Agave spirits manufacturing accelerated quickly within the late 1800s and early twentieth century, however the business confronted a significant problem: assembly rising demand. “Even after 15 to 30 years of progress in drier climates, a lot of the agave varieties harvested for distilled spirits hardly had sufficient convertible carbohydrates to provide as a lot alcohol as you would get by elevating a small patch of cane for its sugars,” wrote Gary Paul Nabhan and David Suro-Piñera within the 2023 ebook “Agave Spirits: The Previous, Current , and Way forward for Mezcals.” “That’s, excluding only one peculiar, cultivated selection or ‘cultivar’ for brief: the relatively precocious, blue-hued tequila selection.”
In 1949, the Mexican authorities established the primary Norma Oficial de Calidad para el Tequila, the official high quality customary for tequila. It mandated that tequila might solely be made utilizing Blue Weber agave (Agave tequilana Weber), largely due to the plant’s excessive sugar content material, comparatively quick maturity, and resistance to illness. Because the formation of Mexico’s Consejo Regulador Del Tequila (Tequila Regulatory Council) in 1994, the rule has remained unchanged: “solely the blue agave (Agave tequilana Weber) is permitted for tequila manufacturing.”
Despite the fact that these botanical phrases are scientific, they’re comparatively acquainted to most tequila drinkers. Bartenders and types use them typically, reinforcing the names throughout digital platforms and in-person conversations. However take a better take a look at a number of tequila labels, and also you’ll discover one thing: “Weber” hardly ever seems — even within the fantastic print.
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Manufacturers like Tapatio and Don Julio use the phrasing “100% de agave.” Beloved Camarena household manufacturers Terralta and Volans each listing solely “100% agave” on their labels. LALO provides a bit extra element with “100% agave azul” on its bottles. And even celebrity-backed labels, like Megan Thee Stallion’s Chicas Divertidas, stick to the generic “100% agave.”
So the place did “Weber” come from — and why aren’t producers utilizing the time period, when shoppers, business professionals, and even the Tequila Regulatory Council are?
To grasp how “Weber” entered tequila terminology, we have to return to the 1860s. Throughout Napoleon III’s army invasion of the Republic of Mexico, and in the course of the three-year span from 1864 to 1867, French botanist Frédéric Albert Constantin Weber served as a army doctor, documenting and describing native plant species alongside the best way.
By the Nineties, Weber had begun formally classifying Mexican flora, and in 1902 he revealed an outline of Agave tequilana within the French journal “Bulletin du Muséum d’histoire naturelle.” As a result of he was credited with documenting the plant, it was formally labeled as “Agave tequilana Weber cv., tequilana azul,” based on Nabhan and Suro-Piñera. Over time, that formal identify advanced into the shorthand “Blue Weber agave” that’s utilized in business circles right now.
Though the Weber identify has been extensively adopted in Mexican authorized literature and by nationwide regulatory our bodies, most tequila producers keep away from utilizing the French botanist’s surname. For a lot of, it’s a reminder of a darkish chapter in Mexican historical past — one which perpetuates a colonial narrative and dangers overshadowing the deep cultural heritage behind Mexico’s most iconic spirit.
When damaged down, the identify “Agave tequilana azul” turns into simple to interpret. Agave comes from the Greek phrase “agavos,” which means “illustrious.” The time period displays how Mexico’s indigenous Nahua individuals worshipped the plant, recognizing it as a illustration of Mayahuel, the Aztec goddess of maguey. Tequilana is each the species identify and a reference to the city of Tequila in Jalisco, the place industrial tequila manufacturing originated. Azul refers back to the subspecies — referred to as so due to its blueish-gray stalks. Weber, in contrast, carries no cultural or geographic connection to Mexico.
Within the early 2000s, Nabhan and botanist Ana Valenzuela tried to reclassify “Weber’s” agave as a variant of Agave angustifolia — one of the crucial widespread agave species in North America. Unsurprisingly, the proposed taxonomic change was rejected, “particularly by the tequila business or nomenclatural gatekeepers,” Nabhan and Suro-Piñera word.
In consequence, many tequila manufacturers and entrepreneurs proceed to make use of the Weber identify of their promoting. Whereas it could resonate with shoppers, the time period’s use is in the end misplaced, provided that it traces again to a Frenchman who spent simply three years in Mexico documenting plant species in his downtime.
“It isn’t solely pointless however relatively foolish to conjure up the ghost of the bourgeois physician each time one says Agave tequilana!” Nabhan and Suro-Piñera write. “It has turn into one more classist conference of the tequila business.”
