THE KITCHEN ACTIVIST
THE KITCHEN ACTIVIST podcast will give you bite-size action steps in each episode you can implement NOW in your kitchen, the most effective place to grow well-being for people and our planet. The host is the award-winning author of EAT LESS WATER and Kitchen Activist Florencia Ramirez.
THE KITCHEN ACTIVIST
The Kitchen Activist Podcast Episode #96 - Don Adolfo of Alquimia Tequila
Don Adolfo shares the remarkable journey of Alquimia Tequila, from inheriting his grandfather's ranch in Mexico to pioneering organic agave farming in a region where everyone said it couldn't grow.
• Preserving family legacy by converting conventional farmland to organic agave cultivation despite local skepticism
• Creating an "organic agave protocol" that combines traditional methods with modern organic soil science
• Achieving higher sugar content (brix) in agave through organic methods compared to conventional farms
• Witnessing climate change effects as agave maturation time has decreased from 7-10 years to just 5 years
• Developing sustainable solutions for processing waste products instead of dumping them in rivers
• Addressing industry issues including chemical additives that aren't disclosed on tequila labels
• Aging tequila naturally in oak barrels for extended periods (up to 14 years) for exceptional flavor
• Winning over 75 gold medals and multiple platinum awards in international competitions
• Teaching neighboring farmers organic methods for free with the agreement they'll share knowledge with others
• Demonstrating how to make a "slim margarita" using fresh citrus and organic agave nectar
Find Alquimia Tequila at alquimiatequila.com or ask for it at your local liquor store – it's one of only a handful of certified organic tequilas available.
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in Digital World using food additives to give it that multiple coming naturally from the tutorial and the digital information. So we're going to go into all of that. You're going to love this episode. You're not going to see D'Hila and Margarita didn't say more after this episode. I hope you'll look forward to tequila. It's called Archemia Tequila. But let's let's dig in, grab your cup of coffee, organic coffee, I hope, and let us learn and grow and dig deeper roots and together. Let's go ahead and do this again. All right. So I'm actually when I started thinking about this conversation that we were going to have, I realized it's been nearly a decade since we've had the conversation with so many years have gone by so far. I know. And you really opened my eyes to so much behind or what's behind the bottle of tequila, right? Like conventional tequila growing and the pressures that they place on rivers in Mexico, on soil health and groundwater levels. And that was 10 years ago. So what I was hopeful is that during this conversation we can revisit some of those issues that you brought up and find out what is going on these days in Mexico and within the large tequila makers. And also what's happening with organic tequila overall because I know back then and it's it's in the book that you were amongst one of four. So I wondered if that's changed too. But before we dive in to all of that, I just wanted to give a little sense of where we I want to head in this conversation. But I want to just get so people can hear your voice about why tequila? Why is your passion tequila?
SPEAKER_02:Well I'm an optometrist and someone may ask why what is an optometrist doing making tequila but if you think about it it really makes a lot of sense because it does absolutely because Monday through Friday I help people to see better. And on the weekends I help them to see twice as good.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my God.
SPEAKER_02:No the real story is that back in 1993 everything was going beautifully we were living what we felt was the American dream. I had my private practice set up and it was starting to do well and that was my dream. My wife Lupe was teaching at the local high school we had our two beautiful little girls they had just purchased our dream home which is the one we're sitting which is where we are sitting today. Yeah and then we got some news that changed our lives completely we got the news that because my grandparents had passed away that the ranch was going to be put up for sale in Mexico our state of Jalisco and this was the ranch that he and my grandfather he and my the my grandfather and grandmother had purchased in 1941 and their dream was to work their land raise their family do good for their family and do good things for the community and they did that for many years. But when they passed away nobody was down there anymore. So the ranch was actually up for sale and there was a buyer and I told Lupa about it and she said no don't sell the ranch. If you sell the ranch you're going to be selling your family history your place of origin you'll have nothing left.
SPEAKER_00:So tell me what were your grandparents growing on that land?
SPEAKER_02:So at that time they were growing mainly corn and raising cattle. This is a part of the state of Halis that's on the fringes so not very conducive to growing other types of crops like row crops or fruits and other things. Mainly they grew crops that would grow with just a natural rainwater because they really didn't have access to irrigation. And that was what they did. They raised they grew corn and they raised cattle and my grandmother made cheese and she was very famous for her cheese actually. And interesting thing here when they first purchased the ranch my grandfather took my grandmother to tour the ranch and they came upon this natural spring which was part of the main reason why my grandfather wanted to purchase this particular property. And he told her as long as this spring gives us water nobody in this community will ever lack water. And because of the generosity of your grandfather to share his water and that's exactly a saying that goes way back if you have water and if you share it it'll always you'll always have water but at certain times of the year during the dry season a lot of wells local wells and springs would go dry and my grandfather's spring always gave water and he always shared it.
SPEAKER_00:So the water is coming from underground right as the groundwater source. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Because this is desert this area yes semi-arid and in our particular part of the state we have almost our own microclimate where we have actually much less rainfall and more extremes in weather patterns. So whatever whenever you have access to water that is very valuable.
SPEAKER_00:So he had so your grandparents purchased that land back in 1941 1941.
SPEAKER_02:And they worked it that did very well with it among the things that they did for the community my grandfather taught a lot of the area property owners how to make the most out of their land how to take care of their soil and how to make their land more productive and uh he also gave a lot of jobs to the local community and this was a community where there were no no jobs no no sources of employment so a lot of the people there at the time would can would emigrate up to the U.S. usually most of them in Chicago.
SPEAKER_00:In fact even today there's more people from our little community living in Chicago than there are in our community which is called I don't think people realize either that Chicago has such a huge Mexican population unless you live in Chicago. Yeah unless you've been there you go but I that surprised me when I lived in Chicago that it was the third largest population in the US of Mexicans.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah I didn't know that statistic but it definitely makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So a lot of there were a lot of families without a dad fee a father figure or a provider also there were no jobs for the women there they it's a very conservative traditional society and women normally did not go out and work unless they absolutely had to but there were so many families that without a father and sometimes even though they were in the U.S. they would send money when they could but sometimes they couldn't and there were a lot of families that were having hard times when my grandfather would find out that a family was having a hard time he would assign them a cow and their duty then was to milk their cow every day and that way they would have fresh milk for their children every day.
SPEAKER_00:And that was just one of the things that he so what were their names?
SPEAKER_02:My grandfather we call him Papa Avelino and my grandmother Mammachita and wonderful people I had the great fortune to be able to spend two or three summers while I was growing up with them and just learned a whole lot and my grandfather had so much to teach but he didn't vocalize it. He taught by example. Yeah and I used to love following him around his ranch and I could barely keep up with him because he walked so fast but just watching how he did things and how he interacted with people and just as I began to grow older was finding out all the things that he did for the local community and people still talk about him to this day.
SPEAKER_00:Wow so he's got quite a legacy but the legacy is also has is within the work that you're doing.
SPEAKER_02:So take us now to night back to 1993 the land goes for sale is on is for sale and what happens so again figured none of us live down there anymore it's going to be inevitable that it's you live where where we live in the same community of Oxnard California but you grew up in Ohio in Ohio here in Turk County and most of the family my dad's siblings were also in the U.S. in different parts of the U.S. And so none of our immediate family was down there anymore. And then Lupa said don't sell the ranch you're going to be left without your family legacy your family history your place of origin I said what are we going to do with it but she convinced me to convince my dad not to sell it and he finally agreed on the condition that we would do something with it that we would take over running the ranch and do something productive with it. And then I came home and told Lupe that he had agreed and I said what are we going to do with it now and she says you're smart you'll figure it out what am I going to do so I started flying down there very frequently to study what we could do and I wasn't too excited about growing corn. Cattle was okay but I wasn't excited about growing corn. But each time I flew down there I would fly into Alalajara and take a ride about a two hour drive east of there to Aguanegada a ranch and and each time I began to fall in love with the beautiful rolling hills of blue green agave and I said that's what I want on the ranch. But when I started to tell people about it back in Awanegada everybody told me no it's not going to grow here because nobody had ever grown agave in this community. Why not? We don't have enough rainwater which I mentioned earlier we have very little topsoil extremes in and weather patterns extremes and temperatures excuse me and also our soil is not red. And if you go 20 minutes away city of Arandas which is a big tequila producing their soil is very deep red and I figure that's red is probably from iron oxide which is rust. I said agava may not need that much iron oxide. So what I did is I took a chemistry kit down with me and I analyzed our soil and compared it to the soil from Arandas and I looked at the different uh levels of the major nutrients that agave does need and ours was quite lacking. So I came up with what we call our organic agave protocol which is a combination between my grandfather Papa Bellino's very natural farming methods and he never allowed artificial toxic pesticides anything on his ranch. I followed that as an example but I also incorporated the most modern or the newest in organic soil science from the US and from Europe and came up with our protocol. And then when I was ready I convinced our foreman who is still our foreman to this day since 1993 to work with me and and he took a big chance because he's a very hardworking man in ways very humble but also very proud of his work. And he took a chance by working with us because he he took the risk of being ridiculed by taking on a project that everybody expected to fail. He's actually very loyal to our family because he grew up on our ranch working for my grandfather and so that I think is what that I think is what I convinced him to go ahead and take his chance. Once we were ready as our trucks of the small plants came in that we could set out our fields and then do our planting everybody told us that we were crazy.
SPEAKER_00:That you were going to fail.
SPEAKER_02:That this wasn't going to work but by then we were ready to institute our organic agave protocol. And after the first year lo and behold it was the plants were thriving they were growing they were healthy and and year after year as we increased the uh the organic activity in the soil we began to see even better and better results with our agave.
SPEAKER_00:So in 1993 is when the idea presented itself of really a non-idea at that point just the idea of keeping the land of keeping the land and then it then led to the next idea which was let's grow agave and so what year are we at now when you actually got them in the ground?
SPEAKER_02:We actually did our first planting in 1993. Oh so this is happening pretty quickly very quickly and agave at that time was taking seven to ten years to mature. Seven years later we were ready for our first harvest in the year 2000. And this was an area where agave was not supposed to grow but we looked at the results of the harvest and we were not a not only able to grow agave but we actually equaled the output of a really good agave farm in Arandas and and that was just the beginning. As we continued our organic protocol and continued to nurture the soil all the microorganism all the biological activity in the soil it just became more and more able to sustain agave and this is how many acres of land the entire ranch is 125 acres it's a it's not all devoted to agave most of it is but we do have a small section dedicated to pasture land for cows kind of an homage to my grandfather.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah yeah and I I want to talk about the cows in a moment but I that's amazing. I love that story so much. I don't think I remember all I think you gave me more information this time than we did than you did 10 years ago around the background of the legacy of the land and also that timeline.
SPEAKER_02:I hadn't remembered either of how people were telling you don't do this but you but you did we did it partly because I don't know maybe we had no other choice or we didn't have many other options that was what I wanted to do. Our first harvest was in the year 2000 and at that time just by luck there was a shortage of agave. So as the agave as our first crop was growing Luis our foreman and I would ask ourselves when it comes time to sell it who are we going to sell it to who's going to come all the way out here to harvest our agave to take in to to produce tequila and we figure we don't know but we'll cross that bridge when we get into it. Again luckily when the year 2000 came around and our crop was ready to harvest the agave shortage had hit us probably the year before which caused the price of agave to go up but also became very scarce. So all of the big tequila producers were scrambling to find agava to keep up with their production prior to that we weren't even sure if we'd be able to sell it but when this came around people started to find out and we were having people come in from all over Arandas all the way also from the tequila region which is about three hours away from us and and bidding on our we actually had a bidding war for our comment in the first for the first harvest harvest and that very first one we sold to Casadores Tequila Casadores which at the time was still owned by the Banuelos family from this very wonderful family. But in that bidding war where Don Julio were some of the other local distilleries the second harvest a year later because we did plant agave every year so we could have a harvest subsequently every year. The second harvest was purchased by Don Julio. They jumped ahead of the ball game and gave us a good bid and we sold to Don Julio which at the time was still owned by Don Julio Gonzalez. And our third harvest was sold to Herradura tequila which at the time also was still family owned by the Romo family. Yes now so your agave is organic and it has been since the very beginning but these labels are not so how did that work so our organic agave protocol went contrary to probably the way 99.99% of other growers or producers how they grow their agave and we wanted to again get rid of any use of chemical fertilizers which are not good for the soil eventually they leave excuse me they leave heavy metals and salt and with continued use eventually that land will not produce anymore. We didn't want to use toxic pesticides because again that's bad the workers are out there applying these toxic pesticides with practically no no protection and they're absorbing they're breathing in all of this they spray it on the plants absorbed by the agave plant itself a lot of that actually goes in all the way through to the final product which then is bad for the consumer with the with what little rain that we have all of that gets washed down into the through the soil and ends up in the water table. So it contaminates the water that many times is used by the local population for drinking for cooking for washing and that water is completely contaminated. We didn't want to use weed killers because again that's bad for the soil it's bad for the plants bad for the environment and we actually like weeds weeds are our friends. Rather than killing the weeds between the rows of our agaves we uh we mow the weeds down leaving a stubble which helps us to conserve any rainwater so that it doesn't wash away because it has those root systems. Yeah that helps to absorb the water and keep it from running off so what about when farmers say that the weeds are competing for minerals and water for from the plant that you want to preserve. But all of that green material eventually we incorporate back into the soil. And the more of that green material goes into the soil the more the organic content of the soil increases. And that is what helps the soil to also absorb and preserve the water.
SPEAKER_00:Because you don't get a lot of rainfall in this area so you need to conserve every single drop.
SPEAKER_02:Water is precious every drop we want to make use of it we want to hold onto it as much as we can and another very interesting thing is that I mentioned earlier that in our area there's very little topsoil. Fortunately for us and this isn't everywhere in that little area but on our particular ranch you a few inches down and you hit rock but very fortunately that rock is a sandstone and sandstone helps to absorb water also and holds it there. So whatever scant rainfall we get whatever is not immediately absorbed by the soil itself if it goes down into the into the rock layer that rock that sandstone preserves that moisture for us so it actually extends our growing season longer than a lot of other areas that had more of a volcanic type of rock that does not absorb water.
SPEAKER_00:Ah so maybe you could talk to us about the the cattle that you have because I know they're also very much part of this operation.
SPEAKER_02:They are and in fact the cattle actually help us we call them our organic weed control program. And whenever we do have a lot of weeds we do let our cattle go through and they help us clean up those fields and in return for us feeding them these delicious weeds they help to fertilize the soil building as they're moving around so it's like this this relationship right relationship between us and the cows in the same way that the agave plants have a symbiotic relationship with the microorganisms in the soil. One helps the other and everybody benefits. So back to our harvests by the time our fourth harvest was coming around and we could see the results each year our yields were increasing in terms of size and weight and more importantly sugar content which is a direct precursor to the quality of your final product the higher the sugar content usually the more flavorful and more complex your flavor profiles the bricks the bricks we measured in the R I X. Yeah we measure it in bricks units just like you do with the sugar in wine grapes. So each year our bricks level was increasing. Just to give you an example in a really good harvest in Arandas if they have a bricks measurement of 20 to 25 bricks units they're really happy with their we're averaging the mid-40s. And not necessarily just sugar but the fact that this agave has created so much sugar it also is an indicator that it has is brought up a lot of minerals and substances from deep within the soil which also adds to the complexity of the final mineral then are you saying that your tequila is healthy for you again we've eliminated all toxic substances in the tequila and in that regard if you have a choice I would definitely recommend an organic organically grown tequila. Also in the final product we don't add any artificial sweeteners artificial flavors what's is that a common piece is that a common practice very common unfortunately is it is allowed by the tequila regulatory council. They allow one percent additives is what they're called but one percent doesn't sound like a lot but when you have a very concentrated artificial sweetener 1% goes a very long way so what kinds of food additives are added? Artificial coloring and different types of artificial sweeteners aspartame and whatever else they can avail themselves of I know I I don't know what's going on with the Zoom account.
SPEAKER_00:This is a Zoom account I've always used I don't know after so this actually works out because nobody else is on so we don't have to worry about migrating people over but I so in four minutes when this goes out then I can just we could just hop on to another Zoom link. We'll just take a break and then do that and then we can just put them together. So it actually worked out that nobody joined us live because I have no idea why that's happening. Yeah no that's good. So let's go from where you're talking about the additives because I didn't realize that that they it doesn't surprise me. But at the same time and right now I'm staring at a bottle like for the anejole right and look at that beautiful color that that gorgeous color so you're saying when we pick up oftentimes when we're picking up a bottle of tequila we're observing the color we want that color it's actually food color or it's an additive sometimes it is an additive a lot of times it is and that's why you see such a difference if you compare an añejo or even an extra añijo from one particular brand to another one brand may have or an extra añejo that's much much darker.
SPEAKER_02:And that could be the result of it either being aged longer because it does derive its color from the wood in the oak barrels but it also could be due to additives. And even though most of our bottles or most of the bottles that you see on the shelves that's not that are not some of the more budget friendly tequilas, they will say 100% they will say 100% again which ours definitely is but it doesn't take into account the fact that the tequila regulatory council allows us that 1% of additives and I really don't understand I don't agree with that or if it is allowed that it should say something on there. Exactly it should be disclosed to the consumer the consumer can then decide I don't care about additives although I'll buy it anyway or somebody else might say no I want my product to be as pure as possible.
SPEAKER_00:So want to grab the extra anejo so this has been aged longer. So the so between these two look at the color you see that on the screen I don't know if you can notice if you could really see that as much as I can when I'm eyeing it but I could see that the extra aneho is slightly richer in color. So this so the anejo was aged in barrels for how long?
SPEAKER_02:So to be an ajo it has to age for a minimum of one year up to three years. And from our very first production we put it away in oak barrels and every once in a while we'd open one and taste it and see how it was doing and then we'd wait a little bit longer and each time we liked it even more and more until finally we realized it's almost this is almost three years old. We better bottle it now or we're not going to have an añujo because one month more it would have been extra añako. So we went ahead and bottled it this our añu we normally age it for 35 months in white oak barrels American white oak barrels after three years it becomes extra añeco so we couldn't bottle our extra añu soon after the three years because it would have been too similar to our añeco and so we did the same thing we let it go longer and longer and longer and we kept liking it more and more until it actually aged for six years.
SPEAKER_00:So twice as long as required to be an extra wow and the color is coming from the oak barrels not from the time it's growing.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly when tequila is first produced it's very clear like this which is like water. Like water as clear as water and then once we put it into oak barrels the longer it stays in the oak the more color it absorbs from the wood itself but also the flavor profile becomes more complex as that interaction with the oak brings out certain subtleties in the tequila itself such as it ages you start to pick up notes of caramel and vanilla and then eventually some cinnamon and then eventually some dark spices and that's again nothing is added that is all because of the interaction With the wood, and that interaction brings out those subtleties that are actually in the tequila itself already. And that's a result I mentioned earlier about bringing up minerals and substances from deep within the earth. Those that is what makes up that complexity.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, so there's like this it's like this conversation that's being had between these different elements, right? Good, and then the soil that comes through with the liquid, and they're just like it's just this magical alchemy that's happening.
SPEAKER_02:It is uh absolutely it's alchemy, which interestingly is the name of Artequila. And we chose the name alchemia because uh for a few reasons. One is my favorite book in the whole world is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Yeah, and that there is an alchemist in his book, but to me the main theme is follow your dreams, and alchemia has been our dream. Also, ancient alchemists tried dedicated entire lifetimes to create gold and they never could. And we like to say that we created liquid gold.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, The Alchemist is a book I love too, and I reread it every so many, every couple years. I re reread it this year. But he talks about your it's not the follow your dreams. What is it that he talks about in the book with the shepherd? Where you oh, you have your person, your personal, is it your personal legend? That's what that's how he frames it, right? It's your personal legend, and it's not easy, right? It's not an easy path, and you there's so many things that test you along the way before you actually complete this personal legend. And do you feel like that's what this has been for you?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely, because just like the main character in the book, he set out in terms in in search of a treasure, a treasure, and he went through this whole ordeal for years, probably. I don't know what the time frame was, and then he went through all of this just to find out that his actual treasure was way back where he began. Yes, and I I identify with that very much because I was actually born on the ranch that we're farming today. Oh, the Gabe. Came to the US again. We're we were living what we felt at the time was the American dream. I had the opportunity to go to school, I had my practice, and then without planning, this opportunity came up for us to go back. And I went back to my place of origin, the place that I was born, and there was my treasure.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh, I love that. But within that, you're still on your personal legend, it's still shifting and growing and deepening. Do you feel like you've already completed the legend, or do you think that it's there's still more to reap?
SPEAKER_02:I'm not sure if what we're doing is my personal legend. I see it as a continuation of Papa Benino's dream. My dad continued it. And I see ourselves, my family and I, as the custodians of that dream. And it's our duty then to keep carrying that dream on and keep doing things according to what how my grandparents would have done things. And granted, we changed the whole thing by growing agave and making tequila rather than what he did. But I think that that's just part of that's how we came upon this way to be able to continue that dream. And uh, and hopefully that dream will continue. I'm hoping my daughters will carry that on and they may take this whole thing in a completely different path, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So you stopped selling your agave to other labels and then made the decision to have your own label. That was a big move.
SPEAKER_02:That was a huge move. When our fourth harvest was coming around, we realized this agave is getting too good to sell to other producers because they may or may not appreciate what we do to and how we grow our agave.
SPEAKER_00:But they're mixing it with other crops.
SPEAKER_02:It would have gotten to this huge production, yeah, and what we have done with our agave would have been lost. So we decided maybe it's time for us to create our own brand of tequila and using only our own agave, and then have a product that we can use to further broadcast the need to return to more natural farming methods. Because all of this time that we've been doing this, that we've been growing our agave, we were also teaching other growers how to do the same and how to make their own land more productive, not just in agave in our region, but we also, Luis, my foreman and I also traveled throughout several states of Mexico, including Michoacán, and we converted a lot of avocado growers to our methods in Guanajuato, strawberry and citrus growers, in Sinaloa, tomato growers, and uh we did it all for free on the understanding that once they see the results in their own crop on their own land, that they then turn around and teach others how to do the same.
SPEAKER_00:To pay it forward.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly, because we can't do a whole lot by ourselves. But if we recruit others in this way, and they recruit others, then eventually we will reach a point where we'll really begin to make a difference as our numbers grow and as more and more people commit to do things, which I feel is the right way.
SPEAKER_00:Do you feel like your tequila or the way that using your organic protocols and building soil health has made you more climate resilient? As far as like with more extreme weather that we I would imagine that thing, or has it has weather become more extreme since we've had this conversation 10 years ago?
SPEAKER_02:It absolutely has because excuse me, when we had this conversation 10 years ago, agave at that time was taking seven to ten years to mature.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02:And during that time, from that time to now, we have noticed that agave is beginning to ripen sooner. And there's a lot of agavas now that are ripening at five years, which is a huge change in that short amount of time. And I attribute it directly to climate change because we used to have very predictable weather patterns. The rains start in May or June. Uh, they stop in usually September. Things start to dry out, then it gets cold, and then it becomes drier still, and then eventually the rains come back again. Now the rain sometimes will be late by one to two months. Then sometimes they start and then they stop, and then it gets cold, and then they start up again, and and then sometimes they last longer into the fall or excuse me. And then and then it might get hot again, and then it'll get cold. It's just totally uh different weather patterns. And so agavas are very sensitive to their surroundings, and when they experience what they think is maybe four or five different uh seasons, they think that they're older than they are.
SPEAKER_00:Because I wonder if that's happening to humans, too.
SPEAKER_02:It could be. So then they reach a point where they think it's time to ripen, and the the ripening process begins, and and we have seen that change, and it's a very pronounced change.
SPEAKER_00:So tequila makers, wouldn't you like that?
SPEAKER_02:Most tequila, let's start with the growers of agave, they would like that because they have they would have more frequent harvests. However, in that short amount of time, agave doesn't grow as much as it normally would before it begins the ripening process. So you actually get a smaller yield. Uh more frequent yield, but smaller yield.
SPEAKER_00:So, in some ways, then overall, if you're talking about, say, a 30-year period, you have less.
SPEAKER_02:At some point you you end up with yes, a smaller yield. And again, I believe that if you're growing agave for that shorter amount of time, and again, based on these chemical protocols that they use, the quality is not going to be as good, I feel that it's not going to be as good. In our case, uh, we're down to about six years, and we monitor very carefully our sugar content and everything else that is available to us, and we have not seen a drop-off in either our sugar production or the health of our plants, any other factor that might affect the quality of our tequila. We attributed that we attribute that directly to our organic protocol.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. So that's a big change. It's a big change in the 10 years. Yeah. I wondered if there has been a change when I when we spoke before, you opened me up to what was happening to Mexican rivers as a result of the distilleries that are lined up on the banks of the river and the illegal dumping of a byproduct, the vinasa of is how you say a vinasa, in directly into the river. So I don't if you could talk to us about what that is, what is the vinasa and what is happening? Is if things have improved or have gotten worse.
SPEAKER_02:So the vinasa, that's one of the byproducts of tequila production. And it's a liquid form. It's what's left over after you distill the tequila, and it's and it's a liquid form again, but it contains a lot of a lot of waste products. It's actually quite toxic because it contains all the parts of the distillation process that we would not bottle in tequila. When you distill, you you eliminate the first part of the distillation and the last part of the distillation because the first part has too much methanol, and the last part has a lot of waste products that you that would alter the quality and the flavor of the tequila. So we normally just bottle what we call the sweet spot in between. Now, if you uh want as much volume as possible, then you stretch your limits a bit. But then I feel that the quality is not going to be as good because you're incorporating parts of the distillation spectrum that are not as good.
SPEAKER_00:I would imagine the big dogs are doing that, right?
SPEAKER_02:Probably.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But but that liquid that's left over, first of all, it's very hot, but also it contains a lot of waste products and it's also very high in nitrogen. So that those vinassas or that liquid should be treated in such a way that that you eliminate the toxic the toxicity. And you ideally you would do something productive with what is left. But that's an extra cost. And a lot of the big producers, rather than absorbing that extra cost and setting up a purification system, they find it much easier to send a tanker truck out to the local river and dump it into the river, which then kills off all of the life in that river itself. And that's illegal.
SPEAKER_00:And that's illegal to get absolutely illegal.
SPEAKER_02:Sometimes they get caught and they're fined, they're fined and they're put out of business for maybe a week or so. But the big distilleries take that as just another business, another cost of doing business, rather than as a warning to, hey, we better do something with this. But it's yeah, it contaminates the rivers, eventually adds more to the contamination of the water table. And uh or sometimes they dump it out into uh farmland, which again completely kills any any biological.
SPEAKER_00:In that form, because it's just so intense with nitrogen. And yours would have night the high levels of nitrogen too, your v NASA, but it wouldn't have the heavy metals that come from five to seven years of chemicals, exactly. Of chemical fertile or fertilizers and also of pesticides.
SPEAKER_02:Uh so another byproduct of the process is uh the fibers. The center core of the agave plant is very fibrous, and that sometimes is just dumped out in the out in the fields. And if it's that much together, that influences the productivity of the soil. So what we what we like to do is we set out an area where we set up rows of of the fiber, and then over that we pour the venussas and leave it open air. Uh, usually there's a membrane underneath to keep it from flowing down into the water, into the soil. Eventually, ambient bacteria and the some of those chemicals, especially the nitrogen and so forth, that feed the bacteria, all of that together breaks down the fibers. And eventually, this is this long mountain of fibers with vinassas poured over them, actually becomes a compost. And if we have grown our agave organically, then there's no harmful chemicals in there, and that compost can go directly back into our fields and not add anything that we don't want any there any in there because it's all organic.
SPEAKER_00:So 10 years ago, you were the only one doing that because it was it's a process that you invented. Has anybody has it caught on?
SPEAKER_02:It has caught on somewhat. It's hard to gauge exactly uh who is how many are doing it and to what degree. Some people do to some producers do like to uh tell if they're they're being environmentally friendly, but they're the same ones that sometimes get caught doing the opposite. It's a matter of are you really committed to doing this or is this just for show?
SPEAKER_00:And how many producers are organic now?
SPEAKER_02:When we spoke 10 years ago, I think there were four of us. Of those four, of those original four, we're the only ones still left. And there's a few others that have come about recent, more recently. Hopefully, they're doing a very comprehensive organic protocol. That is our hope. Now, around our area, we have converted a lot of agava growers to our organic protocols, and a lot of them are small landowners, and we taught them how to do everything the way we do. Sometimes our crew goes out and does the work for them, and and they too took a risk in uh in following our lead, but there was a payoff for them because when it came time to sell their their crop, the buyers could tell this crop was a of higher quality, and so that gave them a higher price for their crops. They're very happy about that. Then after that, the their neighbor might find out, hey, how why did this guy get such a good price? And I don't. That's because of organics. And so that kind of gets the ball rolling again as we convert more and more.
SPEAKER_00:How much land do you think you've converted?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's that's really hard to say. I couldn't even begin to estimate. But uh, I like to think that we're making a big dent, big enough so that it's going to at some point get really big.
SPEAKER_00:I wonder if that is your personal legend.
SPEAKER_02:That could be. What's interesting about that is that we don't always know what our mission is or what our legacy is going to be, except to do what you do and do it well. And then somewhere along the line it's gonna it's gonna become more apparent.
SPEAKER_00:Because going against what is the mainstream is certainly hard.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:It is hard, and you're doing it, and you said you're the only one who has survived of those four, which makes me sad too, but also speaks to your commitment because it's not that it hasn't been hard.
SPEAKER_02:It hasn't been, first of all, all the criticism we got originally for doing something that wasn't supposed to be done in that area. Now, if you look around Aguanegra, and all the fields are covered with blue agave, as the big producers found out that you can grow agave here. And uh Forman Luis has actually gone out to several of them, introduced himself, and offered to share what we have learned with them so that they can also produce good agave in that area. And he's been shunned by their agricultural engineers because they feel that they have been in the business much longer. We're newer, what are we going to teach them? But eventually they find out that maybe they should have listened to us whenever they harvest their crops and they're not getting the results that we're getting. And things like that that that help us to convince people. And usually people have to see for the or experience for themselves, and then our hope is that they will learn from that and make those changes necessary.
SPEAKER_00:And taste for themselves, because your tequila continues to win prizes and is a blind test, taste test, right, around the world. How many are you at now? Do you know?
SPEAKER_02:When we first started, we wanted to enter our art tequila in very well-known competitions. And there are two the two biggest and most prestigious competitions are the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and the Chicago Beverage Testing Institute. And right from the get-go, for example, our first importation of art tequila was in December of 2007. By that spring, we had won our first gold medal.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:And then that fall, we uh at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. That fall we won another gold medal at the Chicago Beverage Testing Institute. Ever since then, we have won multiple gold medals, sometimes double gold, sometimes best in class. We have won, I think, four platinum medals, and uh and I think we're up to about 75 gold and above medals. We actually don't count here and there we'll get a silver medal. We receive them quite gladly, but we don't add those to our total.
SPEAKER_00:We're over you're only interested in gold because this is alchemy, this is alchemia, right?
SPEAKER_02:We want to do we created gold, so that's what and oh, I mentioned platinum metals. So our very first production of Artequila was in 2004, and uh, we didn't bottle it right away because we wanted to have an añejo once we started to import our tequila. After three years, during that time, we got all the licenses, all the permits in Mexico and the U.S., our labels approved in Mexico and the U.S., everything that we needed to do in both countries. And finally at three years is when we started bottling, which was 2007. And then eventually we brought along our extra nyco when that turned six years old. And and then we just got very busy doing all of this and promoting our tequila and everything else. And then one day I was down at the uh at the warehouse at the distillery, and I remember we have a number of barrels that we set aside that aren't opened yet. And at that time they had been sealed for 14 years.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:And I climbed up and or I had one of the guys climb up and take a sample for me from one of the barrels.
SPEAKER_00:Because you didn't know if it was still going to be good. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:That's a very long time. Yeah, and normally what happens with tequila because of the influence of the oak, after a certain amount of time, we can what we call over-oak the tequila, where it begins to lose its agave character and begins to taste more like a whiskey, which is very oaky compared to most tequila's. And so that was my fear is that it's not going to be even taste like tequila anymore. So we brought down a sample from one of the barrels and I tasted it straight out of the barrel, and it was at higher proof. Uh, we we barrel our tequila at a higher proof or higher alcohol content than what we when we actually bottle it. So I tasted it right out of the barrel, and I was just amazed. I said, this is spectacular. And I said, I let's bottle this just the way it comes out of the barrel. We're not going to bring this down to 80 proof. And it was about it was at 100 proof in the barrel. So let's bottle it right out of the barrel, do minimal filtration. I want all of this flavor to stay in there and not be diluted by bringing it down to 80 proof. And so that was our 14-year-old extra.
SPEAKER_00:It's like molasses color.
SPEAKER_02:It's immediately it began to win platinum metals. So in its first four years, it won four platinum metals.
SPEAKER_00:But how many bottles are do you have of that? That's probably very so it's uh very limited.
SPEAKER_02:It's a limited production, it's not our highest seller because obviously it's it's at a higher uh higher price because of the investment of all the time in the barrels. Also, during that time we lost a lot of product to evaporation, and usually each year that we lose about 10% to evaporation after 14 years. That's a lot of tequila that we've lost. What evaporates, we call that the angel share. And we have very happy angels in that unbessably store.
SPEAKER_00:Is that something that everybody says in the tequila world, or is that something specific to you?
SPEAKER_02:I can't take credit for making that up. I only made up the happy angels part of it, but it is known as the angel share in general.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I like that very much. So I wonder if we should turn this over to a tequila margarita, a margarita demonstration.
SPEAKER_02:I think we should do that. Yeah, let's do that.
SPEAKER_00:I'm here with Don Adolfo, who is a tequila, he's a farmer or organic farmer of agave, and is a tequila maker of one of only how many tequilas that are organic?
SPEAKER_02:At this point, there's probably five or six that are that's all. That's all but that's actually four or five more than there were 10 years ago because three of those, three of those four are no longer organic.
SPEAKER_00:But you persist, you're an organic agave maker grower, and also a tequila maker of tequila alquimia, and he's going to teach us how to make a delicious margarita, delicious margarita. But one of the things that really surprised me, and not in a good way, is because I'm looking at the tequila right now and I could see all the color, and I hope it comes through. I don't know if you can see that, the color of the anejo, and then this is the extra anejo, and then there's the extra, super duper, the super duper, which is like molasses. Can you see that? The color. And it turns out that much of the color when you buy a purchase a bottle of tequila is actually food coloring. When it's because they allow 1%.
SPEAKER_02:1%. Even though a tequila on the label might say 100% agave or 100% puro de agave, the tequila regulatory council allows us one percent of additives. And that might not sound like a lot, but when you add in one percent highly concentrated artificial sweetener, that goes a very long way. And they add to that artificial coloring, artificial flavoring, artificial vanilla, glycerin, all those things are actually allowed. And which, if that's what the law states, I guess that's fine. But we would like we would like it to be a normal thing for us to include that on the information.
SPEAKER_00:It should be, it absolutely should be on the label, not something that we as consumers can ask for. So we can make a decision. It's do I want this tequila with all these food additives? Because at this point there's no transparency, right? You're giving the it you it's the impression that I'm picking up this bottle and I'm spending more for this color, and I'm actually getting more food additives essentially with to get that color.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. And some people it doesn't make a difference for them because that's what they want to drink, and that's fine, but that's their decision. And somebody else might want the purest product possible, and then they're going to look for the one with no additives.
SPEAKER_00:And the reason we're having this conversation right now is because one, it's Earth Week, and the what you've been doing to foster well-being on the planet is just tremendous, both for in Mexico with the conversion of many, mentoring many farmers so that they can convert without even charging them, and he's mentoring these farmers to convert from their conventional practices to organic practices. So this is a fabulous way for us to toast to the earth with this margarita that he's going to make for us today, but also because we're approaching the biggest tequila day of the year, which is cinco de mayo. So I want you to have enough time on so that when you make the decision of what bottle to pull off the shelf or which margarita to ask for, or to start asking for organic tequila in your margaritas when you go to bars. Because that's what I do actually every time. I ask for what is your what organic do you have? And oftentimes there's none. But if they hear us asking for us as consumers, if they hear us like then those bartenders eventually start telling the owners, hey, people keep asking for organic tequila, or people keep asking for tequila alquimia, because I'll ask specifically for yours too. So those things matter because we can merge our influence, absolutely merge our influence and make a difference from the consumer point of view, like from that consumer power that we hold.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And many people think, what can I as a person do to promote, in this case, organic farming or more natural ways of producing our food? But actually, each one of us has a tremendous amount of power, and that lies in the power of our wallet. Yes, because the big corporations, their business is to sell a product to you. And if you're demanding a certain type of product, eventually, like you said, they're going to catch on and they're going to know that there is a demand for organic products. And we would hope then that they would start either producing or carrying those products.
SPEAKER_00:So the food additive, so this has no food additives. It has no chemicals from the production or from the growth of the agave plant, which can take anywhere between five to seven years. So that's a lot of that's a lot of chemical layer on that plant if you're purchasing a conventional bottle. And then plus, I know that there's also the heavy metals that are involved with during the distillation process for the conventional, the big dogs, who are most of the tequila that we're purchasing, is that they want to supercharge the time or really shrink the time that it takes to distill tequila because time is money from that profit capitalist point of view, right? So you instead of taking how long does it take normally to distill tequila?
SPEAKER_02:To the fermentation. Normally, if you do it all naturally, normally takes up to a week, up to seven days. Now, if you supercharge it, like you said, they actually add chemical fertilizers, urea or ammonia-based chemical fertilizers, to the fermentation tanks. What that does is it supercharges the yeast to break down the sugars and convert into alcohol. But another byproduct of that is heat. And if you put your hand on the fermentation tank for regular natural fermentation, it does feel warm or sometimes even hot. But when you supercharge the yeast with these chemicals, it becomes so violently hot and active that they actually have to wrap these tanks in cooling jackets so that to keep them from exploding.
SPEAKER_01:Oh.
SPEAKER_02:And whatever they do add in this urea, these chemical fertilizers actually carries on and through the distillation process and ends up in your final product.
SPEAKER_00:And it's petroleum-based, too, right? These chemical, yeah. So there's it's fossil fuels. It's fossil fuels in your tequila or your nigrita.
SPEAKER_02:It's only solar power to grow our agavin.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the whole story. And I hope you listen to the whole story if you're if you become a member of the Kitchen Activist Collective. And also I talk, I write about it in the book, Eat Less Water. Yes. In the tequila and water chapter, I highly recommend you read that. And the recipe for this margarita is in there as well. What I love about your recipe for margaritas is that it also it the margarita mix that we have all grown up with and that they often use when you go to a bar, right, or Mexican restaurant has a lot of high corn fructose syrup. And then a lot of other additives and a lot of to give it that color that I don't know why that's a good color, that margarita mix like neon, yeah, neon, like a highlighter color. So it you don't have to, you could bypass all of that. You can make some fresh, everything is fresh, right? It's all fresh. I see what are these tangerines?
SPEAKER_02:That's a surprise.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, so tangerines, lime, and then of course tequila that is organic agave complete completely pure. Oh, and then an organic fair trade agave as well. So I'll let you do your thing. Show us, show us how to do this.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Thank you very much. And you mentioned that in the book there is you did include our margarita recipe and we're very appreciative that you dedicated a whole chapter to our tequila project in your book, which is if you haven't read it, highly recommend it. Pick one up you'll love you'll love eat less water. This makes you think about things that many of us are not even aware of and the things that we can do in our kitchen preparing our food for our families that will make a difference. So please do. And so today I'm making for you our margarita and I have a special surprise for you. I'm going to tweak that the recipe a little bit but let's see let's see how it turns out. So we always like to start out with fresh squeezed limes. If you can these are organic limes so in keeping with our whole concept here.
SPEAKER_00:Right from start to finish absolutely from plant to glass as Lupa says from cultivation to distillation yes Lupa is his is his wife the other the co-partner in all of this actually she's the beauty and the brains behind the whole project and I just do the work I think it's important to I I know that for some people I know for a long time I didn't do this the right way. You have because it's counterintuitive is what when you cut it in half you actually put it reverse of what you think it is to squeeze it out.
SPEAKER_02:Anyway that's just a little tip that's a good point we squeeze out these lines only natural because I hate using artificial ingredients in my margarita. And you know what that lime that you buy in the plastic bottle it just it doesn't have the same flavor at all as something that's it doesn't a natural squeeze part of it is the fact that it has preservatives chemical preservatives to keep it from going bad and that doesn't make it taste of good plus the yeah the leaching also of plastic in the yeah all of that together. And are those artificial sweeteners and similar mixes mixes that adds to the reason why you get headaches because if you're using a pure a purely made tequila if you drink only that tequila you should not have a headache or a hangover the next day within moderation. Now if you go and mix it I've tested that if you go and mix this with a store bought bottle that margarita mix and you're using artificial you've got artificial sweeteners in there and flavorings and who knows what else you're taking away from the natural qualities of the tequila and that is why you end up with those bad headaches. Okay so let's just let this will take this will make how much so we're making enough for about two small size margaritas and you put so how much ice did you put you put one okay about a scoopful of this okay so I put in two ounces of lime juice my surprise today we normally use we normally use uh orange orange juice to take the edge off of the lime today I have a special surprise we're growing we're using tangerines and these are 100% organic and I know that because we just picked this from our in the backyard from your own grocery grocery back there.
SPEAKER_00:I love that we not only grow our own agavage at the quina we also grow our own your own tangerine tangerines and we actually have a lime tree as well but and the color is gorgeous I can see it is yeah that's also something we get to do here in Oxnard the weather allows us to grow all of these wonderful things pretty much year round yeah but if you're not so familiar with Oxnard it's the center of the universe at least I think so so now we'll add our tangerine juice a little bit less than the lime.
SPEAKER_02:Okay so this is a shot glass a little bit less than a shot of tangerine juice a shot glass of lime lime and then we're going to add as a sweetener we don't want to use sugars or high fructose corn syrup or anything we like to use organic agave sweetener and we have here organic fair trade agave so we add we've cut back a little bit on this Florencia from the original recipe.
SPEAKER_00:That's in eat less water yes so what did we say in that recipe I think in that one we had a full shot we'd cut that back to about half a shot but if you did the full shot because I've tried that recipe many times and it's still it's delicious. Yeah it's delicious and then a little bit of water but if you're trying to cut back on some of the sugar in your diet as we all could tell you so this isn't necessarily a skinny mangarita.
SPEAKER_02:I like to call this a slim mangarita what a skinny or a slim I don't think I I don't know if it's sugar skin skinny would be less sugar still okay or less sweetener still okay so we've got all those are the only three ingredients we put in here lime juice either orange or tangerine juice and organic agave sweet you could also use a grapefruit right you could put a little more topic grapefruit lumina lemon you can have fun experimenting with different blends of citrus juices as long as they're all freshly squeezed impossible organic yeah you could have fun experimenting and you really didn't shake a whole bunch there because yeah I'm not that I'm not that good at shaking a lot of practice. So I'm going to have the honor of serving your mangarita okay in these beautiful glasses that you gifted me this morning.
SPEAKER_00:And it it I thought it would go perfect because this is a Moroccan it's also fair trade and it is uh recycled glass from their bottles like from beer bottles and this we didn't talk about at all but I know that your the glass that you have for this this is a gorgeous bottle is also recycled glass also we use only recycled glass in our bottles it takes a little bit longer it's a little bit more expensive process but this is in keeping with our entire green thing okay okay wait so you haven't put did you ever put the tequila itself in there oh my god I told you I was out of practice that was would have been a really skinny margarita good thing somebody's paying attention here I'm gonna pay attention to that for sure okay so it's a shot at tequila and you're using the blanco we're using the blanco because for me the flavors the natural flavors in the blanco tequila which is floral quality a little citrusy a little bit of a white pepper in the flavor profile I feel that melds very well with the citrus juices.
SPEAKER_02:Some people prefer aged tequilas but and then other people think that the more expensive tequila is going to make you a better margarita and usually because the more you age the tequila the more expensive it becomes but that's not necessarily so because the aged tequilas have a lot of the oak influence which to me that oak flavor does not go well with the citrus juices.
SPEAKER_00:Okay because it's like a heavier you want the lightness you want the lightness you want it to really go well together and also that the extra anejo or the anejo you want that you just want to sip you just want to sip in a glass and really just feel or just taste that you want to get as much out of that flavor profile and enjoy it as much as possible.
SPEAKER_02:So the bronzo look like water okay it's a that was funny have you had breakfast yet yeah so this is our breakfast this morning have you had margaritas for breakfast before during is that getting too personal no during the pandemic oh okay now we're yeah I don't know if this is going in a good direction actually it's not that my daughter Elena was contacted by a company that asked us if we would do a because they were running out of things to do after work or something fun for their um their steps so they asked us if we would do a tequila tasting for them and a margarita demonstration. So we said sure but this company was based in Amsterdam and they had offices in London Amsterdam I think Singapore and Paris and I don't remember what else what other different time zones. So completely different time zones so we were up at 8 30 doing tequila tastings and making margaritas but just so that we could join them in the toast we actually cheated and put we took an empty bottle of blanco and used water.
SPEAKER_00:So we actually just put water at least that's what you were trying to do that might have been this is our breakfast.
SPEAKER_02:All right so salute to all the wonderful work that you have been doing your amazing book Eat Less Water and I know you have a project coming up the kitchen activist and teaching us how we as consumers as a normal everyday family people the things that we can do to make our world a better place.
SPEAKER_00:And thank you for the work you're doing going after your personal legend food oh like that that is very dangerous here and Cory it feels like I especially since it's the morning and it's breakfast I feel like oh I'm just drinking a juice.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah a lot of people have mimosas for breakfast all the time that's true that's true but a slim alchemia might be it is phenomenal thank you it is phenomenal and uh the presentation in these beautiful glasses Michael so Michael come over here so you can have some Michael's over here over on the side yeah we got the seal of approval all right so I think that's that'll do it. So just to recap how you make this margarita what happens if you don't have a shaker people are very inventive as far as how to shake things so okay you can put it in a large container a larger let's say a pitcher shake it around swirl it as long as it doesn't overflow or even stir it with a wooden spoon you can think of ways to oh I guess even in your coffee in a coffee mug. In a coffee mug like a travel mug yeah you can put the lid on it and shake it yeah just it'll work in fact it'll keep it nice and cold for you oh that's really good okay so some kind of shaker no wonder they have those cup holders and then a shot glass of a shot glass of fresh lime and a scant shot glass of about three quarters of either orange juice or we or tangerine we change it up some other citrus with tangerines and we were talking about experimenting with grapefruit and different types of citrus yeah and different combinations of blood orange orange orange would be yeah blood orange and then see what you like best or just change it up from one weekend to the next and then one scoop of the ice get it nice and cold a stock glass of blanco oh agave half half a shot glass of agave sweetener or if you like it sweeter still you can or honey or honey you can use honey use honey too or what about using the reposado you can use reposalo that's not too oaky yeah it's not too oaky that's I wouldn't go any more age than that uh but the reposado would still go well and the oak wouldn't overpower anything so reposado is my favorite of all of the oars yeah no that's been your favorite yeah it's been I've been consistent for the last 10 years. Good good and then okay one thing I before we go I do notice that you didn't put any salt around the rim why um because I know there must be a why I I personally have cut back a lot on salt but also I think that the salt takes away from the flavors themselves and if you really want to appreciate what was in there the the contents of your margarita I would recommend without salt but then if that's your preference that's okay.
SPEAKER_00:Because I do think as you're saying that like when you have say a good piece of bread or a good piece of meat or anything that is has been cultivated with the care that you put into like how you put into the tequila you want to be able to taste it. You don't want to have it hidden by other flavors. But on the other hand if you have something that has poor quality right then you want to mask it with a sauce with flather with butter or in this case put the rim with some people get salt right and some people get very inventive with the salt or the hean seasoned type of salt. And if you're just eating if you're just drinking it with that margarita mix you do need that salt because because it's not otherwise it's really not that good. Yeah but this absolutely you need no salt this is D wine I'm glad you like it.
SPEAKER_02:Yes I'm glad you like my this is the first time I've actually made it with 10 drinks that's a keeper for sure it's a keeper so we'll keep growing thank you for everything you do thank you it's a toast to you to Earth Day to Earth Day and consider success to you. Oh and how would you find your how do you find your tequila before we you can ask for it at your local liquor store or restaurant the surest thing is to go on our webpage alquimiatequila.com and find one of our local or one of our online retailers there's a retailer in in San Diego called Old Town Tequila there's a lot of you can't really see it off that and they actually ship all over the country interestingly they ship a lot of our product to the east coast apparently we have quite a following over there all due to the magic of social media I can see why people know they're good no good cocktails on the east coast for sure.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah so you can find it uh alquimiaquila.com and that's spelt a l q u I m a i at the end i a alquimia so it's alchemy in spanish exactly it's alchemy in spanish so you'll find it easily and thank you so much for thank you for hearing all of what you do keep doing all the good work that you do salute to you too