Tequila Distinguido 170 Years in the Making!
YEEEEEEE HAAAWWWW!!! IT'S RODEO TIME IN THE GREAT CITY OF HOUSTON!!! AND ALONG WITH IT COMES GOOD TIMES GOOD FOOD AND PLENTY OF TEQUILA DISTINGUIDO!! LIVIN THE HUSTLE parties with the world famous BBQ CHAMPIONS TEXAS SOCIAL CLUB and the party goes TEXAS STYLE HARD!!! Check out how the combination of good food and TEQUILA DISTINGUIDO keeps the party going!!! Emperial Americas, Inc will have their very first Texas sized party as a PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANY on the 23rd!
Video here
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The rich "History" of the Contreras Tequila Distinguido:
http://www.tequiladistinguido.com/home/history/history.html »
"Distingushed"
Don José Trinidad Contreras DISTINGUISHED himself "jimando maguey", (cutting the branches of the pita), in his early years, around 1840, in the area known as Hill of "Las granjenas and soyates", where in 1845 he founded the town Valle de Mazamitla, nowadays known as Valle de Juárez. In said place it was established the first vineyard which is remembered in the region.
The oral tradition of the Contreras's family for the preparation of "tequila" has been kept as a jewel, polished with work, customs and the DISTINCIÓN of its process, which is characterized by fermenting mountain green maguey, better known as rough mescal, which afterwards is boiled in ovens underground, followed by its crushing with red Holm oak beats and finally, fermented in white oak barrels.
At the beginning, tequila was distilled in clay pottery, passed through a clay pipe, exiting through a tube of reed into a pitcher, and with the assistance of a clay vase, the alcohol level was measured, beating the tequila with pine's bush, until obtaining the pearl of the froth.
Don José Trinidad used to sell his tequila in the roads reaching Cotija, Michoacán to the west; to Tamazula, Jalisco to the east; and Tizapan, Jalisco to the north.
Those were harsh times, of town-thieves and road-burglars, those were times of "haciendas", scattered ranches, overprotected rich, the poor sheltered by prayers that demanded pity and protection against the assaults. In this atmosphere surges the production of tequila at Valle de Mazamitla, during the century when the Independence of Mexico and its perspective as a country was being resolved.
José Trinidad Contreras was not only one of the first producers of tequila in the region, but he also donated the land where the town was founded, he was hope and faith for the ranchers. Since 1841, he used to get a priest form time to time for the people to be able to go to Mass and to render their confessions. The town Valle de Mazamitla was getting prepared for its foundation as well as the construction of the first chapel, financed at the beginning by the charities gained form the sales of tequila.
During the second half of the XIX Century in Valle de Mazamitla, together with the production of tequila as part of the productive life of the town, Don José Trinidad Contreras also contributed with the production of cheese, butter, sale of harnesses, sandals, hoes and capes, by means of his sons Jesús, Felipe, Trino and Pascual, who supported him in his labors and maintenance of 11 children.
The tradition of producing tequila was developed by his sons Jesús and Trino, reaching then the following century, founding a brother's company where one of them produced and the other one sold. They kept working at their home and on the road always carrying a gun to maintain order and to be able to go persecute burglars. They had a great number of employees and extensions of land as well.
Men of principles and silent walking, of few words and many facts, rigid Catholics, rosary prayerful people, business administrators and teachers of the purchase and sale business to their lineage, to their sons and sons-in-law; and as for the women, they were dedicated to the house labors and raising of children.
Around 1895, J. Jesús Contreras besides being a tequila producer, became the politic commissary and the promoter for the foundation of the municipality of Valle de Mazamitla, Jalisco, which took place that same year. Likewise, he organized the municipality's holiday with a kermess at the public square.
Kermesses were always the most popular and highly attended holidays for people from the neighbor ranches. There were rich people, well-bred horses and guns in the hands of the wealthy. For the poor, the public square created an environment of freedom as well as a distinction with the rich. The only thing that made rich and poor equal was the consumption of the same tequila, produced by Don J. Jesús Contreras. Don Jesús used to say: "the only DISTINGUISHED is my tequila, which cheers up, dazes and is remembered the next day".
Such were times when the living was, a large family, some cattle as a home, pork, hens, corn, beans, plain clothing, work from dawn till dusk, Sunday Mass, pistol in belt, a house according to the social level, respect for the law and fear to God. Everything was as common as breathing, everything as necessary as faith, and everything as irreplaceable, traditional and DISTINGUISHED as tequila.
The Valle de Mazamitla region was crossed by several roads through which Trino Contreras, Jesús’ brother traveled every six months using two shortcuts with 60 mules in each one to sell the tequila they've produced in small factories at "Barraca del Pozole", "Barranca Agua Fría" near their town and "Barranca de La Lagunita". He was a good tequila salesman and even better consumer. He used to sell and buy different products, traveling north to Mazatlan and returning to his land with a load of gold and silver to be buried. This took place around 1920.
Trino Contreras was the best and the greatest muleteer, the best tequila exporter beyond his nearest neighbors. He lived in la Lagunita where he also stored tequila in white oak barrels, cut in the hill Tigre; bottled in demijohn made of blown-glass, protected by leather, palm matting, "ixtle" sacks and reed. He measured the gold in quarters of pounds; he had a rifle on his shoulder, two pistols stuck in his belt, a knife and a hunting rifle, a demijohn of tequila for his personal use and a very good vision to make business.
The uproar from the rifles started on one side of San José de García, Michoacán, during the Christian rebellion around 1927. The new producers of tequila, Pánfilo and Simón Contreras, Jesús’ sons, stopped producing tequila and took part in the squabble of shooting and hunger in spite his father and uncle Trino's scolding, who had nothing else to sell. He took a time off and dedicated his time to observe the Cristo Rey protectors.
Not only tequila was scarce for a while, but also corn, beans and cattle. Men who had Christ in their minds were using up the resources; those were men searching for salvation instead of land and money. They wanted to be martyrs, idols and saints. They wanted to defend God with tequila on their bellies and old weapons.
In 1930, the new tequila generation Pánfilo and Simón Contreras, tired from the skirmish on the hills went back to their ravines to continue producing tequila. The disturbance was near to its end. Pánfilo's wife was cuddling a future tequila salesman named José. The town defendants were about to give up their posts, they were waiting to fight the Christians, but they never appeared, it was worst to deal with sun and boredom.
The tequila world was modified in 1930, when the legal circulation stopped for gold and silver coins; it was not going to be easy to save money. By this time, tequila had given to the town of Valle de Juarez its first radio, calibrator of bullets, as well as a great deal of drunkenness everyday. The first bus arrived three years later.
By 1940 the vineyards kept using clay pottery, the "tuba" was placed in wells coated with cement, Pánfilo Contreras crushed the maguey with a wheel made of stone and pulled by an ox; the "pasamieles", tool used to measure the amount sugar; fermentation was checked by smelling; the hydrometer, tool used to measure the alcohol level; the escoberilla de guinumo (pine's bush) tradition by several centuries and white oak barrels. That was indeed fine liquor; people got drunk gladly and woke up the next morning famished. Pánfilo Contreras and Pomposo Chávez, his father-in-law, gave a good name to their tequila.
In 1952, the family of Rogelio Godínez, who became Pánfilo Contreras' son-in-law after marrying his daughter Josefina joined efforts in the production of tequila as well as merged Rancho de Las Agujas and El Rodeo in the municipality of Quitupan, Jalisco and jointly began the sale of tequila.
Pánfilo Contreras Torres tried the tequila business in different places; La Barca, Teocuitatlan de Corona, and finally ends up in his land, establishing a vineyard at the bottom of Barranca de Agua Fría, in Valle de Juarez, where he decided that his sons José, Juan and Trino will work in the business. They were in charge for a long time and after a while Trino decided to be independent and started his own business.
Time passed by and during the construction of new roads and the reinforcement of tequila traditions, Adán Contreras Zepeda, who married Guadalupe, Pánfilo's daughter, recovered from his father-in-law's father the name "DISTINGUISHED" for the tequila. He established his company in the traditional place of Barranca de Agua Fría, buying the land from his father-in-law and giving a great impulse to the tequila commercialization in the region.
Modernization lowered costs, modified production tradition, the processing of tequila plants were transformed into distilleries of stainless steel, with higher purity levels, due to the worldwide commercialization needs. They increased the production according to the market needs and with the capacity provided by new pita production.
Nowadays, in 2003, the descendants of the Contreras family taking advantage of the wisdom and experience of Don José, merging this with experience, state of the art technology on producing tequila, and uniting that quality with globalization the decision was made on producing a product that distinguishes our family over what anybody else could offer, that is how the name Tequila Distinguido emerged, based on family, a family that has always been DISTINGUISHED on how they behave and do things with tequila.
