H igh up my wish-list of impossible interviewees is the person (if there was just one) who invented tequila. In the 16th century, or possibly before, some Mexican looked at the agave plant — a startling succulent with large, spiky, blue-grey leaves and a stem that can grow up to five metres tall — and thought: I need to distil that. In fact, it’s the core at the base of that stem, known as the piña , that is effortfully stripped of leaves using a coa , a long-handled tool somewhere between a hoe and a machete.
This is then baked, pulped and juiced, and that juice is fermented and distilled. The resulting liquid needn’t be aged in barrel, in which case it’s a blanco; if it is, it’s a reposado (two to twelve months), an añejo (one to three years) or an extra añejo if longer than that..
