Tequila

Today was not an art day, but it was pretty interesting. We took a bus tour to the town of Tequila, here in Mexico near Guadalajara. We visited two tequila factories: the newest, Tres Mujeres, which is concentrating on organic 100%-agave tequila; and José Cuervo, which everyone has heard of, which is the oldest and largest factory. I don't like alcohol much, so the tasting sessions were rather wasted on me (so to speak), but a lot of other people loved that aspect of the tour! I did participate in most of the tastings (miniscule amounts) but really, even the smallest taste just makes me grimace violently and flap and wave my hands about.

We did eat some agave "meat" raw. It looks a lot like tough coconut meat but has almost no flavor at all. We also tasted agave after it had been in the steaming oven for a few days--that's the first thing done to it on the way to turning it into tequila. At that point (having been in a massive, deadly-hot sauna for a few days), it was kind of sweet and oily and a brownish color, and tasted a bit like a potent, fibrous yam.

The guy sniffing the vat in the pic and standing up against the wall is The Husband. Tell me, doesn't he look cute in the hairnet we all had to wear (verrrrrry attractive it made all of us, I tell you)?  I can't decide if he looks more like a rapper or like he's waiting to be attended to at a hair salon.