El Tesoro likes to have fun large anniversaries. In 2017 we noticed its excellent eightieth Anniversary Version arrive. Now — has it already been 5 years? — we’re again with an eighty fifth. We acquired a small pattern to place by way of its paces.
For this launch, distiller Carlos Camarena joined forces with Jim Beam’s Fred Noe to age tequila in Booker’s Bourbon thirtieth Anniversary barrels, the place they spent 36 months resting. That’s the naked minimal for the additional anejo designation.
These casks are already as much as 16 years previous, so well-seasoned and, frankly, slightly spent. The three 12 months previous tequila is only a pale gold in shade, and there’s loads of agave punch that adheres to the nostril. Peppery and nonetheless a contact inexperienced, the bourbon barrel performs second fiddle to a pungent, terroir-driven expertise. That apart, it’s heady and immense, its character much less vegetal and extra earthy in composition. On the palate, the tequila feels a lot the identical, pushed foremost by pepper and inexperienced vegetation, adopted up with baking spice, significantly cinnamon. That’s in all probability due extra to the tequila than the barrel, with notes of lemon and lime peel each lingering late within the sport, fairly uncommon for an additional anejo. Black pepper clings longest to the tongue, and whereas there are hints of vanilla-laced sweetness across the edges of this tequila, the bourbon affect by no means wholly materializes — and definitely offers nothing that might evoke the depth of Booker’s thirtieth Anniversary, for higher or for worse.
With all that stated, it’s nonetheless a rattling good tequila, supplied you’re up for an expertise that presents on the youthful aspect.
85 proof. NOM 1139.
A- / $500 / eltesorotequila.com
El Tesoro Tequila eighty fifth Anniversary Version
$500
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