Avion Tequila

Spirits Tequila

The Minister for War, Finance and All Things Fun has been away with work for the last few weeks, and it’s allowed me to catch up on some TV.  Like most people, I never seem to have any spare time that just allows me to sit down in front of the TV and veg out, I’m still on series two of Breaking Bad, the Rick Grimes’ little group have just helped Hershel and I’m finally on series seven of Entourage, when there is a movie out already! Let me say that “The Voice”, any one of the thousands of cooking or home improvement shows don’t do it for me. Thank goodness I’ve loaded up with some quality, award winning shows.

But I digress. So this week my mind started to wander a bit while watching Turtle get involved in the tequila business on Entourage, when I stared to wonder if Avion tequila is such a great drop, as they portray. I picked up the iPhone and started googling, and it turns out Avion is a real tequila, not only that but it’s available at your local.

The back story to Avion is quite engaging, you can spend hour after hour chasing website article after article, I won’t go there suffice to say that the product placement of Avion didn’t cost the owners a cent, it was a case of childhood mateship. But the booze side of things is a bit different.

According to their website, Avion tequila is made from handpicked pure Weber Blue Agave from the highlands of Jalisco in Mexico, a little town called Jesus Maria. The agave is picked at around 7-10 years old, lesser quality tequilas use agave of much younger age, generally around three years old, much like wine, the older plants/vines (generally) having better fruit. The website talks about gathering the agave grown by the Lopez family, where it is sent to an undisclosed, secret distillery. But a check of the bottle reveals a NOM number of 1416, every NOM number is a unique, Mexican government regulated distillery number. Unlike whisky, many Mexican tequila distilleries produce more than one brand of tequila, some brands are exported, and some are only available in Mexico and so on. Those products containing the same NOM # are produced from the same distillery (Iif you have a favourite Tequila, try another brand that has the same NOM, as they will most likely be similar in the way they are produced).In this case it is Productos Finos de Agave who also produce Casamigos Tequila.

The agave is slow roasted in brick ovens. The wood fired brick oven always bring out the best of the natural flavours, all the best pizzas or roast lamb I’ve ever had have been cooked in brick ovens, and this case is no different. After roasting, the agave is crushed, the liquid fermented and distilled.  Avion use an ultra-slow filtration which apparently takes ten times longer than normal.  They claim that it takes away that tequila burn that you find in lower quality tequilas. Something must be working for them as the judges around the world are giving Avion award after award, labeling it not only Best Tequila in the World, but also best Unaged White Spirit in the World.  At the 2012 San Francisco World Spirits competition, the Oscars of the spirits industry, they won double gold, gold and a bronze medal, with the Avion Silver Tequila taking out top spot against all tequilas, vodkas, gins and white rums, with over 1400 spirit brands entered in the competition. Those results, coming from alongside some pretty stiff competition, made me rethink my stance on tequila.

I always thought that tequila came in two styles – “cheap” and “cheap AND nasty”.

Avion has changed that for me. I couldn’t believe I was sitting sipping on tequila, first straight, then with ice, then with a touch of lime to see how the spirit evolved. I was so thrown by the quality of the tequilas that I rolled them out around the tasting panel to get their views as well, and their take on the Avion was much the same. It was a far cry from our “lick, sip, suck” days at nightclubs/21st Birthdays/pub crawls etc. A few on the panel, that have worked behind bars, noted the way that the Avion had indents on the side of the bottle to stop it sliding out of your wet hands when working on a bar.

These are tequilas that are made for sipping, or having over solid ice in cocktails rather than crushed or shaved ice. If you want your frozen margarita there are much cheaper options out there where the flavor of the tequila is hidden by the fruit juice. These are all about showing what quality tequilas can do.

That said, this tequila, heck any tequila, may not be for everyone, but if you like spicy food that complement the flavours of tequila, are willing to try something a little left of center and don’t mind a drink or three, then Avion is definitely something to seek out. I know it’s made its way into our camping gear for show day weekend.

The range:

Avion Silver Tequila– an unaged clear tequila, has an oily-ness to it in the glass that I wasn’t expecting. White pepper to the fore of the aroma along with the vegetal notes you would expect from the fleshy agave plant, it’s also got interesting notes of grapefruit and pineapple in there too. On the front of the tongue, when its straight, there is that all too familiar note of tequila, but it’s much more restrained than what I would have been used to, add a touch of ice and it cuts through that alcohol bite. It’s got a buttery body with lashes of pepper in there, that pineapple and notes of rosemary, it was smooth without much bite at all. We tried this beside the Patron Silver and the panel were divided, I think this got home by a whisker as it didn’t have that vapoury burn that Patron does. Great stuff. Around $80

Avion Reposado Tequila – Reposado means rested, and in this case the tequila is rested for 6months, the industry norm is only 60 days. It’s those few months on oak that transform the Silver Tequila into a beguiling spirit that carries a bit of complexity. It shows notes of caramel and vanilla, cherry and woody pear, which all work really well with those fleshy vegetal agave notes. Around $90

Avion Anejo Tequila – after the afternoon trying these my notes started to get a bit messy, and I went back a second and third time to retry this label, I was that impressed by it. Having stayed on wood for two years, it takes on these wonderful notes of the oak giving it vanilla and cinnamon characters, traces of homemade nougat, chocolate, and just the faintest touches of fresh ginger biccies. The finish carries a little coconut and maple, not cheap at $100 bottle, but it can definitely stand shoulder to shoulder with some of those higher end and higher cost anejos.

Avion Espresso Tequila – possibly the most dangerous spirit I’ve had in years. And I say that because it’s just so easy drinking, it would be easy to over indulge. Coffee and tequila isn’t a new thing, Patron have done it for a while with their XO, what makes this more enjoyable is that the coffee tastes like quality, it has a crunchy coffee bean to it. There are notes of tequila at the front palate which are quickly washed away by that coffee. There is a touch of sweetness to it, which makes you think it will have a syrupy finish, but it’s actually quite a clean and dry finish. Would make a great change for those who enjoy Kahlua or Tia Maria, but be careful as this will sneak up on you. Around $68

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