Tequila: A Guide to Types, Flights, Cocktails, and Bites [A Recipe Book] - Hardcover

Weir, Joanne

 
9781580089494: Tequila: A Guide to Types, Flights, Cocktails, and Bites [A Recipe Book]
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1580089496 ISBN 13: 9781580089494
Verlag: Ten Speed Press, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

The New Tequila

Tequila has come a long way since the days of salt, shot, lime, repeat. With tequila consumption on the rise, people are choosing tequila on more occasions, experimenting with new labels, and learning to appreciate the nuances of flavor. TEQUILA is an all-in-one reference for the top-shelf tequila connoisseur, with chapters on the history and lore of tequila, insight into how tequila is made, an exploration of the agave fields of Jalisco, and a drinker’s guide to the four types of tequila: blanco, reposado, añejo, and extra añejo.

James Beard Award—winning author and chef Joanne Weir takes tequila beyond the margarita (although she opens the book with the very best margarita recipe) to a wide range of drink and food recipes. TEQUILA features more than 35 cocktails from her own repertoire, as well as contributions from some of the top tequila bar-tenders in the country, including classics like the Sangrita and La Batanga and novel variations like the Cable Car No. 2 and the Surly Temple. Weir also presents more than 20 tequila-infused sides, mains, and desserts, from Gazpacho with Drunken Prawns to Bay Scallop Ceviche to Tequilamisu.

Join a new generation of aficionados for a celebration of the agave plant’s most spirited and fiery creation, along with new and innovative ways to appreciate tequila.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

JOANNE WEIR is an award-winning food writer, cooking teacher, television host, and professional chef based in San Francisco, California. She is the author of seventeen cookbooks, including the James Beard Award—winning Weir Cooking in the City and the James Beard Award—nominated From Tapas to Meze.

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A Drinker's Guide

TALKING ABOUT TEQUILA without talking about the agave plant would be like talking about wine without discussing grapes. Unlike other distilled spirits, tequila doesn't come from a grain, nut, fruit, or vegetable. It is made from the blue agave plant, and its history hinges on the discovery and cultivation of this unique succulent. Blue agave, which thrives in the gentle hills of central Mexico, is often mistakenly believed to be part of the cactus clan, and its spiky, blue-green cactuslike leaves make this assumption understandable. But it is actually related to the lily family and to some aloe plants.

Of the approximately 136 varieties of agave grown in Mexico, the blue agave is the most prized. In 1753, Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus classified the plant Agave tequilana, naming it after the Greek word agavos, meaning "illustrious," an apt description for such a magnificent and noble plant. In 1902, botanist Franz Weber categorized the species of agave for tequila making, naming it A. tequilana Weber var. azul. The origin of the word "tequila" itself is a mystery. It may have come from the Nahuatl-speaking inhabitants who have long lived in the area. The ancient word téquitl means "the place of harvesting plants," "the place of wild herbs," "place where they cut," "the place of work," or even "the place of tricks."

Indeed, to truly understand the history of tequila, one must go back thousands of years, to when the agave plant, or maguey, was much revered. The sap, also known as agave nectar or aguamiel (honey water), was fermented to produce a thick, white, mildly alcoholic drink with about 3 to 4 percent alcohol. The drink, called pulque, was considered a gift from the gods. The great civilizations of the Americas used it for several things: as an intoxicant for priests to increase their enthusiasm for sacrifice, as a relaxant for sacrificial victims, as a medicine for a variety of ailments, and as a libation to celebrate brave feats. The Aztecs attached such importance to the maguey that they even named one of their divinities Mayahuel, a goddess of fertility who was often depicted nursing babies with pulque from her many breasts while seated inside a maguey plant. Then, five centuries ago, the face of tequila changed.

Early in the sixteenth century, the invading Spanish recognized the potential of the agave plant. They tended to drink alcoholic beverages with their meals instead of water, which could be contaminated with disease-causing bacteria. Seeing that agave could produce a mildly alcoholic beverage, they concluded that perhaps it could be used to make something even more potent. The conquistadors, who had carried their copper distilling pots with them, applied their knowledge of alembic distillation to pulque, thereby bringing it one step closer to the tequila we know today.

In 1595, Phillip II banned the planting of grapevines in Mexico in an effort to keep the flow of Spanish wine and brandy coming into Mexico. For some reason, he didn't particularly care about agave. Five years later, Don Pedro Sánchez de Tagle, known as the Father of Tequila, took advantage of this loophole, cultivating agave and establishing the first tequila factory, in Jalisco. The product he made, called vino de mezcal or mezcal tequila (commonly spelled "mescal" in the United States), a rough-edged liquor fashioned from a variety of different agave species, was the first distilled spirit made in the Americas.

Early distilleries were located way out in the countryside in the agave fields, and since drinking glasses generally weren't available where mezcal was being made, it was initially served in the hollowed-out tip of a bull's horn, called a cuernito or caballito. Due to the limited supply of horns, the vessel was passed from one drinker to another. Because it was impossible to set the horn down without it falling over, shots were thrown back before the horn was passed along to the next drinker. Thus began the tradition of drinking of shots of mezcal and, later, tequila.

In 1636, Don Juan Canseco y Quiñones enabled tax collection on mezcal production by authorizing the distillation and manufacture of the spirit. Then, in 1785, due to the dramatic drop in sales of Spanish wines and brandy, the production of all spirits, including mezcal and pulque, was banned by Spain's Charles III. Officially, production was halted, but of course the manufacture of spirits continued underground. In 1792, new king Ferdinand IV thought that taxing the product would be a better way to control it, so mezcal was once again made legal. And the industry was reborn!

During the period from 1810 to 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain through the War of Independence. In the mid-1830s, Mexico tried to retake the province of Texas. Remember the Alamo? The Mexican army might have lost that battle, but in the process it introduced Mexican food, culture, and mezcal to the victors. Wagonloads of mezcal commonly followed the troops and soon became popular on both sides of the conflict.

During the U.S. Civil War, there was a serious shortage of American whiskey and moonshine. Smart tequila vendors from Mexico saw this as an opportunity to cross the Rio Grande and sell their mezcal to American soldiers. While they were in the United States, they picked up discarded whiskey barrels that were left over from making moonshine and took them back to Mexico, thinking that they would be perfect for storing mezcal. Thus began the aging of mezcal, and later tequila, in barrels.

Tequila wasn't officially named "tequila" until 1873. Mezcal producers in the town of Tequila wanted to distinguish their mezcal made in central Mexico from mezcal made elsewhere, especially what was being manufactured in southern Mexico. So, they named it "tequila," after the town of the same name. Later that year, three barrels of legal tequila were sent to the United States and sold there-and the tequila export business was established. A few years after that, exportation of tequila got a boost from a new railroad system that linked Mexico to its neighbor to the north.

It wasn't until 1903 that the first tequila bottling plant was built and tequila began to be sold in bottles. Then, beginning in 1918, an epidemic of the Spanish flu killed tens of millions of people in the United States, Europe, and Asia over the next two years. Believe it or not, this led to a tequila boom in Mexico, as doctors told their patients to ingest tequila, lime, and salt as a flu treatment. This could have been the beginning of the ritual of drinking tequila with lime and salt. The tequila available at the time wasn't as palatable as it is today, and the lime and salt probably masked the less-than-desirable flavor.

Between 1920 and 1933, tequila sales got a boost again, this time because of Prohibition. Strict laws limiting the sale and consumption of alcohol in the United States forced Americans across the border to buy "Mexican whiskey," as they called it. Again, during World War II, when whiskey was in short supply in the United States, Americans headed over the Mexican border to buy tequila.

The first efforts to regulate tequila manufacture began in the late 1940s and culminated in the establishment of the Norma Oficial Mexicana (NOM) in the 1970s, which specified both how the spirit could be made and the source of the agave, regulations that have been revised and updated over the years. Today, tequila can only be distilled from the sap of blue agave cores, or piñas, grown in zones in five north-central states of Mexico, and it must contain at least 60 percent blue agave. The NOM regulations were followed by two actions that guaranteed international recognition: the issuance of a Denomination of Origin (DOT), specifying that the production of tequila be applied to a specific geographical area of...

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Verlag
Ten Speed Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2009
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1580089496
ISBN 13 
9781580089494
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
144
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Ten Speed Press
https://crownpublishing.com/

Attn: Andrea T Sheridan 1745 BROADWAY
New York
NY
10019
USA
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar