Don Julio is a brand of tequila produced at the La Primavera distillery (registered as NOM 1449) in the municipality of Atotonilco al Alto, Jalisco, Mexico. Founder Don Julio González (1925–2012) started working in his uncle’s distillery at the age of seven and purchased his first distillery in 1942 at the age of seventeen by securing a loan from a local businessman. Construction began on the current distillery in 1947 and González registered his first brand of tequila four years later, a mixto named Tres Magueyes. See mixto. In 1985, the 100 percent blue agave Tequila Don Julio was introduced to family and friends in honor of Don Julio’s sixtieth birthday. Two years later, Tequila Don Julio launched in its unique short, square, hand-blown glass bottle in Mexico. The US release followed in 1995. González entered into a partnership with the giant Seagram’s organization in 1999, staying on as master distiller. See Seagram Company Ltd. He retired in 2003, naming Enrique de Colsa his successor as master distiller. At the same time, Diageo, which had acquired the brand with the collapse of Seagram’s, sold a 50 percent share to the José Cuervo company, taking it back in 2015 in exchange for the Bushmills Irish whisky brand. See Diageo; Jose Cuervo; and spirits trade, history of.
Tequila Don Julio is widely respected for its horticultural practices. Currently Tequila Don Julio owns approximately eight million agave plants that are growing on leased land. The use of leased land allows for soil replenishment through crop rotation. Once harvested, the agave is steam-cooked for seventy-two hours in masonry ovens. The sugars are extracted in a mechanical mill before a twenty-four- to thirty-hour fermentation using proprietary yeasts in stainless steel fermenters. Tequila Don Julio is distilled twice in copper pot stills. Don Julio offers four American white-oak-aged expressions: an eight-month reposado; an eighteen-month añejo; Tequila Don Julio 1942, aged for twenty-four to thirty months; and Tequila Don Julio 70 Crystal Añejo, which is aged for eighteen months followed by charcoal filtering.
See also agave; Mexico; and tequila.
Zandona, Eric. The Tequila Dictionary. London: Mitchell Beazley, 2019.
By: Misty Kalkofen