Sauza , founded by Cenobio Sauza (1842–1909) in 1873, is the second-largest tequila brand in the world and is sold in seventy-five countries worldwide. Cenobio got his start in the tequila business managing the Cuervo family’s hacienda. Having purchased La Antigua Cruz, an old distillery in the town of Tequila, when he was just sixteen, he used the experience gained working for the Cuervos to strike out on his own. He renamed his distillery La Perseverancia (Perseverance) and within decades was Cuervo’s biggest competitor. See Jose Cuervo. In 1893, he submitted his tequila to the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and won a gold medal, winning 22 of 25 points for purity, 23 for distillation, 23 for taste, and 24 for “appearance and general condition.”
Cenobio died in 1909, leaving the family business to his son, Eladio, who would steer it through the turbulent years of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). Eladio promoted his tequila on Guadalajara’s first radio station and served it in a nightclub he opened called La Colonial. He also introduced bottling to replace the casks in which the family tequila had previously been sold. By the time of his death in 1946, Tequila Sauza was selling more than one million cases annually. Eladio’s son Francisco Javier eventually took over and ran Tequila Sauza for thirty years, during which he transformed it into a global brand, then sold half his shares to Pedro Domecq, a Spanish spirits conglomerate. When he died in 1990, the remaining shares transferred to Pedro Domecq. In 1994, Pedro Domecq merged with Allied Lyons to form Allied Domecq. In 2005, it was acquired by Fortune Brands, which in 2011 was split into two companies, one of which became Beam, Inc. In 2014, Beam was itself acquired by the Japanese brewing and distilling group Suntory. See Suntory.
Francisco Javier Sauza’s son never had the opportunity to take over the family business. His grandson, however, who was raised in the United States and became interested in tequila on trips to visit family in Mexico, decided to start his own brand. Installing his operation on a property that had remained in his family for generations, he set out to make a 100 percent estate-grown agave tequila using a tahona, the ancient stone mill used to crush cooked agave for tequila production. See tahona. Barred from using his family name, he was forced to come up with a new name for his brand and chose Los Abuelos, in honor of his grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather Cenobio. Due to a trademark infringement issue involving a rum with a similar name, he was forced to rechristen it Fortaleza. The brand remains unconnected to Tequila Sauza.
Tequila Sauza produces a comprehensive line of tequilas, including plata (silver), joven (gold) (sweetened with a caramel, which also adds color), reposado (rested or slightly aged), and añejo. See reposado and añejo. The basic line is made with 51 percent agave distillate and 49 percent other sugars, known as a mixto tequila. See Mixto. A signature line of tequilas is made with 100 percent blue agave. The agave plants used to make all Tequila Sauza products are grown in the valley of Tequila, which has come to be known in the tequila industry as the Lowlands. (The valley sits at about 4,000 feet above sea level, versus the Highlands, which are at some 6,000 feet, but the region can hardly be considered “low.”) The agave hearts are processed by diffuser, meaning they are fed raw through industrial shredders and hydrolyzed using steam and chemicals. The extracted sugars are diluted with water and cooked before being fermented and distilled. See diffuser.
Several other brands exist under the company’s umbrella, including the luxury brand Tres Generaciones and Hornitos, both of which are 100 percent agave tequilas processed by diffuser. In 2014, Beam acquired a stake in singer Justin Timberlake’s 901 Tequila and rebranded it Sauza 901. Sauza also has a chile- and cucumber-flavored tequila in its lineup.
Agraz Garcia de Alba, Gabriel. Historia de la industria tequila Sauza. Guadalajara: Sauza, 1963.
Bowen, Sarah. Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015.
Gaytán, Marie. ¡Tequila!: Distilling the Spirit of Mexico. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014.
Valenzuela, Ana. Tequila: A Natural and Cultural History. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003.
By: Chantal Martineau
Label for Tequila Sauza Añejo, trademarked in 1924. Source: Wondrich Collection.