Tequila Treasure Hunt Turns Up Some Rare Finds

For some tequila lovers it’s not enough to simply go to the store and pickup their favorite brands. They crave the rare, the undiscovered, the known but forgotten—in short, they like to hunt for tequila treasures.

We recently met up with two treasure hunters after a very big haul. Our good friend Mark Alberto Holt, creator and the SFT Tequila Bar in Sayulita, and his friend David Yan, Marketing Director for Casa Noble tequila in Mexico, just finished ransacking the “cage” at the La Playa warehouse in Guadalajara. For those of you who are unfamiliar with La Playa, it is one of the largest liquor store chains in Mexico, carrying dozens of tequila brands. The cage is just as it sounds—an enclosed area in their storage warehouse where out-of-date bottles, half-drunk bottles, trash and occasionally expensive (but unknown) finds are literally thrown.

Mark and David waded through the mess and got themselves more than a little dirty, but boy did it pay off. They came back with 12 bottles of rare tequilas—some known, some unknown, and others that are old, old favorites.

We sat down with them at the Quinta Don Jose Boutique Hotel in Tlaquepaque to hear about their adventure, enjoy some refreshments and talk about the art of the hunt.

Find out what they discovered, and how you can embark on your own treasure hunt here:

-Taste Tequila