If you’ve ever spent much time browsing the tequila shelves in Mexico, you’ve no doubt run across the striking slender bottles of Tequila Corralejo. I say “ever” because this was probably the first tequila brand to really differentiate itself with unusual packaging, long before the premium tequila boom hit the U.S. and companies started putting $30 tequila in showy bottles so they could charge $200 instead.

Corralejo hasn’t gone that route though. In fact if you’re buying a bottle while on vacation in Mexico or from the duty-free shop, this brand is often the best value on the shelf. In this photo here that I shot in Playa del Carmen, a bottle of Corralejo is only 50 cents more than crappy Jose Cuervo Gold. The former is 100% agave, the latter is part agave, part whatever kind of sugar could be bought on the cheap. (The other great bargain in that photo is Milagro, which I’ve reviewed on here before.) Unfortunately, you’ll pay three times that amount pictured if you buy it in the U.S., but that’s on par with its peers.

This is a fairly complex reposada tequila, especially considering the price, with a mixture of citrus flavors, pepper, oak, and honey. It gets four months in three kinds of oak barrels—enough to smooth things out and add balance, but not as front-and-center as with añejo versions. In some shops you’ll also find a blanco and añejo in bottles with different colors, but those are less popular.

Besides the distinctive bottle, this tequila has another attribute setting it apart: it’s not made in Jalisco. That’s a rarity since nearly all the quality tequila comes from that one state. Instead this is made in the state of Guanajuato, in the town of Pénjamo. It comes with a heavy dose of history: this tequila was is distilled in a hacienda that was the birthplace of of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla—the priest who sparked the Mexican fight for independence. You can’t get more authentically Mexican than that. Fire up the mariachi band and pour some tequila!

Milagro tequila

I’ve been wanting to review Milagro Tequila for a while because no matter what airport I’m flying out of in Latin America, Milagro always seems to be front and center at the duty free store. But who are these guys? You never see their bottles in a regular store in Mexico—just in the U.S.—and I don’t recall ever seeing an ad or a review in a magazine. (In all fairness, their website does link to four reviews from last year, though one of the magazines—Travel + Leisure Golf—is now kaput.)

Unfortunately, their Flash-heavy website is high on form, light on substance. I still have no idea where this tequila comes from and who is behind it. The contact page lists only a single e-mail address, with no phone number or physical location. Is Dr. No running this enterprise, or is it the front business for a drug cartel? Probably not, becaue it is distributed by William Grant & Sons, the same well-known distributor that has Glenfiddich and Hendrick’s Gin in its portfolio.

The proof is in the product though and I have to admit that from a price to payoff standpoint, this tequila is a bargain. In many duty-free stores, you can get the blanco version for 20 bucks and the reposado version for under $25. When I was in Mexico City recently they were offering a 3-for-2 special, but traveling alone I couldn’t stow that much in my luggage. I picked up some of their agave nectar instead for my wife and it was a pretty and useful gift.

I’m not going to tell you that Milagro tequila will blow you away and one sip will be a transformative experience. The reposado I bought, however, was more than good. It is good enough to sip on its own and it made a killer margarita I was happy to serve to my guests a few weeks ago. (And no, I don’t use that awful store-bought margarita mix, so you really could taste the tequila.) It’s a bit sweeter and more flowery than the norm, with a triple-distilled smoothness that would appeal to those not accustomed to drinking this spirit neat.

If you’re looking for tequila that will cover the basics for a good price, Milagro is good enough and if you are trying to grab a gift for someone, the bottle is pretty enough to make it look much more expensive than it is. For a step up in price to a C-note or so, there are versions that are truly impressive from a visual standpoint (second set in the photo above), but again at about half the price of competitors’ most showy versions. In my opinion you have to have a really sensitive and experienced palate to tell the difference between a $50 tequila bottle and a $250 tequila bottle anyway. Extensive aging doesn’t help tequila, so after a certain point it’s more about the bottle than what’s inside. Unless you’re buying for a true conneisseur, Milagro is a good bet.

Related Luxury Latin America story -Â Tequila Gets Ready for its Close-up in Jalisco

Have you had 10 bad margaritas for every good one? You could be using inferior tequila that is not 100 percent agave, but a more likely reason is that you are using a distasteful concoction for the other main ingredient.

One of the best articles I’ve ever seen on the perils of bar mixers just came out from cocktail expert Eric Felten. Called Prefab Mixes: Buyer Beware, it bring to light why most of these chemical collections range from bad to undrinkable.

The core problem with cocktail mixes is that they almost all involve lemon or lime juice, which are notoriously difficult to bottle. Sara Risch, a food chemist and member of the Institute of Food Technologists, told me why: “Among the major components of citrus flavor are terpenes,” she explained, compounds that are grievously subject to oxidation, and that break down quickly, especially when cooked (as in the pasteurization process such bottled juices require). The volatile terpenes in the juices and oils of lemons and limes turn inexorably toward the piney taste and smell of turpentine.

Even with preservatives, the off-sour taste of vintage citrus comes through. I suspect that lemon and lime concoctions go as heavy on the sweetening as they do in an attempt to overwhelm the terpene twang. The result is a mix guaranteed to make your teeth ache in anticipation of dental trauma.

In my home city there’s a restaurant that wins the “best margarita in town” award year after year from every local newspaper. “It’s not that hard to make a great margarita,” the bartender told me once. “It’s just that most bars use some kind of premade sour mix.” Since this particular restaurant never does, she explained, even the house ones made with Cuervo Gold are so far above the norm that people immediately notice the difference. Here’s a clue: if your drink looks like the one pictured here (from an article in Epicurean.com) or lighter, then it’s probably drinkable. If it looks neon green and like it would glow in the dark, beware.

If you’re going to mix up a batch of margaritas, of course buy quality tequila and go light on the Contreau or triple sec. It’s the last step that’s most important though: don’t ruin the whole thing by tossing in something made of chemicals and high fructose corn syrup, even if it does come from Williams Sonoma.

Related:

Tequila Gets Ready for its Close-up

Taste Test: Siembra Azul Tequila

For the past six years, sales of premium tequila have been averaging growth of 20 percent per year. The good side of that is that the rot-gut stuff that is only half agave is becoming less popular and the finely crafted good stuff is showing up in more and more bars. But which brands are for real and which ones are just riding the bandwagon?

Fortunately, most of the good stuff is quite good, so most of the silliness in pricing comes from fancy hand-blown bottles, silver medallions, and carved wooden cases. If you’re paying more than $80 for a bottle that hasn’t been aged for years, you are likely paying for one of these marketing enhancements.

Siembra Azul (Blue Harvest) tequila is a nice departure. Trusting buyers to purchase based on taste instead of flash, this is a high-end, high-scoring tequila that puts its money into agave fruit instead of eye candy bottles.

I’ve been sipping the añejo version of Siembra Azul this past week and it ranks among the best I’ve sampled over the years, with the distinct floral and herbal overtones you get from the highland regions of Jalisco and the perfect interweaving of flavors you get from an attention to high quality throughout the process. In this region, the agave plants grow at an average elevation of 7200 feet above sea level, giving them a terroir and flavor profile that many believe is more distinctive and complex than the brands grown at lower elevations.

This version was developed by David Suro-Piñera, a Guadalajara native who has owned a restaurant and tequila bar in Philadelphia since 1986. He wasn’t content to go halfway: each liter requires around 11.5 kilos of agave, compared to a standard level of 7 kilos. The agave piñas are roasted in ovens for 36 hours, with each oven cleaned between roastings. There’s double distillation, copper pot stills, and then the añejo is aged for 12 months in new American oak barrels.

The quality shines through and this tequila has been winning raves in blind taste tests, even before the judges find out that the list price is $45. But what about a hook? Anything to make Siembra Azul really stand out from the pack? Well, how about this—it’s kosher!

For more on the subject, see our feature story on premium tequila in Jalisco.

It’s been awhile since I did any Latin American spirits taste test posts on here, so it’s time to pull out my reliable duty-free favorite Ron Zacapa. “Ron” is “rum” in these parts, but Mr. Zacapa is the king when it comes to Central America. You may see a local brand from Costa Rica or Panama here and there and Nicaragua’s Flor de Cana wins the prize for the best distribution. But if you’re going for quality, reach for the rum from—of all places—Guatemala.

I’m personally partial to the 15-year version, which seems to have the perfect balance of sweetness, caramel, butterscotch, and oak. It envelops you with the comfort of a warm blanket and a fireplace at the first sip and lingers on the finish like a night you never want to end. It’s smooth, warm, and elegant, with the complexity you would expect from something made well and aged well. There’s none of that typical rum “black strap bite” you get from its Nicaraguan counterpart and you can sip it neat all night long.

There’s a 23-year version as well, though for my taste buds it seems like too much of a good thing. The oak is much more prominent and it loses some of the character you can taste in the version that’s not almost a quarter-century old. For Scotch stored in cold climates the extra years can help, but in the hot tropics, there’s a limit to how long is too long.

The brilliant thing about this rum is the price: in duty-free shops you can commonly find the 15-year version for around $20, which is one of the world’s screaming spirits bargains. Even the 23-year version is often on sale for less than $35, fancy wood box included. If you’re heading home from Latin America and are looking for an appropriate gift, this one will elicit some appreciative smiles later. If you’re buying a gift for someone in Central America, this is a sure bet.