I was in my image archive today, looking for something totally unrelated to tequila when I spotted a picture of our tequila collection taken in July 2008, right after we moved into our current apartment.
I didn’t actually realize how different it looks today – and how much money we must be spending on this stuff. Our collection is constantly growing, and when we get down to the bottom of a bottle, we tend to hold off on drinking any more of it because we don’t want to be “out” of anything.
**UPDATE: A new, and even better (in our opinion) sangrita recipe has been discovered. We even made a video of us following the recipe! We’ve already mentioned sangrita in previous…
The first time I visited Tequila, Mexico was years ago when I was working as a reporter at a newspaper in Mexico City. Every once in a while our editor, Dan Dial, would hand out a press junket as a reward for work well done, and I was lucky enough to get the all expenses paid trip to the Jose Cuervo distillery.
Our plane touched down at the Guadalajara airport in January, 2008. After a few days of fun in a hectic Mexico City, we were ready to wind down and, hopefully, tour some tequila distilleries and listen to a whole lot of mariachi music. Happily, we did both.
I was in non-stop picture-taking mode, and went especially crazy while we toured the tequila distilleries.
Just a few days after we moved into our new apartment in San Francisco’s Mission District, we took one of our leisurely strolls. The entire area was new to us, so vigorous exploring needed to be done.
This particular walk took us to the “other” side of Mission Street, a part of the neighborhood we don’t often visit. We were in search of a bar that had both tequila and food, but didn’t really find one.
We live in the Mission district of San Francisco, and if you’ve never been it’s the part of town known for its Mexican culture, taquerias, bars and Latin markets. How could we live anywhere else?
Not too long ago a “tequila lounge” opened a few blocks away. We walked by with peaked curiosity as they were preparing to open, our faces plastered against the windows, trying to spy their tequila collection. Finally, Cava 22 opened its doors and we rushed to check it out. First, Cava 22 isn’t really a lounge. It’s more of a large Mexican-themed restaurant with a tequila bar. We saddled up to the bar and assessed the collection.
The tickets are booked and the trip is (partially) planned! That’s right, Grover and I are returning to Tequila, Mexico in April and we’re muy entusiasmado. We’re hooked up with a Tequila Expert & Consultant for two full-day tours, which will take us through the Tequila Valley and the Arandas Highlands. Included are stop at the Los Abuelos/Forteleza distillery, Partida, Herradura and Don Julio.
As my credit card company can tell you, I am no stranger to buying high-priced shots in restaurants, but sometimes the bill creeps up and surprises me.
The first time this happened was in a Mexican food restaurant in Pleasanton, California. My friend Brad (another photographer) and I used to frequent a place called “Alberto’s Cantina.” It’s a restaurant with typical Mexican food – not necessarily authentic, but in the U.S., what is?
We found nothing but tourist traps on our first night in Santa Fe, but the second day was a success, thanks to Grover’s friend Andy Biggs. Andy is a wildlife photographer (www.andybiggs.com) who lives in Santa Fe.
“You’ve got to go to Maria’s Cantina,” he said. “They have an amazing tequila selection.”
Grover and I went to Santa Fe last week and we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to see what New Mexico has on Old Mexico in terms of tequila.
I was dreaming of great New Mexican cuisine, accented with fully stocked tequila bars, but the reality was somewhat different. If the food was good, there was no decent tequila in sight, and if the tequila was good, the food was just mediocre.
I wasn’t always an obnoxious tequila snob. Nope. In my earlier days, I was a beer-drinking, hot-dog-eating, 8-track-tape-owning “guy behind the camera” photojournalist. I worked as a staff photographer for newspapers in Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, New York, and Minnesota.
Last weekend – Valentine’s Day, in fact – we stopped by a restaurant/bar in the moneyed seaside town of Sausalito, Calif. to have a drink. The bar didn’t have a great selection of tequila, but it did have a handful of nice choices, such as Don Julio 1942, Casadores
When I was 31 years-old, I had my first-ever taste of an avocado. It was on the same day I first ate sushi. Today, these are some of my favorite things in life. It took a while, but I finally caught on.
Somewhere in my 39th year, sitting in the back of Tommy’s Mexican Restuarant in San Francisco, I had my first real tequila experience. Scarlet just moved into town, and a group of friends walked to the famed San Francisco tequila destination, just around the corner from her apartment.
This is not just a blog about tequila – the delicious, potent elixir that soothes whatever ails you – it is also a blog about the tequila lifestyle, or more accurately, the Mexican lifestyle. Some of us in the U.S. may have a limited view of Mexico from what we’ve see in border towns or at Disneyfied beach resorts, but in the heart of the country, in the real Mexico, there’s a real passion for life, for music, for family and for laughter. This is the tequila lifestyle – taking time at the end of the day to appreciate what really matters. And what better way to do it then with a caballito of fine tequila?