Rancho Tequila: arette

Showing posts with label arette. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Happy Day of the Dead!

Dia de los Muertos is here again! What tequila will you drink to celebrate the old Mexican festival?

Our cinnamon-haired spokes-model - I'll call her Carmen - is holding a skull full of KAH, which calls itself "Day of the Dead" tequila. So, sure, I'll enjoy a shot of KAH añejo. It's not my favorite, but it has a grassy, woody thing happening. However, looking over my "colleción," I see some other nice choices. I'm thinking a cold-shot of Arette blanco, followed by a nice sipper of 7 Leguas reposado.

I'll also listen to some music - probably The Dead...

Saludos!

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Muy Muy Suave!

I was lucky to score the now-discontinued "vintage" style bottle w/ paper-label and cork. I may not see one of these again.

As we all know, I love good blancos, and am on a never-ending (it seems) quest for the ultimate blanco. I had always been curious about Arette, especially the Artesanal Blanco Suave. Had heard and read good things. Well, until now I had never gotten my hands on any. So I recently scored a bottle, sort of by accident, and zowie, it IS good. Really, really good. It's big on agave, smooth, and has nice layers of flavors. It's good chilled, and it's one of the few blancos I would really hesitate to waste in a margarita. And I use Partida blanco in margaritas. So, now when I talk about my fave blancos, Arette Suave will be in the conversation with 7 Leguas, Partida, El Tesoro, Tequila Uno and Espolón.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Inbound Tequilas! Coming Soon!

Acquiring some fresh bottles of highlands juice: Chamucos Reposado, Siembra Azul Repo, and Arette blanco suave.

So I look like a bottle of cooking wine from Target's store-brand section. Well y'know what? The money's on the INSIDE of this bottle baby! Now stop looking at my screw-top!

I also want to do a blanco shootout soon with Siete Leguas, Don Julio, and another player to be named later.

My Tequila Discovery, 1992

My agave quest began a relatively long time ago -- long before the more recent Patron-driven 100% agave revolution began in the USA. It was October of 1992. My band was playing the prestigious CMJ (College Media Journal) Music Conference in NYC. We had the great fortune to be placed at Rodeo Bar, one of the convention's official venues. This was appropriate because then, as now, we played a twangy Texas-style music. The big thing about playing the Rodeo was that 1) they paid the bands and 2) they fed the bands for free and 3) they even provided free drinks! Great place! See, they were the ONLY place that paid the bands. At all the other venues the bands played these "SHOWCASES" for free, and it was really pay-to-play because of the expense of doing it. So like I said, we were lucky as hell.
So we played and had a good gig and enjoyed the other bands on the bill and ate at the adjoining (excellent) Tex-Mex restaurant, then called "Albuquerque". The bar itself was a converted actual cattle car, and this very nice bartender named Erin took a liking to us. The night wore on, and before you knew it, only my bass-player and myself remained at the cattle-bar with Erin. We had been drinking beers and were now in the mood for a tequila shot. Erin then says, "Guys, you need to try some REAL tequila!" She pointed up to the top of the bar to some dusty bottles hidden in the shadow above the bar-lights. "Our Mexican cooks bring this stuff up from Mexico when they come back from visiting home. It's their private stash," Erin said. Our eyes got big. Would there be worms? Scorpions?
But without further ado and at no charge she lined us up three shots from three different bottles and we tasted them.
Damn dude!
The lights went on in technicolor. Flavor! Spice! Smoothness! Wood! Baby!

Then the lights went out.

We literally fell off our bar-stools and staggered our way out to the NY streets at about 3 am. I still have NO memory of getting back to the hotel.
I had no idea what labels were on those bottles, so I couldn't tell you what I drank that night. But for the rest of the 90's and up until now I have sought out the best tequila available. And in the mid '90s there was not much available. At first it was stuff like Hornitos and Conmemorativo. Then I think, yes, it was Don Julio that a Mexican buddy of mine brought back from Mexico. It was not yet available in the US, or at least around here. Then came Tradicional and Herradura and El Jimador and Cabo Wabo and El Tesoro and then Patron came along and the blue floodgates of agave opened.

Thank you Erin, wherever you are! This is all your fault!

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