Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/288975
april 2014 / the tasting panel / 1 19 april 2014 / the tasting panel / 1 19 Olmeca Altos Reposado With so many tequila brands flooding the market these days, it takes more than just a pretty bottle to make an impact. You need a good story, good marketing, and above all, a good Master Distiller. Olmeca Altos has all three. While Olmeca is distiller of the fourth-largest-selling mixto tequila in the world, Olmeca Altos, created in 2009, was the brainchild of two London bartenders, Dre Masso and the late Henry Besant. Unable to find a high-quality 100% agave tequila at an affordable price to use in their cocktails, Besant and Masso turned to Olmeca Master Distiller Jesús Hernández to create it for them. A Jalisco native who had spent years in California work- ing for Seagram before moving back to Mexico to oversee production at Olmeca, Hernández knew that to create what they wanted, he would need to work with tradi- tional methods. He built a stone tahona wheel to crush the agave—one of approximately five in use today in Jalisco. "Altos would have to be made the old-fashioned way, so we built and use a roller press to extract the juice," Hernández told us on a recent visit to New York. "While these methods produce lower extraction levels [by up to 50 percent], the quality is much better, and we can still release it at an attractive price point." Now available nationally from Pernod Ricard USA, Olmeca Altos is currently released in two styles: an unaged Plata and a Reposado. An Añejo is scheduled for release in the near future. Line-priced at $21 SRP, Altos is taking the mixology world by storm. It's also quite nice on its own. —David Ransom PERNOD RICARD USA Master Distiller Jesús Hernández. TP0414_102-132.indd 119 3/24/14 4:46 PM