The Camarena family
One of tequila's most respected families. Founders of La Alteña (Tapatio, El Tesoro), and through Felipe J. Camarena, El Pandillo (G4, Pasote) — both in the Jalisco highlands.
The Camarenas are one of tequila's great production families, and two of their distilleries are touchstones for anyone who cares about traditional, additive-free tequila. Both sit in the Jalisco highlands, around Arandas.
La Alteña — NOM 1139
Don Felipe Camarena founded La Alteña in 1937, near Arandas, on land where he already grew agave. Its original brand is Tapatio. In the late 1980s the family partnered with American importers to create El Tesoro de Don Felipe, which helped kick off the premium tequila boom in the US. The El Tesoro brand is now owned by Suntory and made at La Alteña under contract; Tapatio remains the family's own.
Production is famously old-school: brick ovens, a tahona that is still in regular use, wood fermentation and copper pot stills. Carlos Camarena, the founder's grandson, led the distillery for decades and became one of the best-known advocates for traditional methods; the next generation of the family is now part of running it.
El Pandillo — NOM 1579
Felipe J. Camarena — Carlos's brother, and also a grandson of the founder — set out on his own in 2011 and built Destilería El Pandillo in Jesús María, a highland town southeast of Arandas. An engineer by temperament, he designed much of the equipment himself, and the distillery collects rainwater for production. El Pandillo makes G4, named for the generations of Camarena tequila makers, and Pasote, among others.
If you're drinking Tapatio, El Tesoro, G4 or Pasote, you're drinking the work of one family's long commitment to making tequila the slow way.
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Highlands vs. valley tequila
Jalisco's two big growing regions. Los Altos (the highlands, around Arandas) is known for sweeter, fruitier, floral tequila; the valley around the town of Tequila for earthier, herbal, peppery tequila.
Read TermTahona
A huge volcanic-stone wheel, weighing a ton or more, that slowly crushes cooked agave in a circular pit. The original way to make tequila, and still used by a handful of traditional distilleries.
Read TermWhat is a NOM number?
NOM stands for Norma Oficial Mexicana — a number assigned to every certified tequila distillery. Bottles with the same NOM come from the same plant, even when the brands are different.
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