What You'll Learn:
How Colin Edwards stumbled into a jungle distillery that spawned the recipe.
How Don Chico keeps the Cazcanes innovation train rolling.
Why Cazcanes makes three different blanco ABVs.
What the spice rack at NOM 1614 is and why it changes every aged bottle.
Why Cazcanes trucks in their water from hours away
The story everyone tells about Cazcanes starts in a jungle. The story is true. What is missing from most retellings is how badly the trip that led there was going.
Colin Edwards works as a Hollywood key grip with enough seniority that he can leave a film mid-production, hand off to a sub, and disappear to Mexico for a week. On his property near Lake Isabella, California, he has run a backyard still for more than a decade, making whiskey for friends and gin for family. He also has a vineyard. On the side he collaborates on beer styles. He is fixated on flavor.
In 2015, Edwards went to Jalisco to apply that same focus on agave. How are agave spirits made? Where does the flavor come from? That was the quest.
The quest was a bust. Edwards visited many different distilleries, inquiring about tequila. Each handed him a fact sheet. Blanco or reposado. Vanilla or caramel. Nobody wanted to talk about agave maturity, fermentation, or where the water came from. He was a buyer to them, not a student, and the contracted tequila business in 2015 was very buyer-focused.
Ater a series of dead ends, Edwards stopped to eat at a taco stand in the town of Magdalena with his guide Jose Santillán, a guide (and now partner in the brand) who grew up in Hostotipaquillo, northwest of Guadalajara. They were lamenting about not finding tequila magic at the distilleries they’d visited. The man behind the counter knew a moonshiner named Humberto Alvarado, who ran a small jungle distillery nearly 15 kilometers off the road outside the town of Tequila.
The next morning, Edwards was at Alvarado's still. He stayed for the better part of a year.
Humberto Alvarado. Photo courtesy of Cazcanes
What he found there was not a tour. It was a craft operation on the most personal possible scale. A six-cylinder Chevy engine, hand-rigged, shredding agave. A small autoclave run by feel. A natural spring running through the property provided the water.
Alvarado walked Edwards through agave maturity, brix, fermentation, and the cuts. Edwards still has his hand-drawn notes from those sessions, sketches of the gauges Alvarado was watching while the still ran. The first finished recipe Edwards liked was a 100-proof blanco. That recipe is what today’s Cazcanes No. 9 Blanco mimics.
When Edwards finally left, he was carrying a glass jug of tequila in his suitcase and an inspiration for a new brand.
Who Is Don Chico and Why is He the Hidden Secret of Cazcanes?
Alvarado did not want to make agave spirits at scale, and could not create a CRT-certified tequila at his rustic facility. For Edwards to build a brand, he would have to bring the jungle methods to modern production, while maintaining the untamed flavor and spirit that were (and are) Alvarado’s signature.
That is when they found Don Chico.
Francisco Jiménez Lazcarro (aka Don Chico) had been a master distiller in Jalisco for almost four decades when he collided with Cazcanes. When the brand needed a CRT-certified facility to legally produce and export, the team landed at the distillery where Don Chico was making spirits. Alvarado and Don Chico worked to adapt the jungle recipe to modern distillation techniques, setting in motion the Cazcanes style of tequila production.
Francisco (Chico) Jiménez Lazcarro. Photo courtesy of Cazcanes
In 2022, Cazcanes moved its production to Tequilera Tap (NOM 1614) in Amatitán, a larger and more modern facility able to accommodate the brand's growth. Don Chico came along, and is an equity holder in the company. Today, no Cazanes leaves NOM 1614 unless Edwards and Don Chico both sign off on the flavor.
Why Does Cazcanes Make Three Different Blanco ABVs?
Most brands launch one blanco. Cazcanes launched three.
The numbers come from the recipe sheets Edwards and Alvarado were writing in the jungle. Each test recipe got a number. The ninth one was the one that became the brand’s foundation. Kevin Newman, the Santa Monica designer behind the bird on the Grey Goose bottle and Cazcanes’ packaging, named the expression for the recipe number. The pitch was, "Have you heard of Chanel No. 5?"
No. 9 Blanco was released first, at 50% ABV. It features sweet cooked agave, floral notes, and a subtle minerality. $74.99
No. 10 Still Strength followed at Edwards' insistence. No water added. 54% ABV, and $84.99. Clean and earthy, with sweet agave, black pepper, bright citrus, and anise.
No. 7 Blanco came last, after Dolgopyat fought Edwards to bottle an 80-proof version for drinkers who needed an easier entry point to the brand. It is now the second-best-selling expression in the brand, behind only the reposado. At $64.99, it’s a crisp and vibrant profile with pronounced notes of citrus, sweet agave, and just a hint of black pepper.
The case for three proof points on a single liquid is that proof changes everything. At 80, the agave is approachable. At 100, the texture and spice come forward. At 108, every decision Edwards and Don Chico made in the distillery comes alive. Cazcanes did not want to choose for the consumer so the brand built all three and let the customer find their level.
Why The Water Makes a Huge Difference for Cazcanes
Tequila contains a lot of water. And most brands use whatever well, river, or municipal source is onsite. In fact, many distilleries are sited adjacent to a water source, for that reason.
But for every Cazcanes production run, all the water is tankered in. It does not come from the municipal supply at NOM 1614. It does not come from a generic Highlands well. It comes from Navichi Spring in the town of Hostotipaquillo, a nearly three-hour haul from the distillery.
Hostotipaquillo, Jalisco Mexico. Photo courtesy of Cazcanes
The spring runs through the center of town. Since 2020, Cazcanes has the rights to pull an allocation from the spring before the water reaches the municipal system.
The reason that water matters is the reason Edwards caught onto it in the first place. Alvarado's jungle distillery had a natural spring running through it. During Edwards's year there, he watched the water move through the still and the fermenter and the cuts, and he started to understand how central it was to the flavor of the finished tequila.
Cazcanes cannot replicate Hostotipaquillo’s volcanic, high-minerals spring water somewhere else, so the team moves the water instead.
Cazcanes partner Jose Santillán is from the town. His parents still live there. Now the water partnership funds an English-language school in the area, and Cazcanes sponsors local youth soccer, baseball, and volleyball teams, among other community efforts.
What Is the Cazcanes Spice Rack?
Cazcanes is aged in ex-bourbon barrels that the team scrapes, sands, and re-chars to its own specifications, in three char levels: light, medium, and heavy. Every barrel is hand-selected at the cooperage before it ever arrives at the distillery. The team has rejected enough bad barrels over the years to know that quality control has to start at the source.
Rebuilding barrels at NOM 1614. Photo courtesy of Cazcanes
Edwards keeps notes on every barrel, down to the barrel number, and revisits each barrel every thirty to ninety days. When the team needs to build a 2,000-case reposado blend, that is roughly forty finished barrels pulled from a much larger candidate pool that Edwards tastes through over six or seven days onsite.
The “spice rack” holds the whole approach together. At the distillery, Cazcanes built two sections of pallet racking, one on each side of the barrel room, dedicated to Cazcanes and stocked with barrels of various chars. When Edwards finishes a blend and tastes something missing, he goes to the spice rack. If the blend needs more citrus, he pulls from the light char. If it is reading too hot, he pulls from medium or heavy chars to round it. If sweetness is short, the spice rack provides it. If the color is off, the spice rack tweaks it.
This is what additive-free actually looks like at production scale. The brand cannot reach for glycerin to round an edge, syrup to add sweetness, or caramel to add color. It is closer to how a blended Scotch is built than to how most tequila is finished.
What Does the Cazcanes Aged Lineup Taste Like?
The blancos explain the recipe. The aged expressions explain the philosophy of age to taste, not time.
No. 7 Reposado. The best-selling bottle in the lineup and the clearest demonstration of the spice rack at work. 40% ABV at $89.99. A long, silky finish with sweet agave, delicate caramel, vanilla, and warm spice. No two batches are identical, because the blend is rebuilt every time from fresh barrels Edwards tastes through.
No. 7 Joven. The blanco with aged expressions added to the party. 40% ABV at $99.99. Vanilla, toasted coconut, baked apple, citrus, and caramel. Delicious.
No. 7 Añejo. 40% ABV at $129.99. Velvety and rich, with layers of cooked agave, dark chocolate, vanilla, and caramelized toffee. The oak is integrated rather than imposed.
No. 7 Extra Añejo. The top of the core lineup. 40% ABV at $199.99. Cooked agave, honey, apple pie, warm cinnamon, coconut, and toffee, balanced by subtle oak and soft vanilla.
No. 9 High Proof Rosa Blanco. One of the few high-proof rosas on the market. Wine barrels are used when fresh and wet, not re-charred, which keeps the wine's voice noticeable across 31 days of resting. 50% ABV at $104.99. Long, velvety finish with bright agave, citrus zest, and delicate hints of caramel, dark chocolate, ripe fruit, and a touch of warm spice.
No. 9 High Proof Rosa Reposado. The rosa concept on the reposado base, at the same 50% ABV at $124.99. Aged 82 days, producing a long, elegant finish with cherries, toasted almonds, vanilla, subtle red fruit, oak spice, and a hint of dry tannins.
Nuestras Raíces. “Our Roots” - The first-ever bottle to receive a perfect 100-point score from Wine Enthusiast. 46% ABV, $109.99. Built without compromise to mimic Alvarado’s original jungle recipe. A very different batch two is on the way soon.
What Is the No. 10 Extra Añejo 10-Year Anniversary Release?
This fall, Cazcanes is bottling a No. 10 Extra Añejo at still strength to mark a decade since the brand name was trademarked in 2016. The team is making exactly 3,650 bottles, (365 days times 10 years). Each box ships with a limited-edition anniversary coin, two glasses, and a certificate of authenticity. The release is targeted for October into early November.
It is the one and only time Cazcanes will ever produce this expression.
How Did Cazcanes Grow So Quickly, and What’s Next?
One of the fastest-growing craft tequila brands of the past three years, Cazcanes feels like it “came out of nowhere” but its beginnings as a brand are modest, at best.
Edwin Dolgopyat is now CEO of the brand, and when he came into Cazcanes in early 2020, the brand was truly unknown. Then COVID hit. All bar and restaurant sales vanished.
Dolgopyat sold Cazcanes out of a backpack in Los Angeles, one or two bottles at a time. What was supposed to be a temporary task helping his friends with Cazcanes turned into his own quest to grow the brand. He traveled to Mexico more than a dozen times in 18 months, visiting distilleries from the Highlands to the Valley to understand where Cazcanes actually fit in the tequila world.
He came back convinced that what Cazcanes was doing was different enough to taste in the glass. He just needed people to pay attention.
Dolgopyat is an experienced entrepreneur and marketer, and began connecting with the then-nascent group of tequila content creators on Instagram and TikTok to introduce Cazcanes. With no traditional marketing, Cazcanes became a well-known brand within the craft tequila community by using content creators - including Wayne Cafariella, now a national brand ambassador - to explain the tequila to consumers.
It’s the same educational role retailers and bartenders play, but instead of in a store or bar the conversation happens in social media.
Cazcanes does a lot of things most brands don’t do: proprietary water, re-charred barrels, spice rack, three different Blancos. But they do it all with intention.
Cazcanes is a partner of The Tequila Report.
About the Author
Jay Baer has spent 30+ years studying tequila and agave spirits. He is the co-founder and editor of The Tequila Report. Jay is also the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, a Hall of Fame keynote speaker, and has spent three decades building and advising brands.
In addition to The Tequila Report, Jay and his business partner, Maddie Jager, are co-founders of Slingshot, an invitation-only community of emerging tequila brands. Jay lives in Bloomington, Indiana and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
You can find him on Instagram.
