How do you make tequila? Can you make it easily after planting the agave?

Get agave, ferment it, distill the fermentation.

How do you make tequila? Can you make it easily after planting the agave?
Tequila is made from the blue agave plant, which is a member of the lily family. The blue agave has spiny broad leaves called pencas. Early Indians used the agave spines as sweing needles, made paper from its leaves, and used the agave's juices for medicinal purposed.





Tequila has become synonymous with the culture and heritage of Mexico. Much like Champagne and Cognac are indigenous to France, tequila is identified by the geographic region from which it originates.





Harvesting


It takes up to 8 - 12 years for a blue agave plant to mature. Jimadors, the workers who harvest agaves, are experts in blue agave cultivation. The jimadors use tools such as a coa (a steel-tipped hoe) to unroot the blue agave plant from the unique lava red soil, and a machete to cut the spiny leaves from the body of the plant to reveal a large pineapple-shaped heart called pina. The pinas, weigh upwards of 150 pounds, are then shipped to a distillery to begin the quila-making process.





Selection


Most tequila producers contract with area farmers and buy agaves in the spot market. Agaves grown outside the distillery undergo a rigorous process that ensures the maturity, weight and quality of these in as meet the high standards of the distilleries. If rejected, the agaves may then returned to either the commissioned farmers or the spot market.


(Picture on the right: Tequila producers at Jose Cuervo)





Cooking


The pinas, which are comprised of pure starch, are steamed in stone ovens for about 24 - 36 hours at tempretures reaching 80 - 95 degree Celsius. A raw pina has a pale yellow colour and is virtually odorless. In comparison, a cooked pina possesses a brown-orange colour and emits a sweet, candy-like scent. Cooked pinas are then crushed in three pressing mills in order to extract the agave juice. Agave fibers tend to reabsorb much of the juice, so the fibers are washed in order to obtain the optimal amount of juice from each press. The result of the wash is called aguamiel or honey water.





Fermentation


The aguamiel (honey water) is combined with select yeasts and placed in a vat to ferment, resulting in a veriety of by-products that include alcohol and methanol. The fermentation process is dependent upon climate. A cooler climate can lengthen the processing time to up to 12 days whereas a warmer climate can shorten the time from two to five days.





Aging


According to Mexican law, distilled tequila must be aed in oak barrels. The youngest blanco (white) tequilas, must be aged for 14 - 21 days, and oro (gold) tequilas are aged up to two months, Reposado (rested) tequilas are aged up to one year and the oldes tequilas, anejos (aged), are aged for at least one year. Unlike other spirits, tequila aging process ia maximized after roughly 6 - 10 years.








While several species of the agave plant can be fermented and distilled to make alcoholic beverages, only the Abave azul tequilana weber, commonly called the Agave azul or blue agave, can be used to make tequila. Due to a unique combination of altitude, soil conditions, humidity, annual rainfall, average temperature and exposure to the sun, southwest Mexico is the only known place in the world where Abave azul (or blue agave) rows naturally.





Tequila is made by cutting away the spiny leaves from the body of the plant to reveal a large pineapple-shaped heart called pina, which can weigh up to 150 pounds. The inas are backed in stone ovens and then placed in a crushing mill. The crushed fibers are repeatedly washed in order to extract the plants' sugar. The result is called aguamiel or honey water. This honey water is then fermented with select yeart, and later double-distilled to make tequila.
Reply:you make it from the roots of the agave, and it needs to grow some years from the time you plant it before you can dig it up and destroy a beautiful planting to make rotgut!!