfumers, and distillers develop acute smell memory and recognition through practice. Techniques include:

• Systematic exposure to aroma libraries.

• Mindful smelling exercises, focusing on isolating individual aromas.

• Associating smells with memories or descriptors to enhance recall.

Final Thoughts: The Nose as the Flavour Architect

Our sense of smell is the gateway to flavour, weaving together aromatic molecules into the rich sensory tapestry we enjoy in food and drink. Understanding orthonasal and retronasal olfaction reveals why aroma, not just taste, shapes our culinary experience.

By training our nose and paying attention to smell, we unlock a deeper appreciation of flavour, making every sip and bite a more vivid and meaningful encounter.

Ask around, and you’ll hear the same idea repeated: pot stills make rich, flavourful spirits; column stills make light, neutral ones, only.

Some people even say column stills are “commercial”(whatever that means) because they’re used to produce vodka.

Basically, in simple terms, still type is not the only thing that decides flavour — it’s how that still is designed, managed, and run.

What a Pot Still Really Does

A pot still is a batch distillation device. You fill it, heat it, and collect the spirit as the run progresses. It’s often linked to flavourful, characterful spirits — malt whisky, Cognac, pot still rum. But a pot still doesn’t guarantee flavour necessarly.

What really shapes the output is:

• Reflux: The shape and height of the neck, and how the still is run, determine how much natural reflux occurs, where vapour condenses and re-vapourises inside the still, refining the spirit.

• Distillation strength: A lower-strength run carries more raw material and fermentation character. A higher-strength run is cleaner and more selective.

• Cut points: The distiller’s decision on where heads, hearts, and tails begin and end defines what ends up in the glass.

Basically, a pot still gives flexibility — it doesn’t lock you into one style.

What a Column Still Actually Does

Here’s where the misunderstanding runs deepest. People often think of column stills as tools for making neutral spirits and nothing else. But this isn’t true.

A column still can ‘technically’ do everything a pot still can — and more. That’s because a column still offers the distiller greater control and option over separation and flavour retention:

• The number of plates

• The height of the column

• Where the spirit is drawn off

• How reflux is managed

👉 And here’s the important legal fact: neutral spirit means 96% ABV or higher (under EU law). A pot still can’t produce spirit at that strength — it’s simply not designed for it. A column still is the only tool capable of reaching that level of purity, but they are not only used to produce neutral spirits.

👉 The idea that column stills are just commercial or industrial is misleading. Column stills are used to create highly characterful spirits too, depending on how they’re run. Examples include:

• Martinique AOC Rhum Agricole — required by law to be column distilled

• Many Bourbon and American Rye Whiskeys — typically distilled in columns before pot or doubler finishing, or Column Stills alone.

• Most Armagnac — traditionally made in column stills designed for flavour, not neutrality

• Many brandies, rums, and other spirits

Put simply, a column still is like an adjustable filter. The distiller decides how much character comes through.

The Real Factors Behind Spirit Character

In both pot and column stills, the real determinants of character are:

• Reflux — how much internal refining happens.

• Distillation strength — higher strength means cleaner spirit, lower strength means more raw material and fermentation character.

• Cut points — where heads, hearts, and tails are separated.

• Heat management and speed — slow runs give more separation; fast runs can push less volatile compounds through.

Basically, still type is just one variable — what matters is how it’s used.

🎯 Final Sip

Pot or column? It’s not the hardware that builds flavour — it’s the choices of the distiller. The next time someone tells you pot = flavour and column = neutral, you’ll know better. It’s not the still. It’s the skill.

In batch distillation (like with pot stills), the process works like this:

• The liquid in the still is heated, and as the temperature rises, different compounds in the liquid evaporate at different points and come out of the still as vapour.

• This vapour is cooled and condensed back into liquid — this is the spirit that’s collected.

But here’s where the real craft begins. The liquid doesn’t come out as one uniform product. Instead, the character of what comes off the still changes over time.

The distiller has to make choices about when to collect the liquid that comes out — and when to redirect or stop collecting. These moments are called cut points.

Basically, in simple terms, a cut point is when the distiller switches from collecting one part of the run (like the heads) to another (like the heart), or when they stop collecting altogether.

Each part contains different compounds, with different aromas, ABV, textures, and flavour impacts. The distiller’s job is to choose what to keep and what to leave behind.

Heads, Hearts, Tails — The Anatomy of a Batch Run

The Heads (or foreshots) come off first. This part of the run contains the most volatile compounds — things like methanol, some aldehydes, and certain esters. These can contribute sharp, solvent-like aromas or a prickly texture on the palate. That’s why the heads are usually discarded or kept for recycling.

Next comes the Heart — the main event.

This is the section the distiller wants to keep. The heart contains clean ethanol and a balanced mix of desirable aroma compounds. This is where the spirit’s core character is formed:

• The Raw material notes

• The Esters and other fermentation compounds that give complexity

• The Alcohol that provides body without harshness

Finally, the Tails (or feints) appear. These contain the less volatile compounds — higher alcohols, oils, and waxy elements. A small amount of early tails can add richness, but too much will weigh down the spirit and make it coarse in texture.

How Cut Points Shape Flavour and Texture

Cut points aren’t fixed — they’re a choice. The distiller tastes, smells, and measures during the run to decide when to move from heads to hearts, and from hearts to tails.

These choices define both flavour and texture:

• A narrow heart cut produces a cleaner textured spirit.

• A wider heart cut brings more flavour complexity but risks heaviness or harshness in texture.

• Texture is shaped at this stage — too much heads can make the spirit feel sharp; too much tails can make it feel rough or waxy.

Basically, cut points decide the spirit’s balance and character before ageing or blending begins.

How Does the Distiller Make the Cut?

This is the million-dollar question. How does the distiller know when to move from heads to hearts, or from hearts to tails?

There’s no single trick — it’s a combination of science, experience, and senses.

• ABV measurement: As the condensed liquid flows out of the still, its strength changes over time. Early in the run, the ABV is lower, then it rises, then it gradually falls as the run continues. The distiller often uses a hydrometer right where the newly distilled liquid drips out. This is a tool that floats in the liquid to measure alcohol strength — or other instruments that track the ABV. Basically, watching the changing strength gives a clear signal of where you are in the run.

• Aroma: The smell of the spirit changes as distillation moves from heads to hearts to tails. The heads can smell sharp, solvent-like, or overly fruity. The heart smells balanced, clean, and full of the raw materials and fermentation character. The tails begin to smell like cheese, or sweat. A skilled distiller uses their nose as much as any instrument.

• Timing: Once a distiller has worked with the same still and same type of spirit again and again, they know roughly how long each phase of the run takes. Basically, they develop a feel for the timing — though aroma and measurement always confirm the moment to make the cut.

Final Sip

Cut points are one of the distiller’s most powerful tools. Every glass of spirit reflects those decisions — what was kept, what was left behind, and what defines the heart of the spirit. It’s not luck. It’s skill, judgement, and chemistry — distilled.

Juniper (Juniperus communis) isn’t just a legal requirement. It’s the anchor of flavour, built from a complex mix of terpenes. The key players are:

• α-Pinene — pine resin, crisp and fresh, the signature of juniper on the nose

• β-Myrcene — soft herbal notes, giving juniper its depth

• Limonene — subtle citrus lift that balances the resin

• Sabinene — peppery edge that brings complexity

• Cadinene & sesquiterpenes — faint woody and smoky undertones

These compounds are volatile, meaning they’re drawn out during distillation and carried directly into the final spirit. They define gin’s aroma from the first sip to the lingering finish.

But even juniper at its best can sometimes feel raw or one-dimensional without balance. That’s where other botanicals come in — not to overshadow juniper, but to work in harmony.

The Key Supporting Botanicals

Coriander Seed
Coriander adds complexity to juniper’s pine. Its linalool content brings warm citrus and floral edges, while α-pinene reinforces the herbal backbone. Coriander makes gin feel rounder, bridging the gap between juniper’s resin and citrus peel’s brightness.

Angelica Root
Angelica adds earthiness and a faintly musky spice. Chemically, it contributes terpenoids that round off sharper notes. More importantly, it acts as a fixative: it helps slow the evaporation of lighter aromatics, giving gin its length and stability.

Orris Root
Orris doesn’t bring much aroma itself. Its main job is to hold the structure of the gin together. The irones in orris bind and stabilize other volatile compounds, ensuring that bright citrus or floral top notes don’t vanish the moment the bottle is opened.

Citrus Peels (Lemon, Bitter Orange, Lime, Grapefruit)
Citrus peels provide limonene, citral, and related terpenes that give gin its top-note freshness. They don’t compete with juniper — they lift it, adding brightness to what could otherwise feel heavy.

How Production Shapes Flavour

Gin’s character isn’t only about what goes in — it’s about how those botanicals are handled during distillation.

Steeping (Pot Still Method)
In traditional London Dry-style gin, botanicals are steeped and distilled directly in neutral spirit, all together. This method gives a deeper extraction of essential oils and compounds. The result is a fuller, more integrated botanical profile — richer, more oily, with longer persistence on the palate.

Vapour Infusion (Basket Method)
Here, botanicals sit in a basket above the spirit in the still. Alcohol vapour passes through the botanicals, extracting more delicate, volatile aromatics. Vapour infusion produces a cleaner, lighter gin with brighter top notes and a more lifted, elegant style.

Compound Gin (Cold Compounding)
Although not the focus of quality gin production: compound gins are made by adding flavouring extracts or essences (natural or artificial) to neutral spirit, without redistillation. The result can be uneven and less integrated, lacking the subtle balance that comes from distilling botanicals together.

The Chemistry of Balance

A good gin recipe isn’t built on marketing stories or tradition alone. It’s built on chemistry:

• Juniper delivers the signature — no exceptions.

• Other botanicals stabilize, enhance, or frame that core character.

• Distillation method defines how those compounds are captured and balanced.

The choices made from botanical selection to how those botanicals meet the spirit shape the final liquid far more than any label story ever will.

Final Sip

Juniper isn’t just an ingredient. It’s the identity of gin. The rest is structure — the chemistry that holds it up, frames it, and lets it shine. And while the production method may be invisible to most drinkers, it’s what makes the difference between a gin that’s simply a flavoured spirit, and one that’s built to last in the glass (and your memory).

After visiting Mexico on a trip organised by Don Julio Tequila, the genius that is Karina Sanchez (Global BA for DJ), and especially after spending time at the CRT, one thing became obvious:

Many people talk about tequila without fully understanding how tightly regulated it actually is.

A lot of the conversation stays around flavour, celebrity brands, additives, production style, or whether one producer is more “traditional” than another.

But once you see the legal side of tequila, the real structure becomes much bigger.

Because tequila is not only shaped by raw material, fermentation, distillation, or ageing.

It is controlled through law, documentation, traceability, chemical analysis, physical verification, certification, and repeated cross-checking.

That is what stood out most after seeing the system up close.

Tequila is one of the most documented and cross-checked spirits categories in the world.

Before tequila becomes a spirit, it is a legal territory

At the foundation of tequila sits the DO — Denomination of Origin, held by the Mexican government. NOM-006 exists directly in relation to that legal protection.

Under NOM-006, tequila must be made from Agave tequilana weber blue variety, grown inside the territory protected under the Declaration.

That territory includes:

• Jalisco

• Guanajuato

• Michoacán

• Nayarit

• Tamaulipas

A total of 181 municipalities within these states.

The law decides where tequila can begin. That is the first control point.

The CRT is where the regulation becomes real

One of the strongest things I understood after visiting the CRT was simple:

A regulation matters because somebody has to verify it.

The CRT (Consejo Regulador del Tequila) operates as the Conformity Assessment Agency referenced in NOM-006. The standard itself defines the Compliance or Conformity Assessment Agency as the Regulatory Council or accredited body responsible for verifying compliance.

That means tequila regulation is built as a chain of checkpoints.

Each one exists because the next one can be measured, compared, or verified against it.

That is what makes the system more difficult to fake, not infallible, but more difficult to fake.

Field registration

The first checkpoint starts years before tequila exists.

A Blue Weber agave field must be registered in the Plantation Property Registry, established by the Conformity Assessment Agency.

Why is that important? - Because once a field is legally registered, it creates a fixed agricultural record.

Later, authorities can compare:

• what was planted

• what was harvested

• what was committed to tequila production

• what was transferred

• what eventually entered a distillery

Annual ratification

The owner or title holder must annually update or ratify the registration during the first six months of each calendar year.

This matters because agave is agricultural inventory. It changes.

Plants grow, fields are harvested, agave is sold.
Agave is committed to producers.
Some may be lost or damaged.

So annual ratification allows the agency to compare the original declared field against what physically continues into the tequila chain.

Without that, the registry would quickly lose value.

Documentary records

Once agave enters production, documentation becomes the backbone of control.

The producer must maintain records covering:

• agave purchases

• other sugar purchases

• raw material input and output

• inventories

• product movement

• ageing stock

• bottling stock

Why?

Because each record becomes another point of comparison.

Authorities can cross-check:
registered agave → purchased agave → sugars used → tequila produced → stock aged → stock bottled → stock released.

If the numbers fail to align, the chain breaks.

That is where documentation becomes verification.

Sampling

Paperwork cannot prove chemical conformity.

So the liquid itself is sampled.

That matters because authorities are not only checking declarations.

They are checking the physical batch.

For bulk tequila, samples can be taken from homogenized liquid or from different tank levels to make sure the batch is properly represented.

So sampling becomes the first physical checkpoint after documentation.

Lab analysis

Then the batch moves into chemical verification.

This is critical.

Because the system is not only asking:

Was tequila declared?

It is asking:

Does the liquid chemically match legal tequila specifications?

That is why the lab checks alcohol, sugars, volatile compounds, methanol, metals, and other analytical markers referenced in NOM-006.

So documentation proves declared identity.

The lab helps verify chemical identity.

Seals

Then physical integrity must be protected.

That is where sealing becomes important.

Samples are labelled, signed and sealed.
Containers used in ageing and verification can also be sealed.

Why?

Because once a batch or container is sealed, it becomes much harder to tamper with, replace, or alter without breaking traceability.

So seals protect continuity between sampled liquid, stored liquid, aged liquid, and certified liquid.

Certification

Then the batch moves through formal compliance.

This is where the product is no longer just being produced.

It is being legally validated.

Documents, physical batch identity, analysis, and conformity all begin to support certification.

That means tequila enters the market through documented control, not only through production.

Label validation

Then finally, the label.

This is one of the strongest final checkpoints.

Because the label becomes legal identity.

At that point, what is written on the bottle must match:

• origin

• category

• class

• legal conformity

So the label is not simply communication.

It is the final legal expression of everything checked before it.

Each checkpoint exists because the next one can be verified against the previous one.

That is what makes the system difficult to fake.

Traceability

One of the strongest parts of NOM-006 is that control starts in the agave field.

For agave to legally enter tequila production, it must be Blue Weber agave, grown inside the protected territory, and registered in the Plantation Property Registry.

Then comes one of the strictest legal deadlines.

The field must be registered within the first year of planting, at the latest.

That matters because traceability starts before harvest.

Then the owner or title holder must annually update or ratify the registration.

That allows later comparison between:
registered agave → committed agave → harvested agave → agave entering production.

So the registry becomes more than administration.

It becomes traceability.

Once production starts, tequila becomes a documentary chain

Once agave enters production, the liquid is only one part of the system.

The paperwork becomes just as important.

This is where NOM-006 becomes highly practical.

The Authorized Producer must maintain updated records that include:

• invoices confirming purchase of agave

• invoices confirming purchase of other sugars

• raw material input and output

• movement of finished product

• raw material inventories

• finished tequila inventories

• product allocated to ageing

• product allocated to bottling

At first, this may look like administrative control.

But this is actually one of the strongest verification tools in the system.

Because these records allow authorities to reconstruct the production chain.

They can compare:

Raw material intake

How much agave entered?

If a producer declares output that does not reasonably align with raw material records, that creates an inconsistency.

Sugar use

How much additional sugar entered?

This matters because category compliance can depend on formulation rules under NOM-006.

So sugar movement becomes relevant beyond inventory.

Production output

How much tequila was produced?

Now authorities can compare declared output against earlier inputs.

Agave.
Sugar.
Batch identity.
Production records.

The numbers should make sense.

Ageing allocation

How much liquid was allocated to ageing?

This matters because later age claims must connect back to documentary evidence.

A Reposado or Añejo claim should connect to actual stored stock.

Bottling allocation

How much product moved into bottling?

That creates another checkpoint.

A producer cannot simply claim bottled stock without corresponding movement.

Finished product movement

How much product moved out?

At this stage, authorities can compare:
produced → aged → bottled → released.

So market movement also becomes traceable.

That is why these records matter.

Because by cross-checking them, authorities can identify inconsistencies in declared production, category, ageing, movement, or inventory.

Then the facility itself becomes controlled.

NOM-006 states that at no time may any product that does not contain tequila be distilled or produced in the Authorized Producer’s tequila facility.

That is a strong legal boundary.

Because integrity is also protected inside the distillery.

Then NOM-006 refers to continuous inspections by the Conformity Assessment Agency.

Because verification is designed to follow tequila while it is being produced, aged, moved, and bottled.

So the control system is not built only around the final bottle.

It follows the process itself.

The lab: how authorities verify the liquid

This is where tequila becomes highly technical.

A batch is not simply trusted.

It is sampled.

NOM defines a Lot or Batch as the quantity of product bottled during a single period of time to ensure identification.

That matters because the system is testing traceable lots.

For bulk tequila, samples are taken from homogenized tequila or from lower, middle and upper tank levels.

The minimum sample is 3 liters.

Then it is split into three 1-liter portions.

Why split it?

Evidence control.

• One sample is analysed

• One stays with the agency

• One stays with the company

If something is challenged later, retained samples exist.

Then they are labelled, signed and sealed.

Barrels and smaller containers can also be selected randomly.

Then the lab becomes central.

NOM-006 links tequila verification to official Mexican testing methods.

That includes:

Alcohol content

To confirm the batch matches legal alcohol specification.

Direct reducing sugars and total sugars

To help verify composition and category compliance.

Esters, aldehydes, methanol and higher alcohols

To verify chemical conformity and safety.

Methanol matters because it is toxic and must remain within legal specification.

Metals

Including:

• copper

• lead

• arsenic

• zinc

• iron

• mercury

• cadmium

• calcium

These matter because contamination and unsafe levels must be controlled.

Furfural

Also measured under referenced methods.

So the lab is answering a bigger question:

Is this chemically compliant tequila?

Ageing, export certification, and why the label has to tell the truth

Tequila does not stop being regulated once it leaves fermentation or distillation.

In many ways, some of the most practical controls happen later.

Because by this point, tequila is no longer just a liquid in production.

It is becoming a commercial product.

And that means the category now has to prove that what is being sold matches what is being claimed.

That applies to age claims.

It applies to category claims.

It applies to export.

And it applies to the final label.

Ageing is not simply a claim

Take Reposado as an example.

A producer cannot simply age tequila and decide to call it Reposado because it “looks right” or because the label says so.

The category has legal definitions.

Under NOM-006:

• Reposado must age for a minimum of 2 months

• Añejo must age for a minimum of 1 year

• Extra Añejo must age for a minimum of 3 years

For Añejo and Extra Añejo, there is another legal limit.

The spirit must age in containers with a maximum capacity of 600 litres.

These are not stylistic descriptors.

They are legal categories.

That means if a bottle says Reposado or Añejo, that claim must connect back to verifiable ageing records.

So how do authorities verify that?

How ageing is physically verified

The system does not rely on the label.

It relies on traceability.

CRT verification materials show that ageing control includes:

• evidence of ageing containers

• numbered records showing liquid entering and leaving those containers

• sealed containers during ageing

• seals placed and removed by the Conformity Assessment Agency

Why does this matter?

Because age claims need documentary and physical continuity.

Authorities can see:

how much liquid entered ageing → where it was stored → how long it remained there → how much liquid later exited that ageing system.

So a Reposado or Añejo claim is not simply commercial language.

It becomes something that can be traced through records, containers, and seals.

That is a very different level of control than simply trusting what is written on a bottle.

Classification itself is legal

NOM-006 legally defines tequila classes:

• Blanco / Plata

• Joven / Oro

• Reposado

• Añejo

• Extra Añejo

That matters because these are not marketing terms invented by producers.

They are legal classifications with regulatory definitions.

So by the time a bottle reaches market, its declared class must match what the production and ageing records support.

Again, this is where paperwork, physical verification, and label claims start to connect.

Export certification: tequila enters another control chain

This is another part of tequila regulation that often gets overlooked.

Many people assume that once tequila has been produced, bottled, and certified, it simply gets exported.

But CRT materials show that export itself becomes another regulatory checkpoint.

The tequila batch enters a structured export certification process:

application review → document verification → inspector assignment → batch verification → sample collection → sealing → technical report → certificate issuance → customs surrender for export release

At first glance, this may look like administrative procedure.

But each checkpoint protects the integrity of the next one.

And once you understand that, you start to see how tightly tequila is controlled all the way to market exit.

Application review

The process begins when the producer or exporter formally enters the batch into the export certification chain.

This is important because it creates an official regulatory starting point.

At this stage, the batch is no longer simply stock sitting in a warehouse.

It becomes part of a documented export verification process.

That means traceability starts before physical release.

Document verification

Then the paperwork is checked.

This is one of the strongest first control layers.

Authorities review whether the documentary identity of the batch aligns with what is being submitted for export.

That includes checking:

• production records

• batch identity

• declared category

• declared class

• origin

• supporting conformity documentation

Why is this important?

Because before anyone touches the liquid, authorities need to confirm that the legal identity of the batch makes sense on paper.

If the documentary chain does not align here, the process already has a problem.

So this checkpoint protects legal consistency before physical verification even begins.

Inspector assignment

Then a specific inspector is assigned.

This sounds simple, but it matters.

Because now verification becomes accountable.

A real inspector becomes linked to that certification step.

That creates direct procedural responsibility inside the chain.

So this is not just “someone checks it.”

It becomes a traceable inspection responsibility.

Batch verification

Then the physical batch itself is checked.

This is where paperwork meets reality.

Authorities verify that the physical tequila being presented matches the batch described in the documentation.

That includes checking:

• lot or batch identity

• declared quantity

• traceable product identity

• alignment with submitted records

Why is this important?

Because the system is not trusting paperwork alone.

It is verifying that the declared batch and the physical batch are the same thing.

That becomes a major anti-substitution checkpoint.

Sample collection

Then the liquid itself is sampled.

Because paperwork cannot prove chemical conformity.

The batch must physically enter analytical control.

This is where authorities are asking:

Does this liquid actually match what this batch claims to be?

That supports:

• chemical verification

• category compliance

• batch integrity

So the liquid itself becomes evidence.

Sealing

After sampling, containers are sealed.

This is one of the strongest physical control points in the export chain.

Why?

Because once the batch has been sampled, authorities need to preserve continuity between:

sampled liquid → stored batch → certified batch → exported batch

Without sealing, a sampled batch could theoretically be altered, replaced, or interfered with before export release.

Sealing protects that continuity.

It ensures that the batch being exported remains tied to the batch that was actually inspected and sampled.

That is a very strong integrity checkpoint.

Technical report

Then a technical report is issued.

This is where verification becomes documented evidence.

The report records that the batch has passed through inspection, sampling, and conformity review.

Why is this important?

Because the batch does not move forward based on verbal approval.

It moves forward based on technical evidence.

That makes the chain auditable.

Certificate issuance

Only after that can certification be issued.

At this point, certification is not simply permission to export.

It is confirmation that the batch has passed through the regulatory checkpoints required by the system.

That means:
documents were checked
the batch was inspected
the liquid was sampled
the chain remained intact

So the certificate becomes evidence of regulatory conformity.

Customs surrender for export release

Then the certification chain follows tequila all the way to export release.

The certificate is surrendered to customs as part of final export control.

This matters because control does not stop when tequila leaves the distillery.

It follows the batch until market exit.

So even at export, traceability is still active.

The label

At that point, the bottle becomes more than packaging.

Because everything before it now has to match what is written on it.

That includes:

• origin

• category

• class

• legal conformity

That is why the label matters so much.

Because by the time tequila reaches that final bottle, it has already moved through field registration, documentary traceability, production records, sampling, lab analysis, ageing verification, certification, and export control.

So the label is not simply branding.

It becomes the final legal expression of everything that was checked before it.

Final Sip

Before visiting Mexico, I understood tequila through the lenses most of us usually do.

Raw material.
Production.
Distillation.
Ageing.
Flavour.

And all of that matters.

But after spending time at the CRT and seeing how the regulatory system actually works, I understood something much bigger.

Tequila is not only protected by tradition or production method.

It is protected by documentation.

What stood out most was how deeply control is built into the category itself.

Traceability begins in the agave field, years before harvest.
Production records are built so raw material, liquid, ageing stock, bottling stock, and market release can be cross-checked against each other.
Batches are physically sampled, sealed, and analysed in the lab.
Age claims can be verified through containers, movement records, and sealed ageing systems.
Export certification follows the batch beyond the distillery.
And by the time the bottle reaches the market, the label is no longer just packaging. It becomes a legal declaration of origin, category, class, and conformity.

Tequila is not only one of the most culturally important spirits categories in the world.

It is also one of the most documented, verified, and cross-checked.

And honestly, when you look at what agave actually gave to people, this starts making a lot more sense.

Because agave was never just a source of alcohol. More than anything else, it represented survival.

The plant provided fibre for rope and textiles, sharp tips that could function almost like needles, materials for construction, food, fermented beverages, and something incredibly important in harsher climates: reliability.

Agave survives where many crops struggle.

It stores energy slowly over years, sometimes more than a decade, concentrating carbohydrates inside the piña before flowering once and dying. In practical terms, it became a long-term reserve of usable material in environments that could be dry, unpredictable, and difficult.

And once a plant becomes deeply tied to survival, it usually becomes deeply tied to symbolism too.

Because mythology often reveals what societies depended on most.

Mayahuel

This is where Mayahuel enters the story.

In Aztec mythology, Mayahuel was a goddess associated with agave, fertility, nourishment, and pulque, the fermented agave beverage consumed long before tequila existed.

She is often represented emerging directly from the agave plant itself, almost becoming physically inseparable from it.

And honestly, the symbolism almost becomes logical.

Agave fed people, clothed people, provided tools, fermented into intoxicating beverages, and survived difficult environments. Over time, the plant stopped being viewed only as agriculture and started becoming associated with continuity of life itself.

Which is why Mayahuel was not simply connected to intoxication.

She became associated with nourishment, fertility, motherhood, and sustenance.

And this pattern repeats constantly throughout history.

Societies tend to mythologise the things that reduce suffering, increase survival, or alter human experience in meaningful ways.

Wheat, Wine, Cacao, Coffee all became ritualised.
Agave became divine.

Because symbolic importance usually follows material importance.

And agave carried enormous material importance.

Pulque Came Before Tequila

One of the strangest things about modern tequila culture is that many people unconsciously treat it as if it were the beginning of agave alcohol.

It wasn’t.

Long before distillation arrived from Europe, fermented agave beverages already existed in Mesoamerica. The most important of these was Pulque, produced from agave sap and consumed ceremonially, socially, and religiously.

That changes the timeline completely.

Because the spiritual and ritual relationship already existed centuries earlier.

Pulque occupied a complicated role in society. In some contexts it was ceremonial, restricted, or associated with specific rituals and social structures. Intoxication itself was not always treated casually. In many ancient cultures, altered consciousness carried religious meaning because people often interpreted psychological transformation spiritually long before chemistry or neuroscience existed.

And honestly, this is still visible today.

Even now, people describe intoxication using language that sounds strangely spiritual:
losing yourself, becoming someone else, seeing differently, letting go,
escaping reality.

The vocabulary changed, but the psychological fascination did not.

The 400 Rabbits

This is probably the most fascinating part of agave mythology.

In Aztec mythology, the Centzon Tōtōchtin, often translated as the “400 Rabbits,” were divine rabbit spirits associated with pulque and drunkenness.

The number 400 did not literally mean 400 rabbits.

In Nahuatl symbolism, it often represented something countless or beyond easy measurement.

Which makes the symbolism incredibly intelligent.

Because intoxication rarely expresses itself the same way twice.

Some people become emotional.
Some become aggressive.
Some become affectionate.
Some become philosophical.
Some become reckless.
Some become quiet.

The mythology treated drunkenness almost like multiplication of personality.

Not one rabbit. Hundreds of them.

And rabbits themselves were not random symbols either.

They represented fertility, rapid multiplication, excess, and loss of control, all things that mirror intoxication surprisingly well.

One drink becomes several.
One version of yourself becomes another.

What I find most interesting is that this mythology was not simply celebrating drunkenness. It was trying to explain it.

Because before psychology, neuroscience, or biochemistry, human beings still needed frameworks to understand why intoxication could transform behaviour so dramatically.

So mythology became one of those frameworks.

Why Humans Mythologise Intoxication

Once you zoom out, agave stops being an isolated example.

Humans repeatedly mythologised substances that altered consciousness.

Wine in the Mediterranean.
Cacao in Mesoamerica.
Coffee in the Middle-east.
Tobacco in ritual ceremonies.
Psychoactive mushrooms in religious practice.

This pattern appears again and again across civilizations.

And honestly, it makes perfect sense.

Altered consciousness is one of the strangest experiences available to human beings.

Fermentation itself probably looked almost supernatural before microbiology existed. Sugar transformed into intoxication through an invisible process nobody could fully explain chemically at the time.

Fruit spoiled.
Grain transformed.
Agave fermented.
Human perception changed.

That sequence alone is enough to create mythology.

Especially when those substances also became tied to:
ritual, social bonding, status, religion, celebration, and more.

Which is why agave eventually became far more than a plant.

It became symbol.

Final Sip

Tequila is modern. Agave mythology not so much.

Long before tequila became a luxury bottle, a cocktail ingredient, or a global export category, agave had already earned something much more difficult:

Importance.

Because it fundamentally changed how people survived, gathered, fermented, celebrated, and understood transformation itself.

And maybe that is the most interesting thing about agave.

Before it became a spirit, it first became sacred.

Who Were the Pattisons?

Robert and Walter Pattison were Edinburgh-based brothers who started in dairy wholesale before spotting a bigger opportunity. By the late 1880s, blended Scotch was booming, and the brothers decided to ride that wave.

• 1887: The Pattisons establish their whisky blending and export business.

• 1889: They float the business on the stock market, raising £100,000 (roughly the equivalent of £8 million today).

What set them apart wasn’t blending skill — it was ambition. They aimed to dominate through aggressive marketing, expansion, and sheer spectacle.

What Did They Build?

The Pattison firm became one of the largest whisky companies in Scotland almost overnight.

• They took stakes in distilleries including Glenfarclas, Oban, and Aultmore.

• They invested heavily in production facilities, bottling plants, and warehouses.

• They spent staggering sums on advertising — £60,000 in 1898 alone — including famously training parrots to squawk “Buy Pattisons Whisky!” in shop windows.

Their rise was as much about spectacle as substance.

Where Did It Go Wrong?

The core problem was unsustainable growth fuelled by debt and deception.

• The brothers financed expansion by overvaluing assets and issuing inflated dividends.

• They juggled accounts to keep up the appearance of profitability, hiding real liabilities.

• By 1898, a downturn in whisky demand coincided with their financial house of cards teetering on collapse.

When banks withdrew support, the company crumbled. December 1898 marked the start of the crash.

Why Did It Matter So Much?

The Pattison collapse didn’t just take down one company. It destabilised the entire Scotch whisky sector.

• Massive whisky stocks were dumped onto the market, crashing prices.

• Dozens of distilleries that had expanded to supply Pattison’s vast blending operation found themselves with no buyer.

• Between 1899 and 1912, over 40 distilleries shut their doors.

• Confidence in Scotch whisky — at home and abroad — was shaken for decades.

How Did It Change Scotch?

The crash forced Scotch whisky into a new era.

• The Distillers Company Ltd (DCL) and other big firms consolidated operations, acquiring failed distilleries and blending houses.

• The industry shifted from speculative growth to more cautious, quality-focused production.

• Scotch wouldn’t return to its pre-crash output levels until after World War II — more than 50 years later.

Even today, many of the structural safeguards and cautious growth strategies in Scotch trace their roots to the lessons of 1898.

The Epicentre of the Collapse

The Pattison empire was headquartered in Edinburgh, with investments across Speyside and the Highlands — Glenfarclas, Aultmore, Oban — and bottling operations in Leith. The results from their fall reached as far as export markets in America.

The Final Reckoning

In 1901, Robert and Walter Pattison were convicted of fraud:

• Robert Pattison: 18 months’ imprisonment.

• Walter Pattison: 9 months’ imprisonment.

Their downfall closed a chapter on whisky’s wildest boom — and opened one on its long road to recovery.

Final Sip

The Pattison Crash wasn’t a blip. It was a turning point.
A cautionary tale of what happens when ambition outruns substance — and a reminder that Scotch’s strength lies not in spectacle, but in patience, precision, and integrity.

In the whisky world, age often seduces. A bottle marked 25, 30, or 40 years old can seem like the ultimate prize: deeper, richer, rarer. But age alone doesn’t guarantee quality. The truth is, whisky maturation is a dynamic, layered process. And age — while important — is just one piece of the puzzle.

Scotch whisky legally must mature in oak for at least three years. But what happens between year 3 and year 30 is shaped by far more than the calendar. It’s about interaction: spirit, type of cask, humidity, temperature, and warehouse all playing their parts.

Early Years (3 to 8 years): Rapid Extraction and Foundation Building

In this first phase, the spirit absorbs oak-driven compounds at a fast pace. The type of oak, the freshness of the cask, and environmental conditions dictate the outcome.

• Colour develops quickly, drawn from the toasted interior of the cask.

• Key flavour compounds build:

  • Vanillin from lignin (vanilla notes)

  • Furfural and 5-methylfurfural from hemicellulose (caramel, almond, baked aromas)

  • Oak lactones (especially in American oak), delivering coconut and sweet spice

• Tannins contribute structure and grip — often sharp at this stage, requiring time to soften.

The pace and balance of this extraction depend on:

• The type of oak (American oak offers more lactones; European oak brings richer tannins and spicy notes)

• Cask history (first-fill casks impart more flavour; refill casks are gentler)

• Warehouse location (humidity and temperature cycles)

• Barrel position within the warehouse

• Fill strength of the spirit (higher ABV extracts different compounds)

Middle Years (~8 to 18 years): Balance and Integration

This is often where Scotch whisky shines. The spirit’s own character begins to harmonise with the cask’s contribution.

• Oak softens. Tannins polymerise and precipitate, mellowing the mouthfeel.

• Aromatic compounds integrate: what was once a clash of wood and spirit becomes a layered, balanced whole.

• Oxidation begins to add subtle notes — dried fruits, polished wood, leather etc..

In well-managed casks, these years bring depth without overpowering the spirit. This is the “sweet spot” for many Whiskies — vibrant, complex, and well-defined.

Late Years (18+): Slowing Gains, Higher Risks

The romanticism of long aging can mask a simple truth: once a whisky passes its natural peak, extra years deliver only small shifts — or even degrade the spirit’s balance if the cask isn’t active enough.

A whisky at 25 years might indeed display extraordinary refinement — if the cask remained lively and the conditions ideal. But it might also end up flat: dark in colour, but muted on the nose, thin on the palate, lacking vitality.

Here, it’s no longer about age; it’s about logic, care, and understanding how long a spirit truly benefits from maturation.

It’s Not Just the Calendar — It’s the Cask and Conditions

Aging isn’t a uniform process. Two whiskies, both 25 years old, can taste radically different. Why?

• Warehouse location: Warehouses with higher humidity promote gentler maturation because alcohol evaporates faster than water, gradually lowering ABV and softening the spirit over time. In drier warehouses, water evaporates more, raising ABV and intensifying extraction if not carefully managed.

• Cask type: First-fill American oak may still impart coconut and vanilla at 20+ years. A tired refill European cask might have given all it could in the first decade.

• Barrel position: Barrels situated on the top of the warehouse experience warmer, more dynamic conditions, and therefore faster extraction.

• Fill strength: Higher strength means a different extraction profile over time.

The Limits of Ultra-Long Maturation

Why doesn’t a 35-year-old whisky automatically outshine its 12-year-old sibling? Because ultra-long aging often delivers diminishing returns — the dramatic gains of early and middle years give way to subtle shifts. And if the cask loses activity or the spirit over-extracts, the result can be unbalanced, or lifeless.

Age is part of the story. But Scotch whisky’s beauty lies in the skill of choosing when to bottle — when cask and spirit are in harmony.

Final Sip

Age statements offer useful information. But they aren’t a promise of greatness. Complexity, balance, texture — these depend on the cask’s vitality, the warehouse’s location and management, and the distiller’s judgment, not the calendar alone.

Sometimes, a 10-year-old whisky sings where a 30-year-old slumbers. In Scotch, as in life: time matters — but how you use it matters more.

Cuba set the global standard for lighter styles of rum emerging in the late 19th century. As a communist state since 1959, Cuba’s rum industry is unique: all distilleries are state-owned, and rum production is strictly regulated by law, overseen by a group of Maestros Roneros dedicated to maintaining the Cuban rum style.

Raw Material and Fermentation

Cuban rum is distilled exclusively from molasses produced from Cuban-grown sugarcane.

Fermentation uses selected cultured yeast strains and typically lasts about 24 hours.

• This relatively short fermentation yields a clean spirit base with moderate flavours, contributing to the spirit’s delicate aromatic and flavour profile.

Molasses contains residual sugars and minerals that influence fermentation and flavour. Although general molasses chemistry suggests complexity, Cuban molasses may have distinct characteristics based on local cane varieties and processing methods.

Distillation

Cuban rum is distilled only in column stills. Two types of distillates are produced:

• High-strength spirit: distilled up to but not exceeding 96% ABV; light and low in flavours.

• Aguardiente: typically distilled to around 75% ABV; retains more flavours, textural components and aromatics.

There are no legal minimum or maximum distillation strength limits for these spirits, but industry practices ensure product quality consistent with Cuban Rum identity.

Maturation: Legally Defined Stages

Cuban rum maturation follows strict, legally defined stages overseen by regulatory bodies:

1. First ageing (mandatory): Aguardiente must mature a minimum of two years in used oak barrels (typically 180–200 litre casks). This phase develops the spirit’s smoothness and complexity.

2. Second ageing (mandatory): The aged aguardiente is blended with superfine cane spirit and re-barrelled into used Cuban rum barrels (generally 180–200 litres capacity, occasionally up to 500 litres) for further maturation. There is no legally mandated minimum period for this stage.

3. Third ageing (optional): Some rums undergo additional ageing in neutral, well-used barrels to further develop character.

“White” Cuban rums undergo only the first two ageing stages and may be filtered to remove colour, producing clear, light-bodied spirits.

The tropical climate—characterized by consistent high temperatures and humidity accelerates chemical reactions during maturation and increases evaporation losses, thereby concentrating the remaining spirit.

Style and Character

Cuban rum is known for balancing the aromatic profile of aguardiente with the clean neutrality of superfine cane spirit. This results in rums that are generally light, dry, and smooth, making them versatile for both sipping and classic cocktails.

While some Cuban rums have relatively short maturation periods compared to other Caribbean styles, longer-aged expressions exist.

Final Sip

Cuban rum is a product of tightly controlled legal standards, state ownership, and production practices that focus on clarity, balance, and refined character. It offers a distinct expression in the rum category, defined by precise regulation and tradition rather than stylistic excess.

Of course, I wouldn’t expect anything less than quality from Emma Walker, but this Black Ruby edition? It feels like an everyday great dram and something quite remarkable at the same time.

Let’s be honest: from a company this big, some people were expecting a crowd-pleasing, fruity, one-dimensional whisky that would disappoint the nerds. This is not the case with Johnnie Walker Black Ruby.

What they’ve managed here is impressive. The whisky is silky on the palate, keeping the complexity and DNA of the classic Black Label while layering in cherry and berry fruits from ex-red wine casks. These casks don’t overpower but instead complement the raw material, fermentation character, and the measured oak influence that defines Black Label. And in case you’re wondering—the signature peated finish is still there.

As you sip, you can still trace the familiar Black Label notes, yet you also recognize this as a whisky for a 2025 audience: fresh, modern.

Two things stand out for me:

• The fruit is so elegantly integrated that it almost presents as a single unified flavour—yet within it, you can sense all the layers.

• The texture feels noticeably smoother. That gentle prickly mid-palate of classic Black Label is softened by at least half in the Black Ruby, likely thanks to the red wine casks, and more...

Johnnie Walker Black Ruby

Johnnie Walker Black Ruby,

A vibrant, fruit-forward blend reimagines Scotch for a new generation, rooted in a legacy that began in a small Scottish shop in early 1800s.

When John Walker was just 14, his father died suddenly. Under Scottish law, he was too young to inherit the family farm.

The land was sold, and the money placed in a trust. But instead of wasting the opportunity, his trustees made a practical decision to open a grocery shop for the boy in Kilmarnock.

That quiet act of foresight planted the seed for what would become one of the most iconic names in whisky history.

In the shop, John sold more than dry goods. He developed a reputation as a skilled tea blender — and more importantly, a whisky blender. At a time when the quality of single malts was wildly inconsistent, Walker understood that blending could potentially create something different than the sum of its parts:

A smoother, more balanced, more reliable product.

A new addition to a legendary label

That spirit of evolution is alive today in the latest launch:

Johnnie Walker Black Ruby

A fruit-forward expression that builds on the foundation of Johnnie Walker Black Label while charting its own way.

Created under the direction of Dr. Emma Walker, Johnnie Walker’s Master Blender since 2022, Black Ruby is the first major innovation added to the core range in years. It’s crafted to challenge assumptions about who whisky is for, and how it can be enjoyed.

At the heart of the blend is spirit from Roseisle, one of Diageo’s most versatile and modern distilleries. Known for its flexible still setup and fermentation techniques, Roseisle was key to delivering Black Ruby’s red berry notes to the blend.

“Roseisle gave us a fruity distillate we couldn’t have gotten anywhere else,” says Emma Walker.

“We pushed fermentation longer, extended distillation for more copper contact, and aged it in first-fill red wine casks. The result was vibrant, expressive, and completely different from what people expect from Scotch.”

Those red wine casks, along with ex-bourbon, oloroso, and PX sherry casks contribute layers of raspberry jam, Maraschino cherry, figs, and even a subtle wisp of smoke from Caol Ila. The result is a whisky that feels modern, sociable, and easy to mix.

A whisky for the moment

Johnnie Walker Black Ruby aims to be a cultural and flavour innovation. It was designed with cocktails in mind, positioned at the crossroads of Scotch tradition and contemporary cocktail making. Now available globally, it marks a confident step into the future.

As Jennifer English, Global Brand Director, puts it:

“Black Ruby it’s here to elevate whisky experiences and redefine how consumers perceive and enjoy Scotch.

It’s made for lively settings, for connection, for the next generation.”

From the smoky allure of Double Black to the rich, berry-driven energy of Black Ruby, Johnnie Walker’s colour-coded labels now represent a spectrum of personality.

And in that sense, Black Ruby it’s a continuation of Johnnie Walker’s Legacy.

A reason to keep walking.

Brand Reviews

Would you like established professionals to review your brand?
Reach out via DM to request more information. We’re always open to discovering exciting new spirits.

Please note: to protect our editorial and professional standards, we are highly selective about the brands we feature and the way we write about them.

The First Record

The earliest written evidence appears in Scotland’s Exchequer Rolls, dated 1 June 1494. It records King James IV supplying Friar John Cor with barley to make aqua vitae—the Latin for “water of life.” But this wasn’t whisky as we know it. That early spirit was raw, fiery, and unaged, more suited to medicinal or preservative uses than pleasure. There’s no indication that it saw the inside of an oak cask, or that flavour played any role in its creation.

Distillation Didn’t Originate in Scotland

The practice came via monks, alchemists, and physicians who spread it through Europe for medicinal and alchemical purposes. Early distilling in Scotland was a craft tied to the rhythm of farm life. Surplus grain could be transformed into spirit—potent, quick to spoil, and consumed fresh. It was a way to preserve value, not to create luxury. The idea of whisky as a drink of leisure and depth was still far away.

Oak Maturation: Discovery, Not Design

Oak casks weren’t selected because someone sought to create the complex flavours we now associate with Scotch. They were used because they were durable, available, and good for storage and transport. The discovery that spirit stored in oak changed over time was gradual, the result of necessity rather than intent. It took generations for ageing to move from accidental benefit to deliberate craft—another example of how Scotch whisky was built, not invented.

The Rising Tale of Illicit Production

By the 17th and 18th centuries, whisky production was caught up in politics and tax policy. Heavy duties imposed by the Crown turned legal distilling into a losing proposition for many small producers. Smuggling flourished. Historical accounts suggest that in the 1780s alone, there may have been 400 illicit stills operating across Scotland. The whisky produced during this time was variable in quality—sometimes rough and raw, sometimes surprisingly good. What united it was its youth; few could afford to let spirit sit in cask. Most of it was drunk young and fiery, a far cry from the aged drams we savour today.

1823 Excise Act: Turning Point

The Excise Act of 1823 marked the moment Scotch whisky began its transformation into an industry. By reducing duties and introducing a £10 licence fee, it made legal distillation viable for small producers. For the first time, distillers could operate openly without ruinous financial penalty. This change encouraged investment in equipment, longer ageing, and better practices. It opened the door for Scotch to become not just a local product, but a refined one.

The Technology Shift: 1830–1831

Innovation followed reform. In 1830, Aeneas Coffey patented his continuous (or column) still, an improvement on earlier designs. The Coffey still allowed large-scale production of cleaner, lighter grain spirit. Unlike the robust, characterful output of pot stills, this new spirit was ideal for blending. Combined with malt whisky, it created a balanced product that could appeal to global markets. The rise of the Coffey still didn’t replace traditional methods—it expanded what Scotch could be.

Why Blended Scotch Dominated

The blending of malt and grain whiskies wasn’t just a stylistic choice. It was a practical response to the growing demand of the British Empire and beyond. Blended Scotch offered consistency, approachability, and scalability. It allowed Scotch to become a global spirit, without losing its distinctiveness. This was not the product of romance—it was the product of smart adaptation to a changing world.

Key Milestones

• 1494: Friar John Cor is documented producing aqua vitae—Scotland’s first recorded spirit.

• 17th–18th centuries: High taxes fuel widespread illicit distilling, shaping local whisky traditions.

• 1823: Excise Act transforms legal distilling, enabling Scotch whisky to move towards quality and stability.

• 1830–1831: Coffey’s patent still enables mass production of grain whisky, fuelling the rise of blends.

Final Sip

Scotch whisky wasn’t a moment of discovery, it was a long, layered process.

A spirit shaped not by myth, but by necessity, regulation, invention, and craft. Its romance lies not in ancient legend, but in the truth of how it came to be.

“Mezcal is smoky. Tequila isn’t.”

It’s the first thing people say.
And while it’s not completely wrong, it’s nowhere near the full picture.

Because the real difference isn’t only about flavour—it’s about how the spirit is made.

Let’s break it down properly.

Raw Material & Region

Both spirits start with agave. But only tequila is restricted to a single species: Blue Weber agave (Agave tequilana). Mezcal allows for a wider range: Espadín, Tobalá and more.

That already opens the door to more diversity in flavour.

The regions are also different. Tequila can be produced in five states, but only Jalisco qualifies in full. Mezcal is legal in nine, with Oaxaca as the main hub. Each production zone comes with its own rules about the agave, methods, and labelling.

Cooking

Agave doesn’t contain fermentable sugars. It stores energy as inulin, a long-chain carbohydrate. Cooking breaks that down into simple sugars, mainly fructose.

In tequila, cooking is usually done in brick ovens or autoclaves—the second being faster and more industrial.

Exceptions aside, Mezcal uses underground earthen pits, where agave roasts over hot stones for days. It’s this method, not additives, that creates the smoke.

But not all mezcal is smoky. It depends on factors like pit depth, moisture, agave fibers, and cooking time.

Fermentation

Once cooked, the agave is crushed and fermented.

Tequila is often fermented in closed stainless steel tanks with selected yeast strains.

Mezcal tends to ferment in open wooden vats, using ambient yeasts from the environment. Some still use stone or even leather fermentation containers.

Again, the difference isn’t always clean-cut. Some tequila producers work with traditional fermentation methods. Some mezcaleros use more controlled systems. It depends on the producer, not just the label.

Distillation

Both spirits are usually distilled twice.

Tequila producers use copper pot stills or stainless steel columns, depending on size and scale. Mezcal is also distilled in copper, but traditional producers in some regions still use clay pot stills with bamboo arms.

Cuts between heads, hearts, and tails are often made by sensory judgment in mezcal—but the same is true for some tequila producers. It’s a question of practice, not category.

Ageing & Classification

Both tequila and mezcal must be bottled in Mexico to carry a 100% agave label.

Tequila categories:

• Blanco: unaged, or rested up to 2 months

• Reposado: aged 2 months to under 1 year

• Añejo: aged 1–3 years

• Extra Añejo: aged more than 3 years

Mezcal categories:

• Joven: unaged, or rested up to 2 months

• Reposado: 2 months to under 1 year

• Añejo: at least 1 year

Mezcal may also be labeled:

• Artesanal: made using traditional, manual methods

• Ancestral: stricter—requires pit roasting, stone crushing, and clay distillation

These aren’t decorative terms. They reflect how the spirit was actually made.

Final Sip

Tequila isn’t always clean. Mezcal isn’t always smoky.
The difference isn’t only a flavour, it’s a process.

Start with the agave.
Then ask: how was it cooked? How was it fermented? How was it distilled?

That’s where the flavour begins.

Subscribe now