Tequila

Note Profile

Prepared

About

Tequila is a spirit distilled from cooked blue agave. Its smell is led by the cooked plant, not by the alcohol and not by a barrel: cooked agave is the most reported aroma in both community profiles by a wide margin, ahead of black pepper and citrus. It is the only straight spirit in this group and the only note in it whose lead is a cooked vegetable.

Scent Profile

Boozy and sharp on top, then the cooked agave itself, which reads as green: vegetal, grassy, with a green-olive and brine edge. Fresh_spice follows immediately as black pepper, the second most reported aroma in both tallies. Citrus runs alongside as lemon, pink grapefruit and lime. Under those sit a real mineral quality - two reviewers use the word on the nose, and one adds wet cement - and an earthy, damp-soil layer. Aromatic_herbal closes it with fresh herbs and a little anise. Smoke, cooked-agave sweetness and vanilla are all present and all slight.

ScentWheel

Breadthmedium

EnvelopeHeart · ~4h lasting

Family Sweet & Gourmand, Green & Aromatic, Spicy, Fresh & Citrus

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

Agave tequilana Weber, blue variety, grown around the town of Tequila and in the Jalisco highlands. The pina is cooked, the fructose fermented and the wash twice distilled. Highland agave is sweeter in aroma, valley agave more herbaceous. Blanco is unaged and merely rested in inert containers; reposado and anejo are matured in oak, which this note does not describe.

Usage in Perfumery

A heart note for green, mineral and peppery accords, and for anything wanting a spirit that is not sweet. It gives the vegetal bite that gin gets from juniper without any conifer resin. It pairs with lime, black pepper, salt and wet-stone materials, and it will fight a vanilla base rather than sit on one.