Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/65124
Up Front with UP Juan Carlos Arav Fortique by Lana Bortolot Talk about a revolution. Tequila: For years it was the throat-burning fi re water you loved to hate . . . the assured guest at a frat party or an across-the-border spring break bash with the predictable hangover. Then came Juan Carlos Arav Fortique and his Tequila REVOLUCION. Born of French ancestry, reared in Mexico and well-travelled in Europe, Juan Carlos spent a lifetime being exposed to the fi ner things in life. And he knew that tequila could be one of them. Juan Carlos with Tequila REVOLUCION Extra-Añejo. PHOTO COURTESY OF TEQUILA REVOLUCION 6 / the tasting panel / may 2012 "I was a little bit sad to see that there was no quality tequila out there. You could fi nd always the cheap tequila, which gave it a lower image," he tells THE TASTING PANEL. "I decided to produce a tequila, choosing the best raw materi- als possible, in order to show the world a real, good tequila, perfectly distilled." On a mission to "rebel against the ordinary," a concept that serves as the brand's tagline, he launched his line of premium agave tequilas in 1995. Though tequila was emerging as a spirit with potential for more sophisticated positioning, as a category, it wasn't evolving as quickly as the demand. Arav, 54, a former industrial engineer and entrepreneur with a passion for race cars, wine and spirits, saw the unserved market and tapped it. He chose El Arenal in Jalisco, tequila's spiri- tual home, as the site for plantation and produc- tion and built a facility focused on traditional, small-batch production from their own blue tequilana Weber agave. He waits for the plants' seventh birthday before harvesting, when they're giving the optimal sugars and fl avors that distin- guish his juice and its trademark smoothness. But despite the close attention to details— from the way the plants are harvested to its custom-crafted barrel program—don't call this tequila artisanal. REVOLUCION doesn't need a buzzword to stand on its own merits. "Artisanal means you don't have consistency of quality," Arav says. "We are still a niche production, and we take a lot of care in the way we produce and the way we get our fi nal fl avor. We do that without adding any fl avors."