Among the hundreds of tequilas on the local market nowadays (not to mention the international brands), how can a novice taster select the best? Trust a chemical engineer to know the secrets of the trade, from agave planting to final labeling – as I learned on a recent boozy afternoon in the Tlaquepaque tequila boutique “El Buho.”
Owner Emilio Ferreira didn’t know he was embarking on a future career path as a tequila connoisseur, consultant, boutique retailer and educator when at the age of ten he trotted down to San Pedro’s only liquor store to buy a small bottle of tequila for his father.
“In my father’s day, before tequila became famous, people drank it in their homes, with friends, playing music, singing and drinking until late into the night,” remembers Ferreira. “Tequila wasn’t thought of as a sophisticated drink. People in ‘society’ drank rum or other liquors – tequila was a secret pleasure.” The main plaza of his hometown San Pedro (Tlaquepaque’s historical name) held the liquor store Tecolote (owl in Nahuatl), the only such shop in town.
Ferreira’s mother wasn’t too thrilled with his father’s drink of choice, so the young boy was sent on his first secret mission to procure a bottle for his dad, a taxi driver who moved from being a general store owner in the Jalisco highlands to the thriving town of Guadalajara to improve educational prospects for his seven children. When his father died suddenly in 1975, the young Ferreira, eldest among the siblings, took on much of the responsibilities of an adult to help his mother support the family. Four years later, his mother decided to buy the very liquor store his father had sent him to so many years earlier. They were the second owners of the oldest liquor store in Tlaquepaque. Ferreira’s brothers continue to run the original business today.
Ferreira himself went on to earn his degree in chemical engineering at the University of Guadalajara (UdG), and embarked on his first succession of careers as a scientist, working for 14 years in the paper industry, then as a medical chemist. As is the usual practice in Mexico, Ferreira also had a sideline as a teacher of mathematics and chemistry in secundaria schools, and found he loved teaching.
How did all this lead him back to tequila? As he explains, the association of his father’s love – and respect – for the drink, the association of delight with a concoction from his own land, his family’s business interests in the liquor trade and his professional scientific training naturally grew into a fascination with the distillation process and a desire to make his own tequila. “Alas, at the time – in the late 1990’s – the finances were not there to start my own tequileria, so I turned to the next best thing and opened my own store – El Buho – the first store in the area to focus almost entirely on tequila. I named it for my family’s other store, as part of our tradition in Tlaquepaque. Now we have two “owls” in the town.”
Thanks to his background in chemistry, Ferreira has met and consulted with multiple dozens of tequilerias in Jalisco. “As a chemical engineer, I know how to produce tequila, and I have met many people in the industry who don’t know anything about chemistry. However, they do know how to make tequila. I have learned so much from them, and I am able to help some of the smaller tequilerias through the technical process of production.”
Ferreira’s many experiences come full circle at El Buho, the tequila boutique-cum-museum, where he displays not only developed and internationally branded labels, but also many small batch tequilas – as well as a room dedicated to unique and antique bottles that he has collected over the years.
His years of teaching now spill over into his retail business, as he researches and shares his knowledge with gusto. Sitting down with the connoisseur over a flight of drink samples in is both a tourist stop and a regular must-do for the local cognoscenti.
“I love my work, “says Ferreira. “I love teaching new clients how to read a bottle, how to differentiate among the blancos, reposados and añejos, and how to develop their own tastes.” The differences are subtle and complex, like fine wines, dependent on the quality of oak casks, on purity levels in the distillation process, or on the terroir, which can differ from fencepost to fencepost in the curious microclimates of Jalisco. These are things that tequila makers know innately – and that a chemical engineer is trained to sniff out.
Which tequila is best? “My ‘religion’ tells me I must love them all,” he laughs, as he does frequently. “I have to try them all and I do like them all – depending on my mood. Sometimes I want one that is mild, sometimes I want a smoky one – and when I’m in love, it doesn’t matter which one!”
Ferreira is quick to recognize individual preferences and lead discerning drinkers to sample – and then covet – bottles from unique small tequilerias committed to hereditary distillation processes, such as the now-celebrated Los Abuelos tequilas from Guillermo Sauza, and the now fourth generation of the venerable Tesoro de Don Felipe label. Scion Felipe Camarena’s new “G4” tequila is the latest in what seems to be an almost limitless supply of small-batch, highly desired tequilas on display in El Buho. Several of the labels are produced primarily for export, hard to find in their home country. “Of the about 100 tequilerias in Jalisco, many are very small, or are larger operations working only part time, or working without the power of mass corporate marketing – those are the ones that I love to bring to my clients,” notes Ferreira, who credits producers such as Sauza and Camarena with teaching him much about the business.
“There are new advances every day in making tequila, and I love working with my friends in the business. I love teaching people about the history, the character, and the taste of this wonderful drink,” he says. “I am now not the only tequila boutique in Guadalajara, but I am the first and the best! I tell people I am the best because I love this business. If I say I am the best, I will believe it – and so will others. You have to believe to make it so.”
After spending an afternoon with Emilio, I’m a believer.
Stop in Tequilas El Buho, Juarez No. 164-B, in Tlaquepaque. Emilio Ferreira Ruiz, owner. Telephone (33) 3659-0863. Facebook: tequilas el buho; email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..