Remember that time you got fucked up on tequila and pashed that boofhead from Gladstone? Maybe you don't, but we do. Don't deny it. You were messy as fuck. It doesn't have to be like that now, though. Tequila's changed... Wait, wait, wait, no it hasn't. But you have. Haven't you? You messy little monkey.
There's been a bit of an influx of proper Mexican style food and beverage getting itself all up in the cities of late. A whole brood of trippers have been buzzing around the bottom end of North America in search of the real enchilada, and they've brought a bit of that hot sauce back to the glass frontages of Australian towns to try and turn a quid or two.
Don't get me wrong, this can only be a good thing. It wasn't so long ago that the only 'Mexican' you could find in Australia spoke in a borderline racist faux-Mexican accent on the TV and came in a yellow box at the supermarket. We're now coming around to the idea that tacos don't come with a crunchy shell and that nachos are pretty much a Frankensteinian Texasisation that don't really exist south of the border. And beneath this awareness lurks another embarrassing truth: that nasty tequila that left you piss-panted in the gutter outside that 21st in Mandurah isn't really the stuff the Mexicans drink.
Australian tequila maker/importer Nick Reid knows what the Mexicans drink. Studying in Mexico a while back he was introduced to the drop and fell in love (he also met his future wife over there, but that's another story). He and a couple of mates are now producing their own brand, Tequila Tromba, and schooling Australians on their beloved tipple.
He dispels a couple of myths about the drink. “There will never be a worm in a bottle of tequila,” he says – apparently it only exists in tequila's cousin mescal, and the practice is some hangover from the US prohibition years. Unfortunately, you can't trip out from tequila, so it's no excuse for that time you got busted smashing letterboxes in Wodonga: “[It's] the only spirit which is a stimulant and not a depressant; it may be along the lines of that. Maybe if you drank a couple of bottles of it, you'd feel pretty ordinary the next day.”
Much like champagne, the name 'tequila' is bound by geographical region, or appellation of origin, in Mexico. This area is limited to five states, and means that Reid and his buddies are bound to these regions for the production of their brew. Much to their good fortune, they got a couple master tequila makers on board to get the recipe sorted.
A few years down the track and the influx of decent Mexican restaurants is making it easier for Reid and his cohorts to educate a largely non-straight spirit drinking Australian public about sipping the good stuff. 'Educating Australians about drinking?' you gasp. It's kind of about showing us how to do it properly. “When you've got a 100% agave tequila, you don't need the whole shotting thing,” says Reid. “When you lick the salt, sip on the tequila and suck on a lime, basically you're just hiding or killing off the flavour of something nasty you've just drunk. Whereas with a good quality tequila you're just trying to savour it, much like you would a good Scotch or cognac.”
There are plenty of 100% agave tequilas available in Australia. Reid reckons a good place to start with the sipping is chasing each mouthful with a mix of tomato and citrus until you get used to the flavour. Or check out a paloma: tequila, grapefruit, soda, lime and salt. “We're starting to see that people's perception of tequila is starting to change,” he says.
“Everyone had that night out where they had five shots at the end of the night then spewed and fell down the stairs and woke up and said they're never gonna drink tequila ever again. That type of tequila's called mixtos or 51% agave tequila. When they make the tequila they use half the sugars from the agave plant and then they mix it with 49% of maybe cane sugar or corn syrup... The plant takes about seven or 12 years to mature, so there's a lot of love that goes into growing the agave plant. When you drink it you wanna drink just the sugars from the agave plant, not from the cane fields.”