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 Entertainment | Restaurants & Dining | April 2006 
Next Year In Mexico
 Nancy Davidson - NYTimes
| | And why else is this tequila different than all other tequilas? It's certified kosher. |
On the third day of Passover last year, I went to visit a pair of Jewish tequila makers in Mexico. I had been eager to meet Daniel Schneeweiss Bernstein and Moises Guindi ever since I first heard about Milagro, their premium tequila. So I jumped at the chance to visit their agave fields and distillery in Jalisco.
It quickly became apparent that these tequila makers were unusual. While some tequila makers buy blue agave from a farmer, Danny and Moy - as my traveling companions and I came to know them - select and grow their own.
In order to meet the government standards to bear the label tequila, the spirit must be made with blue agave grown in Jalisco. (Liquor from other agave plants is mescal.) While some farmers plant agave once every seven years and wait for it to mature, resulting in surpluses alternating with shortages, Danny and Moy plant new plants every year, so there is always a crop maturing. Some tequila makers cut the pina - the heart of the agave plant - by machine and pressure cook or boil it. But at Milagro, workers chop the long, solid blue green leaves away by hand with machetes and brute force to uncover the core (it looks like a giant pineapple) and then slow roast it in a clay ovens - an old-fashioned, labor- and time-intensive technique that allows the sugars to concentrate and caramelize, giving the final product a rich flavor.
The sweet, roasted pina is then mashed and squeezed until it has released all its juices. At Milagro's distillery, this agave honey (aguimel) is triple distilled. The result of this attention to detail is clean, crisp, complex blanco tequila without the impurities that can lead to unpleasant flavors - and hangovers. The blanco (silver) tequila then becomes the basis for the reposado (aged two months in oak), or anejo, which is aged in government sealed oak barrels for at least a year, though Milagro tequila is aged longer than most.
And why else is this tequila different than all other tequilas? It's certified kosher. While tequila by nature doesn't contain anything to make it not kosher, Danny and Moy decided to go the extra step for kosher certification, to demonstrate that their ingredients, as well as the factory, are clean and comply with kosher rules.
The local market for kosher tequila is not as small as one might expect. An estimated 50,000 Jews live in Mexico, and approximately 30,000 of those are in Mexico City. Meeting Moy and Danny made me wonder how Jews in Mexico celebrate Passover.
Jews in Mexico City have similar traditions to Jews in New York. "Basically, Mexican Jews celebrate Passover according to their own traditions," Mr. Schneeweiss Bernstein said. "Jews that came from Europe do it the Ashkenazi way, and Jews coming from Arab countries do it according to the Arab Jewish tradition." His family seder will feature traditional European Jewish foods: brisket, matzo ball soup, and potato kugel, and they'll refrain from eating bread and other leavened foods during the weeklong holiday. A family with a Sephardic background might eat a lamb tagine and haroset made with dried apricots and pears instead of apples and walnuts.
But do they ever drink four glasses of tequila instead of wine at a seder? "Not at all," Mr. Schneeweiss Bernstein said. "But it's a great idea that I might try this year." |
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