Let's make our own celebrity tequila using additives!
Alright!
I went to an amazing additives class from the legend Ana Maria Romero, and she actually let me take these vials, which are real additives used in tequila.
So we're going to see how this works. These are four high quality Blancos, all the same. It's a little reference taste.
Yeah.
Give me a drop of something. One drop is enough.
Okay. This is glycerin.
A drop of glycerin.
Crazy straw for the crazy additives. Crazy straw for crazy additives.
¡Salud! It's so wild. Just that one drop changes the mouth that makes it so much more silky. It's not flavorless entirely. It actually makes this less flavorful.
Let's put some in the back of your hand. Now rub it. See how crazy?
It's like oil.
Yeah. And so you can tell when you're having tequila that it feels really coated like that. A lot of times it's because there's some glycerin in it. Yeah.
Alright, next we have agave.
Agave. Now, as a practical matter, usually they don't put in agave nectar, which is what this is.
In tequilas, they'll use highly, highly, highly concentrated artificial sugars like you'd get in a diet soda. Thank you.
You're welcome.
What's funny about this is it's not necessarily objectionable.
Yeah. It's just noticeably sweeter. Yeah, much different. All right. Next we have caramel coloring. Okay. Yeah, it'll stain your clothes.
You see how it drops right to the bottom like that? Yeah.
It's so concentrated and thick, it just cuts right through the tequila itself. Oh, wow. Yeah. Isn't that wild? Wow. So, all of a sudden, your Blanco just became a Reposado. Yeah, not even. Like that looks more like a...
Maybe Añejo.
Yeah, one drop.
Yeah.
And again, this is not totally flavorless. This adds some bitterness. Last one is... Alright, American Oak. Oak extract. Again, these are all allowed. I can smell that on my fingers. Yeah, it's like a fireplace. Yeah. Looks good. So it creates a little color, right? Not nothing like that.
No, but it's not colorless.
Yeah.
Yeah, you can taste it immediately. Changes the aroma quite a bit as well. So if you want to make a celebrity tequila, all you do is add a little glycerin to a little caramel coloring and a little oak extract and you toss in some fake sweetener as well. You put your name on it. And then you make some Instagram posts and you sell a lot of tequila.
¡Salud!
