Your Tequila Might Have Been Bottled in Indiana. 7 Rules Explain Why.

Pick up a bottle of tequila in an American liquor store and turn it around.

Much of what you see is required by law: the importer, alcohol content, country of origin, and a four-digit number almost nobody reads. See our guide on “How to Read a Tequila Bottle.”

Then find the line that says who put the liquid into the bottle.

On Jose Cuervo Especial, one of the best-selling tequilas in the United States, that line reads:

Imported and bottled by Proximo, Lawrenceburg, Indiana.

Not bottled in Jalisco, Mexico. But instead in Indiana, on the Ohio River across the state line from Cincinnati, in a building that used to package Seagram's whiskey.

That is not a scandal. It is one of the more surprising consequences of tequila’s very specific rulebook.

Tequila is governed by a Mexican federal standard called NOM-006-SCFI-2012. It runs 17 chapters, two technical appendixes, and also relies on a separate 1977 government declaration about geography of production. Non-masochists don’t read these rules for fun.

Seven of its rules decide almost everything a tequila drinker like you wants to know, including a rule that allows for tequila bottled in Indiana, not far from where I live.

Tequila is made from agave, yes. But the rules are much more precise than that.

The standard permits Agave tequilana Weber, blue variety, and nothing else. There are roughly 200 agave species. Dozens of them go into mezcal, raicilla, bacanora, and other agave spirits. Exactly one variety can become tequila.

This is remarkable when you consider it. There are hundreds of varieties of grapes used to make wine. Imagine if all wine was made from pinot noir grapes. That’s essentially how tequila works, but with Blue Weber agave.

Also, none of those varieties are a cactus. Agave is a succulent, in the same botanical family as asparagus.

Every agave used for tequila must come from a registered plantation that can be inspected and audited. Producers cannot harvest agave from an unregistered nearby field and retroactively count it as tequila-eligible.

So the main raw material for tequila is highly regulated, with no ambiguity. Where it is allowed to grow is where nearly everybody gets it wrong.

Ask a hundred drinkers and ninety-nine say Jalisco. They are mostly right and technically wrong.

The map of where tequila can be made is not in the production regulations. It comes from the General Declaration of Protection for the Appellation of Origin, published in Mexico's official gazette in 1977 and amended several times since. Permission to use the appellation runs through IMPI, the Mexican Industrial Property Institute.

This denomination of origin, which is the legally protected territory where tequila-eligible agave can be grown and tequila can be made, covers 181 municipalities across five states: Jalisco, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Nayarit, and Tamaulipas.

All 125 of Jalisco's municipalities sit inside the line. The other four states contribute only specific ones: 30 in Michoacán, 11 in Tamaulipas, eight in Nayarit, seven in Guanajuato.

The map determines where tequila-eligible agave can be grown, where tequila distilleries may operate, and where barrel aging must occur.

Note that Highlands and Valley, which we often use to describe where specific bottles or brands are produced, are not legal categories. Both sit entirely within Jalisco, and are used colloquially to describe major regions with different elevations, soils, climates, and base flavor profiles.

For a spirit to be called tequila, at least 51% of the sugars fermented into alcohol must come from Blue Weber agave. The remaining 49% may come from other permitted sugar, usually cane sugar, and sometimes corn-derived sugar. That is why producers and drinkers call this style mixto tequila: it begins with a mixture of agave sugar and other sugars before being fermented.

A bottle labeled 100% de agave, by contrast, gets every bit of its fermentable sugar from Blue Weber agave. No cane sugar. No corn sugar. Nothing else.

Think of it like a recipe: both versions must be at least half agave, but only one is made entirely from agave.

It is more expensive to make tequila completely with agave. Cane sugar and other permitted non-agave sugars are cheaper than agave, even at today’s low agave prices.

Alcohol proof is the component most people recognize, but it is only one of seven measurements the standard controls.

Tequila must contain between 35% and 55% alcohol by volume under Mexican rules. That same range applies whether the bottle is blanco, joven, reposado, añejo, or extra añejo; more time in a barrel does not give an aged tequila permission to exceed the limit.

In the United States, a second rule applies: tequila must be bottled at at least 40% ABV, or 80 proof. Most tequila on American shelves therefore starts at 40%, while higher-proof bottles reflect a producer’s commercial choice. Below 35% ABV, it cannot legally be called tequila anywhere; between 35% and 39.9%, it can be tequila in Mexico but not in the United States.

The proof number is only the most visible test. To be sold as tequila, every batch also has to fall within limits for a handful of naturally occurring compounds created during fermentation, distillation, and aging.

All of these components, like methanol, higher alcohols, aldehydes, esters, furfural, and dry extract, sound like chemistry class because they are.

Some influence aroma and flavor. Others are tightly limited for quality and safety reasons. The producer must test all of their tequila, and the CRT must confirm that it meets the specifications before it can be approved to be sold as tequila.

You will not find those results on the label. But behind every legal bottle of tequila is an important lab report.

The familiar tequila aging terms tell you the least amount of time a tequila spent in oak. They do not tell you everything about how it will taste—or why it costs what it does.

For añejo and extra añejo, the barrel cannot hold more than 600 liters. That prevents a producer from aging tequila for years in an enormous wooden tank, where the spirit would have relatively little contact with the wood. This is permitted with reposado, however.

All aging must happen inside tequila’s protected production territory and under the authorized producer’s control. A distillery cannot ship tequila to the United States for barrel aging.

These are minimums, not ranges. A reposado aged for two months and one aged for ten months can use the same word on the label. Our recent single-barrel reposado with La Pulga spent more than a year in oak, long enough to qualify as añejo, but we chose to label it reposado. That is perfectly legal.

A tequila cannot legally be produced, bottled, or sold without certification. It is not a one-time approval: compliance is checked throughout production. Daily, in some cases.

The certifying body may be the Consejo Regulador del Tequila (CRT) or another accredited and approved conformity-assessment organization. At present, the CRT is the only body accredited and approved to perform that work. Oversight begins with registered agave plantations and continues through production, testing, and bottling.Tequila is one of the most highly regulated spirits in the world.

Every bottle also carries a NOM number, a four-digit identifier tied to the authorized producer responsible for that tequila. It is often a useful starting point for finding the distillery behind a brand, but it is not a complete production history. A single NOM can appear on many unrelated brands, and the same brand can use different NOMs across products or over time.

Here the rules split, and it’s why a bottle of tequila can be filled in southeastern Indiana.

Tequila labeled 100% de agave has to be aged and bottled at a plant the authorized producer controls, inside the territory set forth in the denomination of origin.

Plain tequila, less than 100% agave, is different. It can be bottled at plants belonging to somebody other than the producer, including plants outside Mexico, as long as the bottler meets the standard's conditions. Every bulk shipment is supervised by the certifier, and bulk tequila cannot leave the territory for any purpose the standard does not name.

In cases like this, the tequila crosses the border in bulk and is bottled after arrival.

None of that violates the rules or makes the tequila less legitimate. It means the tequila was shipped in bulk and bottled somewhere else—potentially in the United States.

Here is the practical shortcut: if a bottle does not say 100% de agave, it may have been bottled outside Mexico. Check the back label for the bottler’s name and location.

Most of the decisions that define tequila happen long before bottling: which agave was used, where it was grown, whether the tequila is 100% agave or mixto, how it was aged, and whether it was certified.

Bottling is the exception. If a tequila is not labeled 100% de agave, it may have left Mexico in bulk and been bottled elsewhere. Including Indiana.

Turn the bottle around. The NOM identifies the authorized producer. The 100% de agave statement tells you which bottling rule applies. And the bottler’s name and location tell you where the liquid entered the glass.