Agave Newbie?

Best entry-level tequila for the rookie: Familia Camarena Reposado. It's real easy and smooth on the palette, with that Highland sweetness and spice. Sip it neat or use it as an excellent mixer. And the price, she is nice...

Best first tequila for the whiskey-lover: Don Julio 70. The more I drink this, the more I appreciate it's "whiskey-ness." I do love the taste of American Oak. It will remind one of a nice aged bourbon but without bourbon's overly sweet taste or it's burn.

Año de Agave, 2011 Tequila Highlights, Parte Dos

Part 2) Reposados:

Interestingly, looking back on 2011, I did not explore much new territory in the world of reposado tequila. I enjoyed plenty of old stand-byes, like El Tesoro, Corralejo and 7 Leguas. But overall it was a year of blancos and añejos.


Maestro Dobél: Multiple-personality disorder in a bottle?

It's a bit hard to believe but it looks like I only have four notable repos to talk about. The first is the outstanding Siembra Azúl, a beautiful Highland offering that is truly top-shelf. Well, in terms of taste, that is; I have joked numerous times about how the screw-top generic bottle and labeling belie the wonderful juice inside. S. A. is a soft, sweet and silky-smooth tequila, with just enough wood mellowing to create a perfect balance of agave and oak (and when I say perfect, in my book that's an 80/20 ratio). It's a classy and refined spirit. Now they should make a bottle to match. See my previous review here. 4.5 Pencas!
Siembra Azul Reposado, Tequila.net Best of 2011 Award Winner.

Next on the list would be Maestro Dobél, the so-called "Diamond" tequila. Despite looking like a blanco, it is a blend of reposados and añejos that has been filtered to remove the coloring. The result is a diamond-clear spirit. Honestly, I'm not sure why they are removing the color. I wonder if it's a marketing device to attract the large segment of Patrón Silver drinkers, who may be of the mindset that to be good, the juice needs to be clear. In this case the clear tequila has the benefit of the woody mellowing and flavorful overtones of hand-crafted and well-rested tequila. Don't get me wrong, Dobél is a nice sipper with a delectably rich taste, but at it's original price of $75, I would never have touched it. A big part of what you're paying for here is the luxruy packaging. There has been one last lonely bottle left on the shelf of my local store for like, a year. So when they lowered it to a blowout of $35, I seized my opportunity. I like it, it's not my favorite, but if you can get it for under $50, it's a worthy addition to your tequila bar. Extra points for bottle design - muy elegante. 3.5 Pencas!


"Don't open that bottle! You'll let out the....ooh, too late!"

Then there is the little devil, Chamucos. I was attracted by the funky label with the folkloric, hand-drawn figure of El Chamuco. In Spanish it means "boogie man." I went to great lengths to get this hard-to-come-by bottle. I ended up with a NOM 1558 product. Apparently Chamucos had had a hard-time finding a permanent distillery. I notice that reviews of the 1558 juice tend to run much more favorable than those of the product from the previous distillery. When I first cracked this open, it did not immediately impress. "Firewater," thought I. However, I let it decant for a couple of weeks and went back to it. You have to do that sometimes. It was surprisingly much better the second time, and even better the time after that, sort of like, well, you know... Chamook has a demonic bite with an herbal, more pungunt/punchy taste than many. Finishes with a blanco-like burn. It's a good, ol' fashioned shooter! Party Juice! Fiesta Demonica! But what else would you expect from a tequila with a name like Chamucos? Three Pencas!

The caboose of my 2011 Repo train is Familia Camrena reposado. This bottle, like the blanco, sells for around $21. There's a big push on to get Camarena in your face. The stores have big display boxes and posters, featuring the blanco and repo side-by-side, both at the same low price. Whereas the blanco is thin and sort of just, "meh," this spunky little repo has a nice agave pop, coated in the spicy sizzle of cinnamon and the sweet notes of vanilla. It's a surprisingly bright, bold beverage, with plenty of evidence of it's highland upbringing. This may be the perfect entry-level tequila for Noobs. Cama-repo is my new go-to for maragritas, because it both stands-up and blends really decently. And yes, I would - and DO - sip this tequila. El priceo es niceo! Three Pencas!
Camarena Reposado, Tequila.net Best of 2011 Award-Winner.

Stay tuned for part 3, Añejos!

Camarena Reposado: A Sweet Surprise!

Sip it, mix it, any way you fix it!

So, the Camarena blanco was em, nice, kinda thin, inoffensive, and nothing to write home about. Sorta like "tequila light". For the price, it'll stand on my shelf as a mixer next to Azúl, Espolón, Milagro and other $20 bottles.

Last night I tried the Cama Reposado, and what a pleasant and unexpected surprise it was! It's a sweetheart with flavor! This is a very interesting tequila, with a big, undeniable presence of highland agave.

Camarena's color is a pale olive-oil with an almost green caste. The nose is floral, bright and citrus-y with alcohol, a hint of vanilla and a touch of wood (there's more oak in the aroma than the actual taste).

The taste starts with a nice silky entrance, followed by fast, round burst of agave, pear and caramel-apple. Then comes cider, oak, clove and...yes cinnamon. The finish is quick, leaving a lingering taste of nutmeg, cinnamon and burnt sugar. I sensed very little smoke; just a subtle undertone of oak and vanilla. There's hardly any heat; no burn whatsoever. The body hits and fills the front/middle of the tongue and palette. Cama repo is not heavy or oily, nor does it have much in the way of "back end".

This may the perfect juice to get tequila virgins in to 100% agave sippers. Whereas more seasoned aficionados may like earth and vegital tones, along with deeper complexity, those aspects of a particular flavor profie might turn off a newbie. Cama's juice might also turn them away from Patrón - we can only hope.

Camarena reposado absolutely kills the blanco. Wipes the floor with it. I attribute the big upgrade in flavor to this: A brief two-month resting in American oak barrels has gently coaxed-forth the flavor and soul of the famous los altos high-elevation agave. At the same time, it hasn't been in-barrel long enough to get very woody. (I'd love to taste a six-month expression!)

Where the blanco displays nothing really ugly, and gives you a light, spicy pop, it's the repo that delivers on the promise of the legendary highland spirit.

Family Legacy

Family Values!

First I must say it was a long cold winter of no tequila blogging for the Pale Rider. Got a new job December first and my nose has been firmly pressed against the grindstone for months. Plus, nothing really exciting came across my screen, tequila-wise. In fact, I had a real let down when I found Chinaco in a local store after years of it not being available around here. I bought a bottle and it was, well, awful. Undrinkable. I don't know if the juice had gone bad or they've changed it or what. I used to love Chinaco and this stuff I wouldn't use to make a margarita for Canadian tourists.

But I digress.

So last week, in my local store appeared the first new tequila offering they'e put on the shelf in ages: Familia Camarena "Silver"/Blanco and Reposado tequilas. Camarena comes in an incredibly handsome bottle with a just-as-attractive price. Again, we find a 100% agave offering in the $20 range, which seems to be a big trend in the last couple years. (I wonder if Patrón is getting nervous). I grabbed the blanco, because I always go for a blanco first. As you know I favor blancos, not to mention that if the blanco is good, it bodes well for the rest of the lineup. Plus, I thought, "Well, if it sucks, at least the bottle is pretty. It'll look good in my collection."

I tasted it chilled with a couple pieces of ice. The nose was just what I had hoped for - floral and fruity with a nice huff of agave and spice. Taste-wise, I found it pleasing on a number of levels. A couple of the reviews I've read accuse the blanco of not being a sipper, but I wouldn't totally agree. (If Patrón can be called a "sipper" then surely this offering is!) True, Camarena's mouth-feel is thin and light, but it has a flavorful body with agave, citrus, chili-pepper and earth. It has a peppery pop, a spicy spike! But there isn't a lot of bigness in the body, and there's no bottom end to speak of. It's not too hot or alcoholish, and on a smoothness scale I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10. The most disappointing aspect is the finish, which leaves an ashy residue on the tongue. As a blanco enthusiast, I have come to expect an acrid finish, even from highly-rated tequilas. I "get" that wood-aging irons out some of the speedbumps in the flavor-profile, especially mellowing a bitey finish. Generally I'm saying this juice is pretty thin and one-dimensional.

I later made a basic margarita - or should I say "Cama-rita"? - with Camarena Blanco, and found that it stands up really well in the cocktail, imparting a nice tequila flavor. I'd agree the Cama Blanco is better as a mixer than on its own. It reminds me a little of what I like about Partida blanco, and what I dislike about Don Julio Silver, the former having a nice balance of agave and earth, the latter having too much "dirt".

Most reviews I have come across prefer the Camarena reposado to the blanco, so I look forward to sampling the repo soon.


Soy Muy Guapo!

More interesting than the reviews is the history of Familia Camarena - apparently one of the first-families of tequila for six-generations, and tangentially related to the Cuervos. The Camarenas came to Mexico from Spain in the 1780s and was one of the founding families of the town of Arandas in the Jalisco highlands, where the world's finest blue agave is cultivated. The family owns thousands of acres of plantation-land in the highest elevations (over 7000 feet), producing millions of weber blue agave plants. For generations the Camarenas provided agave for other bottlers, eventually going in to the tequila business themselves in the 1930s under the name Casco Viejo. The Casco Viejo distillery makes the well-regarded Don Agustin as well. The actual Familia Camarena tequila brand label did not exist until 2008, when E and J Gallo partnered with Casco to create Familia Camarena for the US market.

Clearly there is a nice marketing boost going on around the country (see "Taco Truck" campaign pic, below), and as always I am heartened to see other tequilas finding popularity and eroding the ground beneath the tyrant Patrón, while also pulling people away from God-awful mixtos like Cuervo. And while Camarena Silver isn't what I'd call an ulta-premium tequila, it'll find a place on my shelf. At $20 for a 100% agave juice, what's not to like?


Coming to your town: The Camarena "Taco Truck" dishin' out tacos y tequila