Cinco de Mayo Pronto

Taking some liberties with Google Translate, we're using this opportunity to remind you that Cinco de Mayo is only three weeks away. We've just added an outstanding Tequila to our shelves, and we think it will be a perfect pairing with any Cinco festivities you might be a part of.

Siete Leguas Reposado had been available strictly as a special order item, but it makes sense to stock it. Based in Atotonilco El Alto in Jalisco, Mexico, Casa 7 Leguas counts more than 50 years’ experience in the making of tequila by means of traditional processes. The company’s most outstanding achievements are their full-bodied, high-quality spirits of refined flavor.

A central character in Mexican revolutionary days was Pancho Villa, who, riding his horse Seven Leagues (7 Leguas), swept a great expanse of the Mexican land. Though Villa had a lot of detractors, he also had his share of followers. One of the General’s greatest admirers was Don Ignacio González Vargas, a proud, enterprising Mexican, who in a show of affection for the Centaur of the North, named his own tequila after Pancho Villa’s favorite horse. Thus, Tequila 7 Leguas was born.

To make Tequila, the process starts out with an operation called the jima, in which the pencas, the hard, pointy leaves of agave plants are carefully cut off to uncover the piñas, the blue agave heads.

Before the blue agave heads are allowed into the factories, a sample is taken from each lot to verify that the sugar content of the fruit is right to ensure that a high quality spirit will be produced.

Once a particular lot has been verified and its entry has been authorized, the blue agave heads are split and slowly cooked in masonry ovens; there, specialized stokers keep careful records of each oven’s firing to ensure the perfect cooking of dark brown, tender piñas of intensely sweet flavor.

Cooked piñas are then taken to the Tahona, a traditional stone mill driven by mules, where they are ground to extract precious agave wort, which is then fermented, distilled and (depending on the selection) aged. 7 Leguas is the only tequila distiller that still uses this age-old method.