El Tesoro is a brand of

tequila Tequila (; ) is a liquor, distilled beverage made from the Agave tequilana, blue agave plant, primarily in the area surrounding the city of Tequila, Jalisco, Tequila northwest of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Guadalajara, and in the Jaliscan Highlands ...

produced at a distillery in

Jalisco, Mexico Jalisco (, , ; Nahuatl: Xalixco), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Jalisco ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Jalisco ; Nahuatl: Tlahtohcayotl Xalixco), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Political d ...

, where the family that founded the distillery is still involved in the business. In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, the brand is marketed by

Beam Suntory Beam Suntory, Inc. is an American-founded, Japanese multinational company that produces alcoholic beverages. It is a subsidiary of Suntory, based in Osaka, Japan. It is the third largest producer of distilled beverages worldwide, behind Diageo ...

. The producer claims to use labor-intensive traditional methods for making the tequila.

History

Don Felipe Camarena was an

agave ''Agave'' (; ; ) is a genus of monocots native to the hot and arid regions of the Americas and the Caribbean, although some ''Agave'' species are also native to tropical areas of North America, such as Mexico. The genus is primarily known for ...

grower who was raised in a family that had previously been making tequila in the

Mexican state The states of Mexico are first-level administrative territorial entities of the country of Mexico, which is officially named Mexico, United Mexican States. There are 32 federal entities in Mexico (31 states and the capital, Mexico City, as a sepa ...

Jalisco Jalisco (, , ; Nahuatl: Xalixco), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Jalisco ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Jalisco ; Nahuatl: Tlahtohcayotl Xalixco), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Federal En ...

since the early 1800s. However, after 50 years of producing tequila, the family's distillery had been destroyed during the Mexican revolution of 1910. Camarena started out by growing and selling agave plants to other distillers, and then in 1937 he opened La Alteña Distillery in Jalisco, 20 miles away from the previous family distillery. His distillery was located near a

blue agave ''Agave tequilana'', commonly called blue agave () or tequila agave, is an agave plant that is an important economic product of Jalisco, Mexico, due to its role as the base ingredient of tequila, a popular distilled beverage. The high production ...

growing area and near underground springs which served as a consistent source of energy. Camarena then passed the business on to his son, Felipe J. Camarena Orozco, who then passed it on to his daughters and to his son Carlos Camarena Curiel, who is now the third generation of Master Distiller for the distillery. The actual brand El Tesoro de Don Felipe began as the product of a joint venture established in 1990 between the Camarena family and the premium tequila promoters Robert J. Denton and Marilyn S. Smith. The Fortune Brands holding company ended up, in 1999, buying the El Tesoro brand trademark and exclusivity contract from Robert Denton and Marilyn Smith. In October 2011, Fortune Brands divested itself of its various businesses that were unrelated to

spirit Spirit or spirits may refer to: Liquor and other volatile liquids * Spirits, a.k.a. liquor, distilled alcoholic drinks * Spirit or tincture, an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol * Volatile (especially flammable) liquids, ...

s, and changed the name of its remaining enterprise to Beam Inc. Beam was later acquired by the Suntory company, becoming

Products

*El Tesoro Blanco *El Tesoro Reposado *El Tesoro Añejo *El Tesoro Paradiso *El Tesoro Extra Añejo

Awards

Spirit ratings With a growing number of offerings, such as those produced by an increasing number of microdistilleries, various mechanisms have arisen to provide reviews and opinions of individual varieties of spirits. These events generally use expert panels ...

for El Tesoro offerings have been consistently high.

References

External links

El Tesoro Tequila
Tequila Beam Suntory {{Distilled-drink-stub