What Does Tequila Taste Like When It's Crushed by Hand?

Roberto Real Reynoso’s father died in May 2023.

Real, a fourth-generation tequilero, took over as director of the family distillery, Tequila Selecto de Amatitán, in Amatitán (NOM 1459), in the Valley of Jalisco.

The timing was hard. The whole industry was under pressure on production and prices.

"It was a very difficult period for my family emotionally," Real says, "and at the same time, I suddenly found myself facing the responsibility of leading the company during a challenging moment for the tequila industry."

So he asked himself a question. What could he do differently from everyone else? His answer was to go backward.

He turned to traditional methods built on fire, wooden tools, and human labor. He wanted, in his words, something "that could rescue, honor, and represent the origins, culture, and identity behind tequila."

Not everyone agreed.

"Many people told me I was crazy and that it would never work," Real says. "Even within the family, there was a lot of uncertainty and fear about making such a significant change."

He named the tequila Arriesgado. It means "risky" or "daring." The name is a tribute to his father, who heard the same criticism for most of his life.

His father started working very young, driving trucks that hauled agave. He had only a primary school education. Building a tequila business of his own, instead of just hauling the raw material, was a leap. People told him it was too risky.

"Looking back, that risk changed everything," Real says. "What began with him behind the wheel of an agave truck eventually became a family legacy in tequila."

His father's silhouette is on every bottle of Arriesgado.

The idea for Arriesgado came from the mountains. More precisely, from getting lost in them.

A few summers ago, Real was going through a difficult time. "I was feeling lost, confused," he says. He got in his truck and drove into the mountains around Ixtlán, Nayarit, with no plan, and no destination in mind.

At one point, he stopped on a small piece of land to get his bearings. A man named Gilberto walked up and asked him a simple question.

"What are you looking for?"

"At the time, I thought he was asking where I was trying to get to," Real says. "But looking back, that question meant much more to me."

Gilberto makes raicilla, a traditional agave spirit with tremendous history and cultural consequence in Nayarit and Jalisco. He showed Real how he produced his raicilla.

It was "very personal, traditional, and almost homemade," Real says. He found "a deep respect for the spirit, for the agave, and for the process that I had never experienced in quite the same way before."

Real later traveled to Matatlán, Oaxaca. There, two mezcal maestros taught him about fermentation, distillation, and the patience required to make spirits in the old ways. They showed him why mezcal develops such intense flavors, and how some of those ideas might work in tequila.

Those two trips became the blueprint for Arriesgado.

Real calls the result "un ensamble de culturas," a blend of cultures.

He set up production inside a brick dome on the distillery, built more than 15 years ago. His father and grandfather used to gather there for family celebrations. That gave the project "an even deeper personal meaning," Real says.

The first batches, made in this micro-distillery inside the much larger Selecto de Amatitán facility, did not go well.

"Our first batches came out much smokier than we expected," Real says. "We knew immediately that the way we were distilling wasn't right for the profile we were looking for."

The team didn't throw them away. Instead, they spent almost a year experimenting, tasting, adjusting, and starting over.

"Little by little," Real says, "we learned how to refine the process and, more importantly, how to listen to the agave."

Those smoky first batches weren’t discarded, they went into barrels, which will makes sense later.

Every tequila maker has to get the sugary juice out of cooked agave before it can ferment. How they do it shapes the flavor.

Most brands use a roller mill. It's a machine that presses out the juice of the cooked agave, after it’s been shredded.

Some skip that step and use a diffuser, a machine that washes the sugar out of agave with hot water.

A smaller group uses a tahona, a large stone wheel that rolls over the cooked agave in a pit. Only a few dozen tequilas are 100% tahona-crushed.

Arriesgado does something much, much older, and manifestly more difficult. It's called canoa y mazo (canoe and mallet).

The cooked agave goes into a canoa, a long wooden trough, shaped like a canoe. Then the team crushes it by hand with large wooden clubs, called mazos.

The juice is extracted one bash at a time.

Maestro distiller Nicolás Martínez oversees the crushing. Three people work the first shift and three work the second. Together, they can get through about 2.5 tons of agave in a day. That’s a lot of bashing.

"It is not an easy process," Real says. "You are physically working the cooked agave over and over again, and the texture and resistance of the fiber make every batch different."

The inconsistency of the process is partially the point.

Machines used in most distilleries shred agave into uniform pieces. Real’s mallets break it down unevenly and never fully destroys the fibers. That leaves some pulp attached to the fiber as everything moves into fermentation. Real believes that pulp is part of how the agave "expresses itself" in the finished tequila.

Arriesgado makes several production choices most tequila brands don't. If he could keep only one, which would it be? The mallet.

"When you crush the agave by hand, you're not just doing a job," Real says. "You can feel the agave, smell it, see how the fibers respond. You really become part of the process."

Real says the first thing you notice in a glass of his tequila is a light smoky note. Where does it come from?

Firstly, the cooking. Most tequila distilleries cook agave with steam, either in big pressure cookers called autoclaves or in steam-heated brick ovens.

Arriesgado cooks its agave for about 36 hours in a wood-fired clay oven. The fuel is Roble Mexicano, a Mexican oak that grows on the same land as the brand's agave. Real says it gives "a cleaner, more controlled smoke" than other woods.

That oven is the main source of Arriesgado's smoky character. Even though the agave itself is not cooked IN smoke, like mezcal, the heat source the clay oven, giving the brand its distinctive characteristic.

The copper pot stills are also wood-fired, highly unusual in tequila production. Again, this heat source donates some of its essence to the spirit.

The copper pot stills used by Arriesgado, designed with help from the mezcal maestro, has an internal structure that clears out some of the heavier smoky aromas, leaving just a whisper. Arriesgado is double-distilled, and the agave fibers go into the still along with the liquid.

In between the mashing and the distillation, Arriesgado makes another unusual choice, during fermentation. Most distilleries ferment in stainless steel tanks. They add yeast and control the temperature, so every batch finishes on schedule.

Arriesgado ferments in French oak vats, with the agave fibers left in. Fermentation is natural and spontaneous. It runs on the yeast already present in the air, not yeast added from a package. So the weather decides how long it takes.

In warm months, about five days. In cold months, eight or even nine.

"We have to pay attention to it and let it tell us when it's ready," Real says. "You can't just follow a clock."

It depends on which bottle, and which batch. Most brands work hard to make every bottle taste identical, year after year. Arriesgado doesn't.

"I don't think the biggest risk is making tequila differently," Real says. "I think it's choosing to let every batch be different."

Natural fermentation, hand crushing, and a wood fire all depend on temperature, humidity, and the agave itself. The team repeats the same timing at every stage. It manages the distillation cuts carefully to keep the profile in balance.

But no two batches will match exactly. Real accepts that.

That approach has a cost. Arriesgado makes less tequila than it could. "We would rather make less and stay true to what Arriesgado is than change the process just to make more," Real says.

The barrel aging, like all things Arriesgado, is unusual.

Most tequila brands age their reposado and añejo in the same kind of barrel. The añejo is essentially an older reposado. The same barrel can produce a reposado and an añejo that taste very different, simply because of time.

Arriesgado ensures that difference is profound by using different oak for each.

That makes them two different tequilas, not one tequila at two ages.

"The Reposado and Añejo ended up being matured in those different types of oak almost by accident," Real says. "But when we tasted them, we realized that the profiles worked really well that way, so instead of changing it, we decided to keep it." And the tequila that became the first-edition Añejo: that initial batch of smoky blanco. The 16 months in oak smoothed and harmonized it.

Arriesgado Blanco (typically 48% ABV, $69.99)

Our reviewers scored the Arriesgado Blanco an 89.

On the nose: sweet smokiness and cooked agave, with herbs, green apple, pear, and minerals.

On the palate: cinnamon, black pepper, and baking spices, with an oily, medium-weight texture. Anise and peppermint close it out.

Arriesgado Reposado (typically 47% ABV, $79.99)

Arriesgado describes butter, agave honey, caramel, olive, and menthol on the nose. On the palate, the brand lists vanilla, oak, citrus, and a floral note of jasmine, with a spicy finish. Depth, not sweetness.

Arriesgado Añejo (typically 45% ABV, $99.99)

Before filling the Añejo's barrels, the team rubs the inside of the staves with chopped agave leaves and agave juice, another very unusual step.

Our reviewers scored the Arriesgado Añejo an 89.

On the nose: citrus, light smoke, and dried fruit.

On the palate: vanilla, caramel, cinnamon, and spice, with sweet cooked agave front and center. The finish is long, with cooked agave and baking spices.

Drinkers are often surprised when they learn that all Arriesgado expressions are high proof, between 45% and 48% ABV. Real says, "despite being a high-proof tequila, it can be very balanced and surprisingly smooth on the palate."

Arriesgado launched nationally in the United States this year. Real says that changed the family "not only as a company, but also as people."

"I started noticing how much people appreciate the story behind a bottle, the process, the craftsmanship, and even the smallest details," he says. "It made me realize that consumers aren't only buying tequila, they're connecting with everything behind it."

That's why the family is building tourism into the brand. They want people to come to Amatitán. To see the canoa, smell the oven, and watch the mallets work.

Editor’s Note: I’ve been twice to this facility and it’s an exceptional adventure, and well worth visiting on a trip to Jalisco to visit distilleries.

Mariana Relaz is Arriesgado's head of international business. She grew up as the daughter of a jimador, an agave harvester. Her father brought cooked agave home and called it "dulce." She ate it like candy.

She compares visiting the distillery to hearing a new song from your favorite artist, then watching a documentary about how it was made.

"After learning the story, you listen to the song differently," she says. "When you see the process, the tequila bottle stops being just a bottle."

Real, meanwhile, is still experimenting. He's testing stills made from materials other than copper. "That's the risky part," he says. "You don't always know where the experimentation is going to take you."

His father found that out behind the wheel of an agave truck. His son is finding it out with a wooden mallet.

Arriesgado is a presenting partner of The Tequila Report