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The
Lake Chapala Society sponsored a July 4th trip to the town of
Amatitlan , near the town of Tequila and home of the
Tres Mujeres Tequileria. Since it allowed us to go and return in plenty of time to care for our doggie, we jumped at the chance. We left from La Floresta in Ajijic. The one way trip took roughly an hour and a half in a big multi-passenger van. On the way, we saw a lot of fields planted in agave which is the plant Tequila is made from. Agave takes seven years to grow to maturity and when it flowers, it signals that it is time to harvest. The flower shoots up on a stem that is 20 - 30 feet high, and it dies soon after flowering, so time is of the essence.
We arrived at the Tres Mujeres Distillery and met our guide (who appeared to not be old enough to drink). His name was Angel (Pronounced AHNhell, even though he gave us the English pronunciation). His English was fairly good. I wanted to take the Spanish tour because the gal doing it was MUY CALIENTE, but my wife had other ideas.
The guide took us through
Nuestro Guia
This lad named Angel was our tour guide. He is shown here holding a flower stem that announces that the agave plant is ready to be harvested. If the agave is not harvested soon after the flower stem (about 20-30 feet tall) goes to flower, the plant will die. Of course if it is harvested, it dies ANYWAY, so adios, Sr. Agave. some dilapidated machinery that I HOPE is no longer used and explained the harvesting, crushing, roasting, fermenting and distilling processes. He did NOT mention that the guy who chops the leaves off the agave plant and harvests the pineapple (hereafter known as La Piña) is called
el jimador , and the flat shovel-like instrument he uses to harvest is called
la coa. We proceeded through the tour to the CAVA (the cave) where barrels of Tequila are
"rested," and
aged. If you take this tour, be sure to bring a flashlight for use inside the dark cavern. This is also where the first three of six tastings are done. We got a little talk about the several types of Tequila produced here, from
Blanco to
Extra Añejo Dark. The Extra Añejo Dark was 1450 pesos for 750ml. We got to taste all of them. I have a bottle of Herradura Reposado and I have to admit I could not tell ANY difference between Tres Mujeres Reposado and Herradura. Both pretty good.
We left the cave and went directly to La Capilla (The Chapel). Rose made it a point to check for her son, David, to see if they did destination weddings
(and they do!).
Hint, David, HINT! The chapel is very nice with seating made of used barrels. After that, we had a Mexican lunch. The food and drink was very good but fighting with the flies was not. Pesky little SOBs.
By this time, the tour is almost done. We went to the reception area where a lot of folk in our group broke out the credit cards and got busy. We just bought a bottle of
Rompope (kind of like eggnog) (150 pesos at the distillery)to use as creamer in our morning coffee. Start the day with a shot! The ride home was uneventful, and a lot of folks were snoozing (except for one BOCA GRANDE, you know who you are!), AND WE ARRIVED HOME SAFELY
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