All language subtitles for Agave.Spirit.Of.A.Nation.2018.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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You can make out the silhouettes
of our past, in the morning light.

People here have been cultivating
this plant for millennia.

Farming it connects them to the land,

to their history.

Its fibers are coarse, its leaves sharp.

It is a struggle to grow,

an unlikely source of sustenance.

Those who harvest it, the jimadores,

use the same primitive
tools their ancestors did.

The ancients believed it
was a gift from the gods,

able to communicate the
secrets of the soil,

To express the soul of the land.

Here in the highlands of Jalisco,

it's very common that we love
to do everything by ourselves.

It's not very easy for us to delegate.

It looks so easy when they are doing it,

and they are very
skilled, because they have

years and years doing
this kind of job,

but it is hard.

Actually Guillermo,
the guy with the hat,

he has been with us
doing this for 42 years.

He learned this,
the art of being a jimador,

from his father, from his uncles,
all of his brothers.

Like, Guillermo's sons,
he was able now to pay them for college.

So now they don't wanna be jimadores
because now they have a degree,

they went to college, and their kids do not
want to come and do this very hard labor.

That is why the challenge is
to preserve the jimadores.

The good question is where
are we going to get jimadores

for the next generation,

and that I couldn't answer
what's gonna happen.

Look, I mean, there was a census
here, it was done in 1998,

a census of 508 residents and now
it is supposed that there are 230.

they want to see something,
get something, have money

for buying clothes or
shoes, or for their future

That necessity has caused a lot of
people to migrate, many have gone north.

As I said, my son Temo also had to leave,
because there was no work.

I didn't have any work for them and
they were growing.

Remember that the vowel goes first.

Yes.

ser-vi-ces...

ser-vi-ces...

I don’t know what it says,

Repeat after me,

Don’t get distracted, you were fine.

Santiago.

I’m sorry.

We say the year we started is the same
as my great-grandfather was born, 1898.

We are "mezcaleros" on both my
father’s and mother’s sides.

and, in both families, women used
to participate by selling mezcal,

In that time, in Santa Catarina
Minas, a lot of mezcal was produced,

much more, I believe,
than what we are able to produce now.

So you could say that we have a little
over a hundred years making mezcal.

Now a days it is
industrialized in many ways.

People have been selling mezcal
like it is only an alcohol

but in its essence,
it's truly so much more.

Yes, that is right; that's what I told him.

They need to cut this.

I fell in love with the world of
mezcal, and the agave,

because over the years I understood

everything that I have
been able to do in my

life, I owe to that
plant and to that drink.

It’s like if you would search in my DNA
you would find an Agave molecule.

Get in there because it is very heavy.

Let’s go over here.

You better hold it there
and I'll raise it up here.

There, so it doesn’t slip.

Go up!

AGAVE
El Espíritu de Una Nación

Thousands of feet above sea level,

often in the harshest of conditions,

the agave plant thrives.

The plant typically needs between
six and ten years to reach maturity,

and it must be harvested by hand.

More than 200 species of
agave exist on this planet,

and most are native to Mexico.

Some are farmed,

but many more grow wild
throughout the countryside,

and can take twenty,
even thirty years to ripen.

For centuries,
mezcal has been a way of life.

Farmers make the spirit for their families,

their neighbors.

Sold in local markets,

in unlabeled containers.
A part of every celebration.

When a child is born, a loved one
is buried, when a couple is married.

As the saying goes:

It was long believed

that the Spanish brought
distillation to Mexico.

But recent archaeological
evidence suggests that

primitive stills were in use long before
the conquistadors invaded.

It flourished in places
with an abundance of

agave, like the states
of Jalisco and Oaxaca.

Under Spanish rule,

mezcal was first banned,

then heavily taxed

but thirst for the spirit persisted.

One village in Jalisco
made such delicious Mezcal,

that word of it spread
far and wide.

Before it was a drink,
Tequila was a place.

The mezcal from Tequila
grew so famous,

that it came to be known simply as:

"Tequila"

Unlike mezcal,

which can be made from many different
types of agave,

tequila can be made from just one,

the blue agave.

Demand for tequila has grown quickly.

Production practices were
forced to industrialize.

Stainless steel replaced brick ovens.

Old stone mills were abandoned.

The most traditional methods
for making tequila,

all but disappeared.

Everybody would prefer brandies.

It's a very Spanish thinking, probably,
about fifty years ago.

and tequila was perceived
as something that you

would consume if you
had not enough money,

to go and buy a bottle of brandy.

That was, if I may say so,
that was the Spanish influence.

A lot also had to do with
the Mexican movies,

with the charro drinking out of the bottle,
getting drunk

and pulling the gun, and start fighting
and all of that.

That was kind of the image that
the tequila would have.

The more that the consumer started learning
in the last thirty years,

about 100 percent agave tequila.
Hey, tequila

is not only for shooting
and getting drunk.

Now, you can enjoy the

taste, the flavor, the subtle nuances
from one tequila to another tequila.

The more that the people
started understanding that,

tequila became more and
more and more popular.

The more you know about something,

the more that now you have the tools
to appreciate that something.

This originally was very poor land.

Very few crops would grow here,

so we are used to work hard in order to
finally get something out of the soil.

50 years ago we used to
produce 8 months a year,

And now it's all year round nonstop.

The people the is already working with us
is people,

Third and fourth generation of the
same families that started working

With grandfather or great grandfather.

It is an extended family that has
been with us In good and bad times.

Good Afternoon, Guys!

I was studying agriculture,
because I thought

well My father he's
the master distiller,

He's a chemical engineer.

He knows he's stuff on producing
tequila.

When I came back from college with my title
I said:

"Ok, I'm ready let's go to the fields"

And he told me: "I'm glad
that your back, because

I'm sick and tired been
sitting at an office"

"And taking decisions and dealing
with paperwork and doing all of this"

"So now, you sit on my chair and do what
I would do, and I'm going to the fields.”

And I said: "Wait a minute.
There's something wrong here."

"I know a little bit about drinking it,
but nothing about producing tequila,"

"and of course,
I don't know how to run a company,"

"and you want me from overnight
to take your place here?”

He said, "Well,
I'll be close by, I'll be in

the fields.
So if you have any questions,"

"you can always go and ask me,"

"but yeah, that's your role.
Sit in my chair and do what I would do."

My brother is one of the most intelligent
people in this world.

He knows about everything and about
numbers, about engineering. He's so smart.

He is also, I've got to be honest with you,
he's a little rough on the edges,

because he is really temperamental.
He gets upset really easily

and I'm not saying this like
a bad thing,

because I think you need
this kind of character

in order to be the
head of a company.

You can't be soft all the time,
or happy all the time.

So I think every time he comes and
looks at how the agave is moving,

how the ovens are loading,

I think he's always thinking in that part,

"How am I gonna grow?"

"But without losing my people
and without losing the quality."

Now we are having this
big shortage of agave,

and I think that's one of the most highest
points of pressure,

because you know that if we don't have
agave, the rest of the production is dead.

Agave shortages are not uncommon
in the tequila industry.

Increased demand for one
hundred-percent-agave tequila,

translates into a greater need for agave.

The rise of agave prices in recent years
has been relentless.

Like all spirits, distilling tequila
requires a vast amount of raw materials.

It is no coincides that
we use the word spirit.

to refer to whiskey,

or brandy,

or tequila,

or mezcal.

To distill something is to reduce
it to its most basic essence.

To make tequila or mezcal,

the agave must first be cooked.

For tequila it is steamed.

For mezcal, it is roasted underground.

Then cooked agave is then crushed,
extracting its sweet juices,

which are then fermented.

Yeast transforms sugar into alcohol.

Next comes distillation.

Typically in copper pot stills,

but in certain villages,

mezcal continues to be
made in small clay pots.

When the spirit of the agave is extracted,

all the information it stores,

transmitted over its lifetime,

from the sun, soil,
and water, is preserved.

To drink it is to taste the land
where it was made.

Here, where we are,
all this land was planted

with agave,
and it belonged to my grandfather

The agave were so big that a mule
was barely able to carry them…

Carrying three, four loads every day

To fill the oven with agave would take
at least a week, a week and a half

I was 16 years old when I started to
harvest agave by myself. My grandfather

considered giving my father the
little old distillery as a gift.

Now I can tell you that we no longer
transport the harvest on beasts of burden,

now we carry in a truck, the agave I mean.

I have six children, 3 women and 3 men.

This is my little son, Kevin.

I brought your coffee…

Ok, put it over there.
Did they already drink coffee?

Yeah, I think so.
The beans are already on the stove.

That’s right, son… it is called "resaque."

- And you pour water, in the other one,
the one that is in the tank?

- That one is called the "snake?"
- Yes.

-And why do you do it like that?

-Because that’s how it must be covered

-And the other strip?

-Now it's tied up.

-Now it's tied up.

-Pass me the rope.

-Is this the rope?

-Give it to me.

Then you put one of these
on to make it heavier,

so the force of the
mezcal can’t lift it up.

Good Luck or whatever it was...
my mezcal was in very high

demand, and they started to ask
me for more and more and more.

We can fill 30 percent,
up to 50 percent of our

orders...
because we can’t produce very much.

What could it be?
I think it is the quality, because an

industrialized product is not
the same as an artisanal one.

As I tell you,
I thank God I'm not a greedy man

but I try to deliver
quality not quantity.

that’s what moves me,
motivates me a little.

Excuse me.

The fire,
is the act of consuming matter,

that serves as the base for transforming
into another matter

makes me wonder about
transcendence of the agave

while it’s true the moment we harvest
It's life in the soil is finished,

While it is also true that we need the fire
to transform the wood,

these two elements,
represent the death of something,

they also represent the
birth of something new,

in this case, mezcal.

And thinking about rituals or what the
fire has represented in human history

It’s around the fire that
the family congregates,

it is blessed and
begins a new cycle.

Since the moment that my dad passed away,
we were all sad,

but we said "Ok, he’s gone and with
what he taught us let's move forward."

Well it’s the burden of everything, over a
hundred years of tradition on our shoulders

and a big legacy. Obviously we do not
want to lose it, and live with dignity.

Furthermore,
we can help people from the community,

so they can achieve their
dreams, just like we did.

Obviously,
Graciela is the type of

character: "We're going
to do it like this!"

She grounds us,
and now we all know what to do,

We need someone that tells us,
"let's go!" Right?

The new one is coming down beautifully.
I'm seeing if it stains.

No, well it's been a while.

No, but, was this the last one?

- Yeah but not yet.
It does it when it's not warm.

No, now that it's warm it won't do it.

This one...
the second one smells good. The

one over there smells good.
It's very sweet.

- Yeah this one here is still
from the batch we filled up with

the 475 liters. We still need
25 liters to make up the 500.

The distilleries used to be
structured in an old fashioned way

in where the men worked the field
and the women stayed in the kitchen.

but as I mentioned:
"I didn’t enjoy being in the kitchen,"

I don't enjoy cooking,
or maybe that's just my rebellious way.

But, my mom said that I had to learn
how to cook for when I got married…

But, before she could
finish the phrase “when

you get married...” I
ran out of the kitchen!

and I didn't want to learn
to cook because of that.

In that sense,
even though my dad was raised in

this small village I think
he had a very open mind,

because he never restricted
us to be in a way, I mean,

he never told us, the women,
we had to get married,

My dad’s goal was that for
his children to go to college.

At the same time, he instilled in
us a deep love for what we did,

When I asked myself what I
was going to do in the future?

I said, "well, I have done
everything on my list." Right?

My checklist: my research, I did it,
my book, I did it, I did this, I did that.

Now what do I do?

And so, I realized that the only thing I
was really passionate about was mezcal.

What my spirit said to me was....

"I want to be in the field,
I don’t want to be in the city."

Nowadays, everybody is an expert in mezcal.

In that time, what we were doing was crazy,

because in that time, the tendency was
to be very technical, industrialized,

to make a massive amount of product.

we’re not going to make quantity,
we’re going to make something special,

We’re going to educate the consumer

everybody said, "these people are crazy!”

I'm a firm believer in that
progress starts through education.

and I believe that because this
is what I have seen in myself.

At the distillery we put it in
the oven to see if it is cooked.

A spirit's ideal compostion embodies

the biological,

environmental,

cultural,

even economic practices
from the place it is made.

And as consumers yearn for authenticity,

Mezcal is an ideal structure.

Mezcal is a story of
economic triumph for Mexico.

Exports have tripled
over the past five years.

Producing the spirit provides a way
for communities across rural Mexico

to earn a living from their traditions,

but its popularity has also
attracted foreign interests.

Every major spirits company across the
globe now wants its own brand of mezcal.

And the disparity between
the spirit's commercial

success and the prosperity
of the families who make it

grows ever wider.

And yet, the mezcal market
is a fraction of tequila,

a global business worth
billions of dollars.

Tequila's growth doesn't
seem to be slowing.

But the more the world demands the spirit,

the greater the pressure on natural
resources in the place where it is made.

You want something modern,
mechanized, and industrial,

you can get it very easily
in the market,

but there's always someone that is looking
for something a little bit different,

Al something that might have a soul,
may have a heart.

Those are the people
that we are working for.

We are not isolated in this planet.

So her mom was killed,

the employees from the fields brought
her to me so I could take care of her.

My dilemma's what to do with her
because I wanted to release her,

and now the vet tells me that she
is getting used to the human people.

Now she will be an easy prey
for the hunters,

if she's alone, so I dunno what to do with
her here, just keep her in the garden…

Or… Or what to do?

We are focused on sustainability with the
one philosophy in our head,

which is not what kind of world
are we leaving to our children,

is what kind of children are we educating
to leave into this world.

What happens in the market is that
eventually there's a crisis.

The price goes up to the clouds and
everybody gets excited about agave,

even people that never had an
agave plant in their life.

Everybody starts planting
agave at the same time.

Seven years after that, guess what?

There's more agave than
what the industry can process.

The price comes crashing down. Everybody
says, “Oh, what a lousy business!"

"I don't wanna hear about agave
anymore in my life!”

This cycle keeps repeating over and over,
but it has been happening for 120 years,

so what is really amazing or surprises me
is that with such a long history,

still, we don't get it.
We don't learn.

It is very common here that
the people that plants agave,

they keep on planting agave over and over,
and over again in the same field,

and they are exhausting the soil.

They are extracting all of the nutrients.

We have seen, we have been witnessed
on how the agave gets,

weaker and weaker, and
more subject to diseases.

So, for some people their philosophy
is that time is money,

let's get out of the soil and let's get
out of the industry as much as possible,

in the lowest possible time.

For us, having five generations
doing this growing agave,

taking care of the land,

it's a matter of we expect to have at least
another 5 or 10 generations behind us,

that will keep on using the same land.

So it is our duty to preserve
that land for them.

It's a matter of a philosophy,

so we have to take care of it
and educate our children,

to be responsible for
the future generations.

Since elementary school,
I was telling you

about this dream of having a
library, right?,

about having a library in the community.

This land is so much better than the
first one that they donated to us…

Because otherwise,
try to figure how the construction

would be like a house
in the mountains, right?

the ground wouldn’t have
been able to be leveled

and would’ve been more difficult
for the people to access.

Edgar has always been my accomplice;
ever since we were little.

Ever since college,
he always built with adobe.

His first construction
was with adobe brick.

He has designed everything that's
in the distillery, in my home, etc.

I told him
"I need your help."

And he started coming,
and little by little I got him involved.

From what we create,
something has to remain here.

And somebody, other kids from the
town, other young

people from the town,
will be able to study.

And surely they have crazy ideas
just like I did at one point. Right?

So, if I can help someone else achieve
their dream, or help awaken them;

well, that'll be my
contribution to the world.

Agave has been a cornerstone of the
culture in Mexico for millennia.

Pollinated by birds, bats, and insects,

the plant has been a source
of nutrition for humans

for 11,000 years.

Over the ages,

people have roasted and
eaten the plant's flesh,

and dried the leaves
to weave into clothing,

bedding, and roofs for their homes.

They used the fine needle at
the tip of each spiky leaf

for sewing garments and for
bloodletting ceremonies.

Agave was sacred to the Aztecs.

They drank its fermented sap as a way
to communicate with the gods.

Today, agave fields dot the landscape.

But researchers fear,

as a vast monoculture,
blue agave is at risk.

A lack of biodiversity may have
genetically compromised the plant.

Farmers have noticed
that their crop is more

vulnerable in the face
of pests and disease.

And like other farmers,
tequila's agave growers

have suffered great losses in bouts of
extreme weather in recent years.

Now we are at La Alteña, the destilería
That was begun by my grandfather,

And then my father,
and now us.

And, now here this is the section
where the agave…

There was not even the thought
about making mixto tequila,

mixing something else.
It was just pure 100% agave.

There have been moments that there
was not enough agave,

and the government decided that
to allow some producers,

to use less and less agave and
substitute the agave for sugar cane.

So that is the wrong direction to go.

This is tequila.

A hundred percent agave.

We are proud to say.

We will have.. We are proud to say.

We are making.

That we are making.

Possibly the best tequila
from this country.

The best tequila from this country.

The people who make this Tequila says
that there is no one another like this one.

For me labeling bottles is
a matter of practice, so I'm

sure I would do it wrong at
least the first three bottles.

- It’s part of the learning,
do you think that I don’t know

that the more you ruin the more you learn?…

I'm the youngest in this family, so, maybe
I didn't work here since the beginning.

But some part of my growing,

my childhood, belongs to these
people and to this place.

I studied architecture.
I'm an architect.

So I was working back
in Guadalajara in this great firm.

I was really happy. I was making,
I was doing what I really enjoyed

was designing and building,
and I have to be honest.

My brother Carlos invited me

and asked me to give the
family business a chance

because I didn't know anything.

So that was the main reason why I came
here, because I wanted to give it a try.

To know what my father built,

and what my brother and
my sisters were working.

But I have to be honest, I thought that
I was not going to like it.

The first sip feels very strong.

-Most of all it is on the tongue.

- You feel it on the tongue, but in the
second sip you can feel it is tastier

more pleasant, why?
Because it’s already soaked up.

- Just because of the difference of 3
percent? I thought that it was more.

Well, cheers!

What I'm afraid is that
because of the boom of

Mezcal, Mezcal can be
forced to start running.

Start mechanizing everything
and start using all

of their resources with
not a lot of future.

So actually, what I think that Mezcal
can learn from Tequila is not to make,

the problems, mistakes,
that we made in the past.

I hope that I will never see a mezcal mixto
with 49% sugar cane.

I hope that they will avoid that.

So I think that the Mezcal industry

has to learn from our mistakes
in tequila industry,

Not to go in certain directions.

We still can learn from mezcal
to remain loyal to your roots.

Remain loyal to your traditions.

Remain loyal to who you are,
where are you coming from.

Cause your past is your present
and will be your future.

I swam across the Río Grande seven times,

Here we learned everything about the river
and it was very easy for me to swim it.

But helping six other people that didn’t
know anything about crossing was hard

There were many of us,

I wasn’t proud of going
to the United States,

It was an ordeal.

We went orange picking in Florida,

A truck used to pick me and my
group up at 5 in the morning,

To take us to the orange fields

Very often that we were coming back at
11 or 10 in the night, very tired,

Just to take a bath,
prepare something for lunch

and leave everything ready
for the next morning,

Very shameful, it was a bitter time for me.

Then as I told you, well,
because of the same necessities

another of my sons had
to go there to suffer

not to go party or be a tourist,

he went to suffer.

Then the work of making mezcal
popped up

and I got the idea to tell him to return

“come back, You are doing
a job that is not yours"

and working with strangers and
here I can offer you a job,

Thanks to the market for mezcal”

One of my daughters graduated
nursing school in Oaxaca,

and she went to do her social service in
a clinic in Chacahua, in Puerto Escondido,

And there she met this American guy,
Judah

He was sick and went to
the clinic and I think

that when he arrived
he got well because…

There he met my daughter and they
became friends, until they got married.

And that’s it,
he established a bar on the beach,

and he was selling my mezcal,
he came and took 50 or 60 liters.

And so I told him: “But get me
to the market on the other side”

always with that idea
“Get me to the market on the other side.”

I didn’t give up on that idea

After 8 months he got permission
to take the first little sample,

Mateo was the first one
to come back meanwhile

Temo was in the USA
but when the work grew,

I got the idea to tell him to come back
so we could produce more mezcal,

and now even Kevin is working with us,
taking his shovel, planting baby agave,

putting the "pinas" into the oven.
We all collaborate

Well, I’m proud to have them here
because now they are part of “Vago”

Temo and Mateo have learned so much.

There is already a small financial
cushion, a savings of money,

To maybe build their houses,
or for their weddings

thanks to the mezcal work,
thanks to the agave.

Cheers!

I was in Guadalajara and then Jenny,
my sister, called me saying,

"You know what?" We're getting flooded.”

I had to be there. I had to try to see
how big is the damage.

The rivers were all so overflowed

that there was no way to
get into the distillery.

At that moment, most of the employees,

were already at the distillery.

They heard that we were getting flooded
and without us calling them,

everybody came in order to
see what can I do to help.

We couldn't stop the distillery.

We had agave cooking in the ovens,

and the boilers were not working.

So it was a matter of we need
to keep up and running now.

It took about 36 hours.

But with my sisters, with my kids, with me,
all of us,

there was not such a thing as the boss,
and the employee. It was just us together.

This is our home, this is our business.
This is what we have to do.

My grandfather thought it was a good idea
to build the distillery,

in the lowest part of the ranch,
because the water would come by gravity.

Nowadays…

It was good at that time,
but now that is the problem.

We are the lowest part of the ranch,

so all the water will concentrate here.

And still people doesn't
think on global warming.

Well, ten years ago we had the
first flood here in eighty years.

Two years ago we had the second.
This year we had the third,

so it's more and more and more often.

We had snow in 1997 for the
first time in 130 years.

We had snow in March last year.

So, it's getting worse and worse and worse.

Just another little stone on the road,
that's it.

The bridge collapased....

The river washed the land away

We didn't discover mezcal,
we didn't invent anything,

no one is really doing
anything completely new.

I think that what we did at
the end of the day; those of

us who ventured into this
journey, we cleaned up the way

All we're doing is basically revealing
something that was once hidden, it's

as if it had been a rough diamond and
all we're doing is polishing it up.

Do the homework, the ones that your
teacher asked you to do, okey dokey?

Do you want some sauce?

I left a tortilla on the stove…

Santiago, is there something burning?
Ah, Santiago de los Ángeles…

-I don’t know when something is burned…

You smell, sweetie, usually it smells,
when something is burning, it smells.

What do you figure,
after how many years will we see this one?

- We’re filming the origin of the agave
that Santiago will harvest.

The moment that you are leaving this world,

you're taking nothing with you but
your experience, what you lived.

There's a new generation
that comes pushing behind us,

so what we try to do is
just kind of train them and,

prepare them for the future.
Try to make them understand

that this company, this field,
these agave's, all of this is not theirs.

They have to take care of
them for the next generation,

so they are the guards,
they are the keepers.

We are not here forever and therefore

who wants to be the richest,
dead guy at the cemetery.

As long as you have decent way of living,

as long as you can provide your family
with all of their necessities,

the rest is extra.

My father wasn't sick,
he was a healthy man, he was 76.

That morning he went to the office
to tell people what to do,

but he couldn't make it through the door,
he suddenly faint.

We took him to the hospital and
20 minutes later he was dead.

I actually never had a chance to speak with
him about what I was to do with my life.

I think that he must have
been laughing about me, like

you are not going to perform
as an actual architect,

you are gonna continue with my legacy,

but you' never expect that your dad
goes out and never comes back.

I don't even begin to describe,

how, how Carlos felt in that moment,

because he was, now everything was on him,

all the responsibilities, all the good
and the bad decisions

they worked together,
they were like

everywhere and every
decision they made them,

so, my father I think think he would be
really proud to see,

to see that all his work
is continuing by that line.

10 years ago I had the hypothesis,

that the small producers would disappear,

Because the tendency was industrialization

now it is exactly the opposite

Those small producers are
blooming, emerging

and also there are many kinds of them,

From the one who's recovering
the tradition of his

grandfather that was broken in
the past two generations and,

he’s trying to rescue it.

To the one that didn’t have anything
to do with this matter but,

is taking advantage from the moment
and is setting up a distillery.

I mean, the most delicate
part is the biological one,

because you need to leave
agave as mother plants.

You need to plant more agave,

otherwise, we will have a museum
of the mezcal in Oaxaca,

We will have a museum of what was...

of what was here.

You will see “these are pictures of the
last samples of a kind of agave”, right?

That’s like the delicate
point of all the history

What is happening is a pillage

of the biological and cultural
patrimony, that represents the mezcal

in pursuit of a merchandise called mezcal.

I think that the only one who
has the key is the consumer.

Some don't think of tequila
as a cultural product.

Perhaps we should.

A spirit with sacred roots and rich history
that can only be made here in Mexico.

A robust industry

that supports some seventy thousand
families across the region.

A symbol of Mexican identity,
in all its complexity.

The rise of the spirit in
recent years has inspired

certain producers to look
back at ancestral traditions.

Dusting off the tahona,

embracing brick ovens,

and returning to
farming practices that

replenish the soil and
respect the landscape.

It has sparked a movement
toward more sustainable

practices throughout
the tequila industry.

People here are looking to the future
while heeding the past,

striking a delicate balance
between satisfying the market,

While preserving heritage.

Are the bottles already here?

Yes they are,

They’re already washed,
let’s fill them, they’re ready.

Just right there, put it down there
and this one just put it down…

Ah yes, yes, yes

It fills up faster this way.

How do you feel about
another son getting married?

Well, it's the same. It gets easier.

- The only one left is Kevin.
- Kevin.

It is thought that my house is for him.

I guess he’s jealous
already and in 3 or 4 years

will want to get married
like his brothers, right?

I don’t think so.

-What are they doing?

-They’re praying, praying with the Priest…

-When will they go out?

-When the service finishes.

I, Cuauhtémoc García García, take you,
Marisela Sánchez Altamirano, to be my wife,

I promise to be faithful to
you in good times and in bad,

I will love you and honor
you all the days of my life.

I, Marisela Sánchez Altamirano, take you,
Cuauhtémoc García García, to be my husband,

I promise to be faithful to
you in good times and in bad,

in sickness and in health, to love you
and to honor you all the days of my life.

Receive this ring as a symbol of my love,
and eternal faith.

In the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Oh… thank you, Aquilino.

This prehistoric plant,

a living dinosaur.

A vehicle for the secrets of the soil.

Following generations of tradition.

Transformed by fire.

Distilled to its essence.

To become a piece of our culture.

And share with the world.