Boulder-Based Tequila? It's a Thing - Yellow Scene Magazine

When I told my hubby I was going to try some tequila from a new Boulder-based company, he said, “Does agave even grow in Colorado?”

Ha ha, honey.

No, the agave grows in Mexico, but the force behind the product is totally Boulder.

Suerte Tequila is produced at a small family distillery in Jalisco, Mexico, but the two co-owners are Boulderites with a passion for tequila and a nose for branding and business. They were bored with the selection when it came to well-priced, traditionally produced tequila, and decided to jump at the chance to bring their own distinct brand to market.

Suerte has three varieties, aged for various lengths of time, but all produced in a totally traditional way: the harvested agave is steamed for 54 hours in a traditional brick oven, then crushed by a giant stone wheel called a tahona to mash out the juices and double distilled for purity. Most big tequila brands these days use a shredder to extract the juices from the agave.

“It’s like the difference between salsa made in a blender versus a molcajete,” co-founder and CEO Laurence Spiewak told me. “It’s just a totally different product.”

You should be able to find Suerte just about anywhere you go these days, as it’s in more than 100 locations and counting. SALT and The Kitchen both have Suerte cocktails on the menu (the “Dweezil” and the lucky rabbit Manhattan, respectively), as the brand lends itself well to mixology.

I brought it home and made myself a “Suerte ginger”—a tequila version of a dark and stormy with tequilla, ginger beer and lime. Totally delicious, and worth seeking out this lucky rabbit for a taste.