Almost overnight, it seemed that every A-list celebrity was debuting a tequila label — from Arnold Schwarzenegger to LeBron James, Nick Jonas and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The flood of celebrity brands has helped fuel record growth in the industry. Mexico, the source of all tequila, last year produced 60 million gallons — 800% more than two decades ago. But not everybody is happy with the industry’s rapid growth, which carries both an environmental price — as farmers bulldoze forests to plant more agave — and a cultural one — with foreigners playing an ever-growing role in one of Mexico’s proudest cultural traditions.
A horse grazes in a blue agave field in San Martín de las Cañas, Jalisco, Mexico.
Casa Herradura tequila store in Tequila, Jalisco.
Aaron de Jesus Mercado prepares a Batanga drink made with El Tequileño tequila at La Capilla de Don Javier cantina in Tequila, Jalisco.
Guadalupe Ramos Santos uses a coa, a special knife, to cut the leaves on an agave plant in El Arenal, Jalisco.
Ivan Perez loads blue agave cores to be baked in an oven to extract its fermentable sugars at Fortaleza tequila distillery in Tequila, Jalisco. Fortaleza is over 150-years-old and five generations family owned.
Ivan Perez loads blue agave cores to be baked by steam in an oven at Fortaleza distillery.
A tahona, a large volcanic stone wheel, is a traditional way to crush and shred the baked agave piña core to extract the juice at Fortaleza distillery.
Monsarat Delgado checks tequila bottles for impurities before being labeled at Cascahuín Tequila distillery.
Workers put labels on bottles of tequila at the Fortaleza tequila distillery.
“The joy that is not caused by tequila is false,” Franciso Javier Sauza, is painted on a wall in downtown Tequila, Jalisco.
Catalina Montes Morales takes a shot of El Tequileño tequila at La Capilla de Don Javier cantina, over 88-years in business, in Tequila, Jalisco.
A worker uses a casanga to clear weeds from a blue agave field in San Martín de las Cañas, Jalisco, considered the cradle of blue agave. Read the story at https://lat.ms/3nCyZUS
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