Tequila in US

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Clay Risen, Sipping Pretty. Tequila's popularity in the US has soared as high-end makers emphasize artisanal, pure versions. Now it’s trying to become a worldwide phenomenon. Can a Mexican export win over the Chinese?
fortune.com/tequilas-global-ambitions/

(a) Excerpts in the windows of print:

“Tequila is one of the most exciting categories in spirits,” says Diageo’s Tomlin.

“People want to understand who’s making their spirits,” says Pernod Ricard’s Kanter.

(b) Quote:

“The numbers tell it all. According to data from the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., between 2004 and 2014 total U.S. tequila sales grew 63%, decent if not blockbuster growth. But consider the super-premium level, where bottles start at around $30. In 2004, Americans bought just 513,000 cases; a decade later they purchased 2.39 million, a 365% increase. By comparison, vodka grew 51.8% overall and 143% at the super-premium level, while bourbon, the industry darling, grew just 40% overall and 282% for super-premium.

“And unlike vodka and whiskey, which are popular around the world, tequila is mostly sold in the U.S.  For the category to really hit big, it’s going to have to find a way to win over even more consumers. That may mean not just breaking out of the shots ghetto, but also making inroads in a new market with huge potential: China.


Note:
(a) “In exchange for [Old] Bushmills [distilled in Northern Ireland], Casa Cuervo, the Mexican company behind Jose Cuervo, gave Diageo its super-premium Don Julio brand, along with $408 million. To whiskey fans, the deal made no sense. At 272 years, Old Bushmills is widely considered the longest continuously operating distillery on the planet. * * * While the media have focused on the surge in consumption of vodka and, more recently, whiskey—both of which far outsell tequila—the agave-based spirit has been quietly outpacing their [vodka and whiskey] growth rates in the US market. Almost all the action is at the top end”
(i)
(A) Jose Cuervo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Cuervo
(the best selling tequila; family-owned; The first Vino Mezcal de Tequila de Jose Cuervo was made in 1795)
(B) Spanish English dictionary
* cuervo (noun masculine): "crow, raven"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cuervo
* mixto (adjective masculine; Latin mixtus): “mixed”
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mixto
* Santiago (proper name; from Latin sanctus holy, saint + Iacobus James):
"1: (biblical) [Saint] James.
2: a male given name.
3: The name of several cities in Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Galicia (Spain), and several other Spanish-speaking countries"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Santiago
* patrón (noun masculine; from Latin [noun masculine] patrōnus [protector, patron]): "boss, master, patron”
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/patrón
* piña (noun feminine; from Latin pinea): "pine cone; pineapple"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/piña
(ii)
(A) “Don Julio Tequila is named after its founder, Don Julio González-Frausto Estrada, who began distilling tequila in 1942 at age 17.”  Wikipedia  

It is a brand wholly owned by Diageo
(B) Who owned how much of Don Julio is summarized in

James Quinn, Why Diageo's Don Julio Deal Will Leave Investors Thirsty. Daily Telegraph, Nov 3, 2014.
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... estors-thirsty.html

five consecutive paragraphs:

“For Diageo, Don Julio will be coming full circle. In 1999, Seagram took control of the brand [Don Julio] from its founding family.

“A year later, in December 2000, Diageo under [its then CEO Paul] Walsh, then just three months into the job, took control of the Seagram drinks portfolio in a joint $8.15bn deal with French rival Pernod Ricard.

“The pair divided the brands between them. * * * Diageo took [among others] Don Julio [100%].

“But within three years, Walsh signed a deal with Casa Cuervo that saw the Mexican firm take control of 50pc of Don Julio.

“Now Diageo’s new CEO Ivan] Menezes wants it back, and for obvious reasons[: * * *] Diageo has focused on premium tequila brands.

choi

(b) “ ‘There’s a much greater recognition that tequila can be a sipper, not just a shooter or dropped in a margarita,’ says Bill Norris, the beverage director for the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema chain, whose venues feature dozens of premium tequilas.”
(i) shooter (drink)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooter_(drink)
(an alcoholic mixed drink that contains 30 millilitres (1.0 US fl oz) [called a ‘shot’]; generally drunk quickly, rather than being sipped)
(ii) Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamo_Drafthouse_Cinema
(founded in 1997 in Austin; The seating is arranged with rows of cabaret style tables in front of each row of seats)
(A) What does the second clause mean? If you search the chain name with images.google.com, you will see the table have variable lengths in different theaters: from a moviegoer with its own small table (like a student would have), to two sharing a bigger table, to a group using a bench-like table.
(B) The drafthouse or “draft house” (two words separated by a space) does not appear in ANY English dictionary.
(C) And the noun “draught house” is an archaic word for what modern times calls a restroom. See Talk: draft
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Talk:draught
(an out-house)

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(c) “Two decades ago almost all tequila sold in the US was mixto, or blended, from a combination of just over half agave mash and the rest sugar and flavoring chemicals, the sort of additives that give tequila its nasty reputation for leaving you with a mind-piercing headache after you down a few (or more than a few) margaritas. Tequilas like Don Julio, by contrast, are made exclusively from a single species, Weber blue agave—more expensive, but a world of difference in flavor. And though too much of any drink will leave you reeling in the morning, fans swear that 100%-agave tequilas provide a ‘cleaner’ buzz and leave them fresh the next morning. Last year, for the first time, Americans drank more 100%-agave tequila than mixto.”
(i) For the definition of Spanish word “mixto,” see (a)(i)(B).
(ii) “a single species, Weber blue agave—”
(A) Agave tequilana
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agave_tequilana
(commonly called blue agave; native to Jalisco, Mexico; The plant favors altitudes of more than 1,500 metres)
(B) Jalisco
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalisco
(section 5.1 Nomenclature and seal)
(C) Tequila, Jalisco
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tequila,_Jalisco
(Santiago de Tequila; Nahuatl Tequillan, Tecuila place of tribute)

For “Santiago,” see (a)9i)(B).
(D) Weber who?

Lucinda Hutson, Viva Tequila!; Cocktails, cooking, and other agave adventures. University of Texas Press, 2013, at page 13
books.google.com/books?id=1ri6L3MDGkcC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq="weber+who"+blue+agave&source=bl&ots=Oc9fNizH4q&sig=lLh6RJ7rPHT-Z6aKVzEJmx-y49o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=deBwVdbEK7DhsASzw4DQBA&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q="weber who" blue agave&f=false
("Blue agave--In 1902, the German botanist Franz Weber, who classified flora in Mexico, named this agave 'Agave tequilana Weber, variant azul,' because of the blue cast to its leaves. Its high sugar content makes it the most favorite for producing tequila")
(iii) buzz (n): “HIGH”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/buzz

choi

(d) “It’s hard to pinpoint the first rumbling of the tequila boom, but you could do worse than go back to the day in 1991 when Martin Crowley and John Paul DeJoria, the founders of Patrón, hired Burt Stewart as their first employee. At the time almost all tequila was consumed in cocktails and shots, the better to hide its impurities. Even in Mexico, mixto was the rule; middle-class Mexicans drank brandy and whiskey. But in the mid-1980s plugged-in Americans who traveled to Mexico started to notice a creeping number of small-batch, 100%-blue-agave sipping tequilas in bars and restaurants. Those brave enough to try them were impressed, and they came home to spread the word.  High-quality tequilas began dribbling into the US. But the drink didn’t get a big-money rollout until 1989, when Crowley and DeJoria, the founder of the Paul Mitchell line of hair-care products, debuted Patrón. They found a traditional distillery in Mexico to produce it, and they came up with great packaging.  It took several years, but by the late 1990s Patrón was growing at a steady clip in the US.  Part of it was packaging. Cheap mixtos tended to be sold in bottles with decidedly down-market label designs. Crowley and DeJoria presented Patrón in a distinctive decanter with a fat cork on top, the sort of thing not out of place alongside an assortment of XO cognacs in a luxury-hotel bar.”
(i) For the definition of patrón, see (a)(i)(B).
(ii) plugged-in (adj): "technologically or socially informed and connected <plugged–in teenagers>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plugged-in
(iii) decanter
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decanter

(e) “The biggest story is still Patrón, which today controls 70% of the super-premium market. * * * Tequila, like whiskey, is very versatile. ‘It has a flavor profile that makes it a good mixer,’ says David Ozgo, the chief economist at the Distilled Spirits Council. ‘At the same time, with the high-end brands it can stand easily on its own. You see it sipped in a brandy snifter like it’s a cognac.’ * * * Like whiskeys—whose ingredients and production are heavily regulated, whether in Scotland or the US—it has an innate authenticity. Tequila can be made only in the Mexican state of Jalisco, according to strict rules”

snifter
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snifter

(f) Guillermo Erickson “Sauza keeps things pretty much the way his ancestors had it. The hearts, or piñas, of the agave plants are roasted for 36 hours in a walk-in oven, which turns the plants’ starches into sugar. The piñas are then crushed with a two-ton stone wheel, called a tahona, which separates the plants’ fibers from the sugar. The distillers pitch in a proprietary yeast, converting the sugar to alcohol, and the mash is then distilled through century-old copper-pot stills.
(i)
(A) Guillermo is the Spanish form of the male given name William.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo
(B) In Spanish pronunciation: “GUE and GUI - you don't pronounce the U (it's silent in these cases).”
(C) So Guillermo is pronounced “gi-yer-mo” (g as in goat; the accent is in the second syllable)-- ”ll” in Spanish is pronounced like “y” in English.
(ii) For definition of piña, see (a)(i)(B).

(g) “The Mexican government and the tequila trade association recently launched a marketing campaign called ‘Tequila, Mexico’s Gift for China,’ with a logo featuring a Chinese dragon and a Mexican Quetzalcóatl.”
(i) I can not find the logo.
(ii) Quetzalcoatl
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatl