I have to be honest with you, tequila was never my jam. In college, there was too much of it, there was usually a worm involved and the smell just made me gag. It also causes a weird side effect for me. It makes me go all vampire on people and try to bite anyone within a two-feet radius. It's not pretty.
However, in recent years, everyone I know has started drinking it - but on another level. Not as a cheap mixer for a margarita, or as a slammer ("lick it, drink it, suck it"), but as a high-end liquor on its own, often without lime. I was confused. "But it's so awful," I said to my friend in Los Angeles.
"Try it," he said, offering me some 49-month, barrel-aged tequila. I took a deep breath, steeled my stomach and... it was delicious. Like scotch. I was considering converting when an invite to the Herradura Tequila Factory in Amatitan, Mexico came through.
"Sign me up!" I said and a week later there I was at the distillery (housed in an old school hacienda) in the agave fields surrounding the Amatitan Mountains.
The Herradura hacienda has been run by the same family for 184 years and is the perfect blend of old school and new technology. My guide, Ruben Aceves, hoisted me on a horse and we rode out to the agave fields, where I started my "How To Make Tequila in Six Steps."
"It's easy," Ruben said.
Ruben is a liar.
To Learn how to make Tequila - or, How to do the Tequila Work Out of Your Life, Click HERE